niteowl7710

Maybe someday, but the U.S. operation is only a few people, not counting the warehouse staff, with Ed's role being a consultant and their show representative.

Incidentally a kit that was on their board, that wasn't in Milwaukee, and has actually been released this week (I'm holding a vendor's kit in the picture) is a reissue of the SnapTite '57 Chevrolet. You'll note in this release there are water slide decals in addition to the press n stick vinyl appliques. I think that's a low buck investment that makes it just a bit more attractive to adult builders.

I managed to get Ed to myself for a few minutes before I left for the day - 12 hour same day roundtrip, or else I would have answered earlier - In regards to the '57 Gasser - Ed told me that the Gasser parts were tooled specifically with the Del Rio inserts, and to get them to fit the '57 Custom they actually had to go back and modify that chassis plate/interior base tooling to make the inner front fenders a separate piece so that the headers would fit the 2 door. So once that change was made (that chassis/interior piece on the Del Rio has always had separate little inserts you install on the factory stock version of the kit) the overall kit is a blending of the '57 Custom and the Gasser parts from the wagon. In regards to the Model As - Ed said that from what he's been told from the Home Office they're scheduled to have a production run in Early 2020. In regards to the future of Revell USA - Ed stated that projects will be a bi-company effort. The German owners realized that they don't have the expertise to directly understand the U.S. market, so the U.S. team is in charge of selecting projects, and putting together presentations to the home office. The U.S. team will in charge of on the ground development (eg measuring, R&D, etc) and also the back end kit development - box art, instructions, decal art, etc. The German side will get the approved projects and do the kit design, and tooling layouts, and then the kits will produced in China by the existing Revell vendors. Blitz is also very focused on getting the most of out the existing tooling, both in terms of releasing the other variants "hidden" in the tooling - such as the other Chevelle kits - as well as seeing what can be done within the older tooling. Ed said that the U.S. team has a presentation next week about taking two older kits that are of the same "family of tooling", but aren't direct variants, and combining them into a 3rd "new" kit. The ownership tasked them with figuring out what was needed to make that happen, and coming up with the box art for the project.

Yeah my local hobby shop said they would be getting their shipment of Ford GTs in on Monday.

It's based off the new tool 1/25 '70 Cuda

What you guys see is what you guys will get Ed says that all of the kits shown on the board are tentatively scheduled to be out between now and August. So they're looked in as displayed

It's coming out in May, there wasn't a North America first release with it, which makes sense given that it's a Japanese race car given the history of it only being the 2nd Le Mans winning car for the nation.

Probably was, but that's not Japan anymore than Germany is...

Could still be the TS050, I don't believe it's been shown publicly in Japan since it was announced. The pictures we have of it from its debut was at the Nuremberg Toy Faire.

FWIW Gazoo Racing is a trim level on the street Supra, so it might not be a race car at all. Since the Gazoo Racing RACE car they're hyping is the TS050. https://toyota.jp/new_supra/ Also there wouldn't be an announcement of a plastic kit at the show since that would have to go up for Pre-orders if it were less than 90 days away, if there's a Supra it'll probably wait until the Tokyo Model & Hobby Show in the fall.

Some Asian vendors are listing the Paris Taxi version for July (in 1/24).

My Silverado has cylinder deactivation at highway speeds and goes down to a "V-4" (according to the gauge), and will get 25MPG doing so. That's 2-3 MPG better than my '05 Ford Taurus ever got. It's getting to the point where you almost have to special order a V-8 F-150 if you're not shopping in say Texas. Most of the inventory around here is all the Twin Turbo V-6, even the Expedition is running that engine.

It's just a thin sheet of what model kits are made out of, so anything that will "weld" the plastic together via melting it will work. Tube glue up through the fancier TET based liquid cements, and of course C.A. (super glue), and epoxy.

You have to wonder if something happened to the Flareside bed insert and/or the wheels from the Ranger Splash, it was the only one of those Ranger kits (that I recall) that used that bed and wheel combination. The Xtreme S-10 was reissued back in 2002, so it all still exists.

Interesting that gets a Skill Level 4 on it, but it's a SnapTite kit. What is it with their weird need to neglect to mention that? I get that they think adult modelers are put off by SnapTite kits, but at the same time how many people have seen this in it's "EasyClick" RevellAG box and are going to be screaming all over FB when they pull a SnapTite kit out of that box? Also H.L. - or at least that H.L. - has overpriced that kit. The MSRP via Stevens is $19.95.

