Monty

I had no idea Buick engines were ever painted blue. The 455 in our family's '73 LeSabre was red, so the change must've taken place soon after.

I had no idea there was a Hot Wheels version. Back in the day I would'a snagged that one up quick.

The deafening roar you hear is me yelling obscenities 'cuz that pic more or less means this thing ain't gettin' retooled back to "stock".

Part of my question was in regard to the last known condition of the MPC kits (more often than not we seem to have at least one member who's got inside info on this kind of thing). You may recall all the AMT annuals that got turned into low-level "stock cars". If memory serves, not many were retooled back to original, although the Buick you posted might be one of the few exceptions. A number of years ago somebody at Round2 found the tooling for the AMT Freightliner COE, and more recently the AMT Mach Won '69 Mustang funny car. Never thought I'd see either of those again without offering a house payment on ebay. Kinda what I'm hoping will happen with the MPC kits I mentioned.

To me, the '70 Cougar is distinct enough to not get lost in a sea of AMT '69 Cougars. Being absent for +/- 50 years might be a draw as well. I'd definitely be interested in one or two of those '71 Cyclones you posted.

It's been interesting to watch as Round2 resurrects kits many of us thought we'd never see again. To that end, there are a couple of kits I'm hoping they can find and modify/clean up so they can be ready for resale soon. What I don't know is whether these kits were modified into something else before disappearing, so here's a chance for the kit historians to chime in. Also, to the best of your knowledge, would there be sufficient demand for them? 1) MPC Charger III. As far as I know, this was released in the early '70s, although I never saw this kit anywhere when I was growing up. I ended up settling for the Matchbox car. 2) MPC '70 Cougar. Never saw this one anywhere near me either, and I'm not sure it was ever re-released. That said, it seems like it would complement all the AMT 1st gen Cougars nicely. I doubt this third entry has ever been kitted since it never technically reached production, although there are allegedly 6 (+/-) running cars out there. 3) AMC AMX III. (My rules - no curbsides) Gorgeous car, makes me wonder if maybe a newcomer (Moebius?) would take a chance on it. Do you think it's too obscure to have any impact, or is it a hit waiting to happen because no one has ever offered one in styrene?

Definitely not standard BFG tread. Go to 6:05 here

Saw a YouTube video the other night featuring AMT’s ‘70 Chevelle. AMT had made a few changes to make it more like the dark green one in a current TV show or movie (name escapes me at the moment) but is has new 5-spoke aftermarket wheels and pad-printed BF Goodrich Radial T/As. Any idea if they’ll be offering these tires separately in the near future?

Decades ago (roughly mid-'80s) an American car magazine did a performance suspension analysis to determine which of two competing theories provided the best handling results. The cars used were a current Mustang GT, Capri RS, Camaro Z28 and Firebird Trans Am. One FoMoCo car and one GM car got the bigger springs/smaller sway bar and the other two got the bigger sway bar/lighter springs.* I don't recall all the suspension suppliers, but I'm pretty sure Herb Adams and Rancho suspension were both involved. At that time I subscribed to Hot Rod, Car Craft and Car and Driver, so this article (two parts) would've come from one of them. I'd just like to read this again and see what they concluded from the data gathered. Any help finding it again would be appreciated. *Going off really vague memories here. Probably not the most accurate assessment.

I look forward to seeing both kits. If memory serves, both AMT and MPC offered late-'70s Novas ('76 & '79 respectively) but I always thought the MPC's body lines were far better. I hope we can influence Round2 to issue the Cougar in white.

Seems like there was an old '60s-vintage AMT kit that came with some kind of reptile ??

Kinda what I said. He's very resourceful (used to post some incredible semi truck models on here) so I was surprised he didn't have a solution readily available, although in fairness to him, he just recently came up with the idea of doing this build.

A friend of mine is contemplating a Mopar build but wants it to have the rarer "gator grain" vinyl top. To be honest, I'm stumped for ideas. Any suggestions?

Love to watch as this progresses. Being a huge C3 fan (and former owner) I’m taking notes too. Oh, just in case it might affect any further detailing, the item with the restraining straps is the spare tire carrier. For once, Fortune smiled on me and I never had to use it. Sounds like you were able to burnish the black BMF down without it flaking? Good to hear. I’m not sure I’d be that lucky.

I happened to see a YouTube video called A Visit To MCW Finishes and was pleasantly surprised to learn that they've just come out with AMC Engine Teal paint. It's an enamel and comes in a jar about the same size as Model Master paints used to use. To the best of my knowledge that has never been available in a hobby paint before, and given their reputation, it should be dead-on accurate. If you get a chance to watch the entire video, you might be amazed at the quantity of paints they offer (lacquer and enamel) including actual automotive and RR colors.

I've seen both sides of the aged paint thing. There's a Barbados Rex YouTube video where he takes a 50-year-old 1/4 oz bottle of Testors Metallic Green paint, uncaps it, stirs it, adds some reducer and airbrushes it. Turned out great. Conversely, about a decade ago I came across a box of clearance paints at a hobby shop and was pleased to see it included 4 bottles of Pactra Hot Rod Primer. I tried every trick I knew but could not make them workable.

I'd like to know when the first four were painted vs the rest. Temperature may have been a factor if the first four were painted in a warmer month and these were painted fairly recently. I've noticed several builders on here paint a lot of bodies during the summer and finish the cars later. That said, I wonder if using Mr Hobby Leveling Thinner might alleviate that issue.

Agreed.

In one of my early posts above I kind of explain that. I'm just not a big fan of acrylics and don't have much experience with lacquers. I've used enamels for almost all of my model building since I started the hobby, so suffice it to say it's a comfort zone thing.

I may have gotten that idea from this listing which I came across early in the search. It wasn't the only one with the same info: https://www.modellbau-koenig.de/en/Paint-Co/Paint/Gunze-Sangyo/White-Pearl-Perl-Weiss-10ml-Glaenzend Read their description. It specifically calls it an enamel. Is it possible they got it wrong and I jumped all over it based on the prospect of it being an enamel? Yes.

You've already received some great pointers, but to me the elephant in the room is the appearance of your plug wires which appear to be made out of some kind of thread. Scale aftermarket plug wires are cheap and abundant and would give your engine a more accurate look. I highly recommend taking a look at what these guys offer https://madmodeling.com/Category/distributors

I was hoping to find the Gunze stuff ‘cuz they make enamel paints, which I prefer over lacquers or acrylics. I’m kinda familiar with the Mr Hobby and Mr Color paints, but I’m not sure which “Mr” designation they use for their enamels. As some of you may have discovered, they’re hard to find here so I wonder if they can be obtained online from Japan.

Thanks for the info. I'll keep it in mind for next time. This inquiry doesn't seem to be going anywhere as far as getting helpful replies so I'll move on.

Obviously I was misinformed about which wheels were included in the kit. This Google pic of the Fenton wheels you mentioned shows the raised bolt detail, where the wheels I'm looking for have divots instead. I guess the old Monogram SS Corvette is the only game in town for those.