Mike999

Just did a great trade with Paul Payne.

No sun visors visible in that link I posted above. Deleting them was probably a safety factor, to make sure they didn't fly out of the car and onto the track. Looking at some of the close-up shots, it looks like they also could have interfered with the roll bar mountings. While looking thru the photos, I found that Petty "Zipper-Top" Olds:

Here's a fun article from 2018, about one of the last Crown Vics in service with the California Highway Patrol. Besides all the Crown Vic's other advantages, police agencies loved it because their mechanics had years of experience with the car and could fix anything that broke. The Los Angeles Police Dept. even had its own frame-stretcher. https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a20879513/the-great-panther-extinction-this-is-one-of-the-last-crown-vic-cop-cars-in-service/

The Zipper-Tops! The most famous ones were probably the Holman-Moody '59 T-Birds, but there were others. Petty Engineering ran a '57 Olds with a removable roof, IIRC. Here's a fun article about the Convertible Division, with lots of pix for inspiration. https://www.macsmotorcitygarage.com/the-great-age-of-convertible-racing-in-nascar/

Same for the '59 Cadillac, at least the version shown below. It has 3 different tops: a hardtop molded in clear plastic, which includes the rear window; a raised convertible top; and the "hard boot" for a lowered top. There are small pix of the convertible version on the box side, but otherwise it's not mentioned. My kit still has the original price sticker on it: $6.95 I got it long ago because I had an idea of doing a "Cuban Revolution" diorama. Using 1/35 military figures to cram the Cadillac with a bunch of grungy Fidelistas, riding thru Havana in a victory parade. Until 1959, Cuba was one of the biggest markets for Cadillac in the world, according to a documentary I saw.

I'm guessing we will still have to build the '64 Plymouth Belvedere as a "special order" car. The kit has bucket seats, which were only available in the Sport Fury in 1964. Lindberg tooled up a bench seat and buckets for different versions of the '64 Dodge kits, but never did that for the Plymouth kit as far as I know.

Thanks for the nice comments, everybody! They're really appreciated. I forgot to mention the paint, which was an experiment. It's Jacquard Metallic, stuff meant to be used for painting T-shirts and such. But it's a tough acrylic paint that comes pre-thinned for airbrushing. Available at Hobby Lobby and not very expensive. I bought an 8-pack of different colors. The "metallic" in it looks more in-scale to me than many metallic paints. No big flakes etc. This is the current version of the paint you'll find at Hobby Lobby:

I just saw this recent movie tonight. Looks like it was on Netflix but isn't available right now. Definitely worth a watch for history/war movie fans. "Danger Close." True story about the battle of Long Tan in August 1966. A company of 108 Australian and New Zealand troops blundered into a force of 2,500 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. Many of the ANZAC's were draftees , new to Vietnam with no combat experience. Stick around for the end credits, they show photos of the real people in the story alongside the actors who played them. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0441881/

Back in April, the Ollie's closest to me nearly burned down. It's in a strip mall with a Dollar General, a beauty salon, and some other stores, including a small "satellite" post office. Because a post office was involved, the Feds/ATF automatically joined the investigation, which I think is still on-going. The Ollie's mostly had smoke and water damage, and is open again now. The last time they had model kits, about a year ago, this Ollie's had some AMT Deoras, Lindberg Crown Vic with display case, the Lindberg '38 Ford and a few other good kits. With these new reports of kit sightings, I'll have to check it out.

