niteowl7710

I like that the press release is dated for Sept 1st...someone got told something and then had to rush to tell everyone else...without reading the date...

The only thing I can figure - short of Blitz decided to just offload the U.S. tooling bank after examining it, is there is some portion it the tooling that is so old and out or "date" as it were that it wasn't considered to be part of the tooling "family" that was included in the sale. There's certainly no bankruptcy court documentation that I saw that shows a specific direct sale of an any asset from Hobbico to Atlantis.

I don't know anything beyond the press release and I'm trying to figure out how they magically transported stuff that is clearly in Illinois and belongs to Blitz to NY. Under what name would they release this stuff since Blitz owns all the trade dress and relevant trademarks for everything including the Renwal naming... Unless they sold all the U.S. based tooling out the back door and are only keeping the modern...I need more information this makes no sense.

I've seen the inside of the Buick Wildcat and the chassis was pretty much the standard vague and shallow detail motorized plate, and the interior was also comically shallow...your scale driver would have to be about 3 feet tall or else they'd get a concussion over a speed bump. The kit will come out November 1st in Japan, but I highly doubt it will exported to the U.S. considering they don't seem to be paying for the licensing - It's "Lowrider Type C" with no mention of Cadillac involved. So you'd have to pick them up through HobbyLink Japan or wait to see if they hit eBay.

I wonder what 24346 is...because the AMG GT3 kit was 24345 and the Molded in Yellow LaFerrari is 24347, with whatever a "Heritage Edition" 370Z is at 24348. They're missing a kit in there, and they never skip numbers. O.K. so THAT is a 370Z Heritage Edition...that will require at least the new 2013+ front fascia and wheels. Not exactly setting the world on fire, but for Nissan fans it'll shuffle the meter enough to sell.

It's the '66 Cadillac and '66 T-Bird that are being reissued in this batch.

The difficulty there would be the feasibility of doing what is effectively a one-off Group S prototype. Since FIA banned Group B and Group S in 1986 that car never actually saw a single race, and even Lancia didn't keep it around. The one that's floating around now is a restoration that was put back together again in 2010 from some of the original pieces that managed to be saved.

Lastly for this set of posts, Hasegawa has a number of modified reissues coming, along with one all new tool automotive kit. The new tool kit is something Group C fans have been pining for, for quite some time. The Nissan R91CP. This represents the 1991 Japanese Sports Car Prototype Series Champion. Expect a simplified curbside along the lines of the rest of their Gr. C kits. Keeping with Gr.C they will be offering this modified reissue of their Sauber Mercedes C9. With new parts (and livery) to represent the inaugural 1987 season in WSPC. In JT(T)C offerings, we get the next version of R31 Skyline. This time for the 1988 Ricoh sponsored machine. This kit gets new Pana Sport wheels. The next version of the brand new Mitsubishi Colt Galant drops in with a significant amount of new parts. This representing the 1973 GTO 2000GSR it will have an entirely new chassis pan, as well as overfenders, new front and rear fascia pieces, new front & rear seats, and steering wheel among other bits and bobs. Three kits getting minor tooling updates to continue bringing in new customers include Nissan Fairlady Z Rally Car - For the first time this kit is expanded beyond it's famous Safari Rally release to it's entry in the 1972 Monte Carlo Rally. This will be the first time that any of their Z's have had a LHD Dashboard that I'm aware of... Isuzu Gemini - A few new parts (spoiler and hood) along with decals to represent the "base model" 1.5L 1500CC Irmsher Turbo. Nissan Skyline R31- The next twist to the road going half of the new tool R31 is a "NiSMO" Package that celebrated the 30th Anniversary of the Skyline. This kit will get new front fascia pieces, rear trim, NiSMO seats, and BBS wheels. And last but not least - just so they could join the "Long Ago & Far Away" reissue party - Hasegawa has decided to reissue some of their "America '66" kits. Now these are long panned for their motorized underpinnings and ridiculous interiors, but supposedly the bodies were pretty spot on, and a plausible basis for conversions into something more believable for those so inclined.

Next up from Beemax we finally got the release date for the Lancia S4 - December. We also got a 3D prototype (as mentioned in another thread) of a rally kit, and 3D rendering of yet ANOTHER Gr. B Rally kit. We all shared a moment of puzzlement as they announced...their own Rover Metro 6R4. I'm not exactly sure there's enough global demand for TWO of these kits, but a lot of the success of this will depend on how quickly they can get it out, and if it's full detail like the planned one from Belkits. Belkits still has a wonky distribution system set up - it will be September before Manta kits are finally available in Asia, some 5 months after the kit was released in Europe and Belkits continues to price their kits where they have to... Beemax is widely sold in Asia, and easier to obtain in North America as a result. Their kits also wind up selling for significantly less compared to Belkits (in the range of $20-30). Then also shown this week was this rendering of a lesser known, but still iconic in it's Rothman's livery, Gr. B car. The 1984 Porsche 911 SC RS.