Well you can still get Priority Mail service with a regular "brown" box, you just don't have to a fixed "lowest" price which is something you do get with those "free" boxes from the USPS. They're not free, they charge you a minimum shipping rate depending on the box size (or the Region) no matter how much the contents weigh. I can ship a kit in a regular box for about $8, the same size flat rate box is $12.65...that box isn't free.

All of that is fine and well, but the box art says Joey Saldana.

Opening up the cars to more manufacturers is the whole point of the Gen 7 cars that are supposedly being worked on for 2021/2022. If people really want STOCK CAR racing, the best thing Jim France could possibly due is fold NASCAR into IMSA and make everyone race GT3/GT4/TCR type of vehicles. Cut the schedule in half and GM, Ford & Toyota already all participate in IMSA. Customer Racing, IMSA/Le Mans, Super GT/DTM and the various Touring car series offer far more entertaining racing than any snoozefestival NASCAR is currently producing. Not to mention it's a heck of a lot more fan friendly and economically viable for fans. The IMSA race at Watkins Glen is $85@ for the entire weekend, the Blancpain GT World Challenge America race there is $70@ for the entire weekend. The CHEAPEST available tickets for the NASCAR race are $300@ for the whole weekend, or $120@ for just the race on Sunday.

Also I'm not whining about anything. I think the releases shown on that board make a brilliant amount of fiscal sense to the new Revell, since again they're just running a mint over there. You figure that the MP&T (manufacturing, production & transportation) costs on those are maaaaybe $4-5 per kit, and Revell's wholesale to their largest customer (Hobby Lobby) was around $14-16 a kit (depending on what it was) they're clocking in right around $25-50k profit per model shown there if they can sell out the runs (reissues are a lower unit count run than the "new" kits). I was offering an opinion that it's somewhat disheartening to hear that in what was in effect Revell's debut appearance to the hobby world, there was a bunch of "what we can't do" being thrown around. Do a little salesmanship and say that everything is being considered by the new refreshed lean and hungry Revell USA...even if it's not. I mean is the writing not on the wall? Constantly lamenting what can't be accomplished and what "wouldn't sell", is what begat Moebius, and to a lesser extent Salvino JR. Those 9 Hudsons, and what will be at LEAST 9 F-Series trucks are all cash Revell left on the table by being a slow moving dinosaur. Holy heck there's a Japanese company selling $75 Citroens, and a Belgian company selling all the $60+ rally kits they can make. Beemax sold out of those Lancia Delta S4 kits in six...YES SIX...days!!! Those are small lean and, aggressive companies taking risks, while being agile and forward thinking.

I don't think the Capri even exists anymore, wouldn't it have been merged into the Turbo Cobra Mustang? That kit has never been reissued since 1979/1980 which makes me think it doesn't exist as a Capri anymore. The '80 Mustang got reissued back in 2003.

I have no doubt that was true, particularly when the money started to run out from Hobbico. But it's a fresh slate now, if there was ever a time to take a flier on a "risk" project - although I think you could easily sell 5k Rancheros globally - it would be now when the budget is fresh. With everything they're releasing either being done just before hand ('68 Chevelle, Ford GT LM) or a variation of existing tooling '57 Ford Gasser, AAR Cuda, Updated Sprint Car that was also done awhile back, they're effectively just printing money over there. All the tooling costs are wiped out, and the old argument of legacy costs of purchase is moot, we know exactly what that was - $50k for the trademarks & names, and $49,999 for all the tooling. Blitz then sold a bunch of that tooling down to Atlantis further reducing what they actually paid for Revell U.S.A. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that between the Mustang and Chevelle they made back everything they spent on our Revell, and now beyond box art, decal printing, and running the tool these releases are pure profit.

New excuses same as the old excuses. Company is operating with effectively 0 debt and is cranking out kits of stuff that was tooled prior to the sale (AAR Cuda, '57 Gasser, etc) and they still are being playing the super ultra conservative game...I guess I'll reserve final judgment until we see some project that is being funded by the new ownership from the ground up. Because these kits being shown here were all bought and paid for by a company that technically doesn't exist anymore and who's assets cost a whole $100,000.00, which is probably right around the amount Aoshima spent on new tooling so far this year converting a half-dozen existing kits to fit into their Initial D Universe.