This kit was supposed to be re-issued this year, but I haven't seen it yet. Since I recently finished one, I thought I would post with some comments and problems. The problems may be fixed or changed in the new Round 2 re-issue (but I doubt it!). This kit was first issued by MPC back in the 1970's, in a white box. AMT-ERTL re-issued it at least twice; once with a blue car on the box (the kit I built), and again with an ugly set of scallop decals. It was part of a series of Modified Stocker kits, all with generic big-block Chevy engines and Tobias chassis. Problems: 1. Instruction sheet Step 8, Part #6: these are the 2 support rods that run from the firewall to the radiator frame. Both were too short. I replaced them with Evergreen rod. 2. Instruction sheet Step 11, Part #2: this is the V-shaped brace between the roll bar and the rear bulkhead. It was too long. The roll bar fits into 4 pins in the floor, so you can't move it around to fix this problem. I sanded down the 2 points of the "V" until it fit. 3. No Tie Rod: the kit has "poseable" front wheels, but nothing connects them. They just flop around independent of each other. 4. Extra Parts: see the last pic below. All those parts were in the box but not used. Before you glue anything together, go thru the instructions and identify only the parts you need for the '34 Ford. I put all the extra parts out of the way, so I wouldn't pick them up by accident. Good Stuff: nice engine with Weiand valve covers and a well-done carburetor (for the 1970's). And those snaky exhaust pipes, which are a bit of a challenge. A detailed interior complete with fire extinguisher and seat with a molded-in harness. The chassis is also well detailed. I added a few MENG nuts and bolts to it in visible places. In the interior, I added a lot of detail that, of course, can't be seen now: a rock screen attached to the roll bar with clips made from metal foil; a detailed instrument panel with gauges and switches, etc. Just for fun, I painted one of the optional hoods and stuck it on the kit so you can see what it looks like. The decals came from some Gofer sheets and the decal stash. "Mac's" on the trunk came from just where you would suspect, a NASCAR McDonald's decal sheet. Sorry for the photos, still getting used to a new camera that is smarter than I am...

I don't do many rocket/missile kits, but recently found this oldie on eBay for a decent price. It's the 1995 re-issue of the 1/110 scale Revell Redstone missile, a key part of the early U.S. space programs. The kit was originally issued in 1958, and re-issued in 1961 with a Mercury capsule on top in the famous "newsprint" box. Then it disappeared until sometime in the 1980's, when Revell's Mexican branch, Lodela, re-popped it in a double kit with the Jupiter missile. That was it until 1995, when Revell re-issued several of its rocket and missile kits like the Aerobee-Hi and the Nike-Atlas. Like those kits, the Redstone hasn't been seen since. I like the "in your face" box art and the accessories: launch pad, mobile test unit and radar vans, and the 3 figures.

The MENG hex bolts were used on the tie rod and front axle of this Revell Porsche Jr. farm tractor. Since they're resin being glued to plastic, you do have to use CA/super-glue. I apply a small "dot" of the glue with a sharp toothpick.

"Bucket T" was a favorite song of The Who. They often played it in concert, with drummer Keith Moon doing the vocals. Moon even bought his own real, 1:1 scale Bucket T. And believe it or not, in 1967 The Who's version of "Bucket T" went to #1 on the record charts. In Sweden.

Finally! I found a model kit in the Clearance Section of my closest Hobby Lobby. Unfortunately, it's Off-Topic: the Airfix 1/48 scale P-40 Warhawk. The box was open and torn on one corner, but the kit parts were still sealed in the inner bag and it looked untouched. Regular price $29.99, marked down to $7.49. Sold! From what I've read, this is the best P-40 kit going right now. Both Hobby Boss and Trumpeter have released new-tooled 1/48 P-40 kits recently. According to Der Experten on the aircraft sites, both have goofs like too-shallow cockpits. The general consensus was: you were better off buying the ancient Monogram/Revell P-40 and the True Details resin cockpit set. Until this newly tooled Airfix kit came along. No car kits were Clearanced and I saw no new car kits. Still no re-stock on the '67 4-door Impalas, which sold out in a hurry. The one and only Revell Land Rover was still sitting there without a price tag.

The obvious soundtrack for this thread...

MENG also makes a bunch of nuts and bolts in different sizes. They call them "Small" and "Large," "Set A & B." These are molded on a resin sheet. You use a chisel blade to slice them off the sheet. That works well, I use these a lot for detailing front suspensions etc. Each sheet has several different sizes of bolts, from tiny to large, with the size called out in millimeters. You can find them on eBay, or some online vendors. This is the MENG "Small Nuts & Hex Bolts, Set A."

I just did a great trade with misternemo. He really went the extra mile to pack my stuff very carefully. This was the Revell '59 Cad hardtop, which has thin window posts that are easily bent or broken. But thanks to his care in packing, everything arrived in perfect condition. I couldn't be happier with the deal!