First up from Aoshima, the Supercar train has finally been righted, as well as seeing a few "long ago & far away reissues". All of these kits are slated for December FINALLY after a 20 year absence (1998 was the last reissue of these kits) the MG-Bs resurface. In both the classic 1968 MK-2, and 1974 MK-3 in all it's Urethane bumpered glory. In the modified reissue realm - three offerings. The Initial D - Project D Mazda RX-7 This kit will be getting an entire new aero package for the exterior as well as racing bits for the interior to make it more closely resemble the hill climb racer from the comic. Then we get the next in the line of Liberty Walk Nissan (R35) GT-Rs. This one is dubbed - "Type 2, V.1" It will be getting completely new front and rear fascias, and new exhaust, as well as the "GT-3" style wing from the v2 kit. A P/E set will be sold separately. Last but not least, a Supercar that most of us knew was baked into the original release of this kit, that we are finally getting. Lamborghini Huracan Performante - this will include new front and rear Performante specific pieces, new engine cover, rear wing, wheels and Performante specific engine pieces. There will also be a P/E set sold separately.

It's that time of year again. Tonight (this morning in Japan) was the big dump for the big fall show in Japan. More news will come forth at the show undoubtedly as 3D prototypes are displayed from Belkits & Beemax.

That's because it's linking straight to the German site.

I dunno I thought the guidance "we" all got was 90 days or so after the sale was finalized. A lot of people seem to think the sale was *poof* over the day of the auction, but it didn't close until mid-May, and under the terms they didn't have to hand over the keys to the domains until the end of June. Right now we're 92 days after the sales closed, and kits are supposed to start arriving next month. Impatient sure, but seems right on schedule.

There were three American LaFrance kits that AMT did back then, the Custom Pumper, the Ladder Chief, and the Aero Chief. The Ladder Chief - which is what I'm guessing you're looking for - was most recently reissued in 2005 as the blandly named "Ladder Fire Truck". You're going to have to go through eBay, or a vendor that specializes in older kits. The Aero Chief was reissued in 2016, and the Custom Pumper was reissued in 2017. Chances are if those kits sold well enough, we'll get another reissue of the Ladder Chief too under the proper name, maybe in the next year or so.

Having a Former White House Chief of Staff on board would certainly add a well primed spin machine when it comes to addressing the given gaffes of any tooling errors that's for sure. Is the name we're searching for - Lou Aguilera?

Are you saying Blitz has effectively re-hired the old Revell US staff to run the resumed operations over here? Because they couldn't have been retained as they were Hobbico employees and were all let go back in April. So yes Revell in Germany doesn't "OWN" Revell US as you point out, but it's not like a group of investment bankers know how to run a model company either. The most logical course of action would be to put the management in Bunde in charge of all the operations which effectively - albeit not technically - combines the two Revells under one roof in Germany.

Pulling it is probably possible, I mean once you got it moving, if there are no hills to climb and all of that. It's the stopping it that would get messy.

NuNu is owned by the same Company that owns Beemax. Which is why the M6s say "BMW Licensing Beemax Macau, Ltd" on them. They wanted a layer of corporation between the company doing contract work for Platz considering Beemax's parternership with Aoshima.

Aoshima provides technical assistance (much more hands on years ago when they started, especially with the McLaren MP4/4) and distributes Beemax kits, but Beemax does their tooling and kits in Macau unrelated to Aoshima's own production. Aoshima also distributes Belkits in Japan/Asia (and re-labels to put their logo over a bunch of the Belkits stuff).

Yeeeaaah...that's a little odd.

Alright probably not EVERY tool. But that article is also 4 years old, by now they have an even better idea of what they can produce.

Yeah I already mentioned that in the original post. I was just showing the engine - since I can't imagine the base here has by and large has seen the engine "bay" of a 6R4 - and commenting that it has to be full detail, because how would your curbside that. It would be a terrible molded in block of cheese.

The irony...

I don't think Wal*Mart necessarily held as much sway with Revell as it did in Dyersville. Especially with those earlier kits like the Eldorado, Tri-Fives, '50 Ford & '65 Impala which were all done in the early/mid 90s. AMT/Ertl however created specific packaging specifically for them, those awful checkerboard boxes, and there were rumors that several projects were canceled because they didn't impress Wal*Mart's buyers (like the AMT '50 Oldsmobile). Those checkerboard boxes didn't come along until the 2000s.

What makes no sense? The fact that this obscure stuff you personally come on here and demand isn't financially viable to spend tens of thousands of dollars on to either restore or recreate missing/changed pieces? Or the fact that you seem to think that tooling is constructed out of lunch box sized pieces of metal that can be inserted Tetris style into a machine to run off bits and bobs to recreate kits? If you need tooling from 3 kits to make one, you are either going to have to run complete runs of all three kits and have a whole bunch of leftover parts, or gate off the parts of the tooling you don't want run to just get the specific parts out. Which means later you have to go back in and un-gate the rest of the kit in order to run the tooling in whatever complete kit it represents. Gating & un-gating is such a delicate task that you often see the un-gating process never taking place. That's how AMT "lost" the Peterbilt 359 California parts for 4 decades when they were part of the tooling of the Pacemaker which had been reissued multiple times. It's tantamount to impossible to expect Round2 to pull out the engine runners - and whatever else is attached to that - to run off the top end of the engine from another kit, and put it into a easier to find kit, just to make something that kinda sorta looks like a vintage kit you can't afford to buy. Also remember Round2 went through and ran test shots of EVERY SINGLE TOOL they own, they know what they have and what they don't. It's not some vast conspiracy to hold back "the good stuff".