Since the thread spun off-topic from Atlantis...here are some other much-requested kits that didn't sell as well as expected, or so I've heard. But I'm not an industry insider, and they are welcome to step in and correct me. I'd love to hear from them. AMT-ERTL '58 Edsel: at the top of the "most requested" list for decades. AMT stepped up and did an all-new kit with detailed chassis/interior and a great M-E-L engine. But I've heard that it didn't sell nearly as well as AMT hoped. Today, these kits go cheap on eBay and even cheaper at flea markets, both the regular kit and the pre-painted Custom Shop version. So what happened? I suspect '90's reality didn't match up with '50's nostalgia. AMT might have been better off to find an original 3-in-1 '58 Edsel kit, ship it to China and reverse-engineer the molds. Ditto for their new Ala Kart kit, though that one had an obvious problem with its weird off-scale engine. Galaxie Ltd. '46 Chevy Aerosedan/Sedan Delivery: another much requested kit and a great job with the finished product. You'd think we would have bought these kits by the case load. But the manager of a big Los Angeles hobby shop told me that it took Galaxie more than 10 years to sell out the first run of the Chevy kits. Maybe part of that was sticker shock. These were expensive kits but IMO we got our money's worth. And we Geezer Modelers are a notoriously tight-fisted bunch. Revell Midget Racers: again, a brand-new well-detailed kit requested for decades. Complete with trailer and a choice of Offenhauser or Ford V8-60 flathead engines. (The small Ford V-8 that had never been kitted before.) And also again, a big sales dud. So much so that I've heard the people who designed the kit got fired. A quick check shows that since May, 27 Revell Midget Racer kits have sold on eBay. The prices ranged from a low of $12.50 for a sealed kit to a high of $38.00.

Just a few days ago on Turner Classic Movies, I caught a movie shot in 1961, mostly around the Angel's Flight/Bunker Hill neighborhood. "The Exiles." It's not a very good movie. Sort of a semi-documentary, following some Native Americans as they drink and carouse over one Friday night. The shots of downtown L.A. in 1961 made it worth watching (with Fast-Forward!). Along with Bunker Hill, we see a lot of old Main Street. And one long scene takes place at a gas station on Sunset Blvd. We also get to see lots of neat vintage cars.

You might. I saw one Friday at the closest HL, and this is a store in a very small town. There was exactly one Revell Land Rover on the shelf. It wasn't tagged yet, and I wondered about the price. I see Homer's is priced at $34.99. Or $20.99 with the Magic 40% Coupon, which is a very good price. I already have the kit, so I'll leave the ones in that Hobby Lobby for some other lucky builder.

From 3000 miles away: I saw the Revell Land Rover this morning at the closest HL. Plus the Revell '29 Ford, and AMT '65 Fairlane Modified Stocker. The Land Rover was a surprise. None of the 3 new kits had HL price tags on them yet, so maybe they had just been put on the shelves during a re-stock. They only had 1 of the Land Rover, but several of the other 2 kits.

Just swung by Hobby Lobby, hoping for a clearance sale. Nope. I bought the last "Art Box" '59 El Camino they had, with the coupon, just because that's a favorite kit and I don't know when we'll see it again. Also picked up the Atlantis 1/48 White-Fruehauf tanker truck. The big surprise: this HL has restocked, and had the brand-new 1/24 scale Revell #07047 Land Rover Series III kit. It did not have a price tag on it yet, and they only had 1 on the shelf. Also new on the shelf without price tags: the Revell '29 Ford roadster and the AMT '65 Fairlane Modified Stocker. Maybe they had just put those out and hadn't tagged them. No more "Supernatural" '67 Chevies. I bought one in this store a few days ago.

There are 3 Hobby Lobbys in driving distance of me. I've seen clearanced kits in different places in all 3 stores. In addition to being in the regular "Clearance" section or red-tagged on the model shelf, sometimes they're on one of the "islands" in the big aisles. Usually near the model kits section, but not always. A few months ago in the "Clearance" section at my closest store, they were really trying to get rid of an AMT '65 Continental. It was marked down to $1.97 and went home with me.

Here's an old thread about that kit. This builder hot-rodded it, but he does have some comments that may help about the body assembly sequence.

"The basic kits feature sleek cars, planes and ships you build by breaking parts off a plastic tree..." ARRGGGGH! BLASPHEMY! HERESY! ? Thanks, great article.