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Posted

Hi, all... anyone know the origin of the Hasegawa "American 66" line?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Hasegawa-American-66-Buick-Wildcat-1-24-model-car-kit/331570769676

There are several up at the moment: Cadillac Coupe de Ville, Chevrolet Impala, Pontiac Bonneville as well as the Wildcat...

I'm guessing that these are Hasegawa reboxes of someone else's kits for the Japanese market; they couldn't possibly be original Hasegawa tooling, to the same high standards as their Miura or Integrale, could they?

bestest,

M.

Posted

They're original tooling. The bodies seem to be second-rate (well, maybe first-and-a-half-rate) copies of their AMT and MPC counterparts, but not perfect copies. The interiors and chassis are pretty generic. For a while there in the '80s or thereabouts, we were glad to have them--if you could find them. I only ever seemed to find the Caddy and T-Bird, which were of no interest to me. I'd have grabbed the Impala in a heartbeat if I'd ever seen one (I understand it's actually a '65, not a '66), but I did manage to luck into the Bonneville eventually. I have it to this day and plan to someday getting around to building it.

Posted

Bodies are originally slot car items (I did see a Cadillac slot car on eBay many years ago; it sold for s-t-u-p-I-d money). I've seen a couple of the Pontiac Bonneville slot cars, but not the Impala, Wildcat, or Thunderbird. The Impala is a '65, and was a hot item back then because the Revell kit didn't exist yet. The Cadillac body is a very good crib form the Jo-Han kit. The interiors and chassis were tooled later and are generic. I'm pretty sure the Bonneville has the same mismatched drip channel/quarter window shape issue as the MPC '66 and AMT '65 kits.

Posted (edited)

I've built the complete "American '66" long time ago...

CIMG2449.JPG

they were (as Richard says) from Hasegawa, perhaps i can make pictures from the boxes. Nice to look at, the T-Bird is the...hm...worst of them.

If i remember, they have three different underbody (same base Caddi/ Pontiac , same base Chevy/Buick and shortest the Ford). Also the dashboards are the same, only different decals.

Cadillac:

CIMG2402.JPG

Pontiac:

CIMG2419.JPG

Chevrolet:

CIMG2408.JPG

Buick:

CIMG2414.JPG

Ford:

CIMG2423.JPG

Edited by Dominik
Posted

I've built the complete "American '66" long time ago...

CIMG2419.JPG

That Bonneville looks pretty good! Considering the fact that my Trumpeter kit was a disaster, I wonder if this kit would have been a better buy? :huh:

  • 4 years later...
Posted

The Caddy, Buick, and Pontiac look pretty good. There is something off about the Chevy (other than it being a '65) and the Thunderbird. Recent I've added the Wildcat to my collection. The body looks great. The interior and chassis generic with other Hasegawa kits. I've just ordered the Cadillac and the Thunderbird. I'm curious to see how good they look. 

Posted

The Cadillac cannot be built stock unfortunately.  I bought the "lowrider" reissue and it does not come with factory stock wheels.  The body is nice but I really don't like the generic interior with Cadillac decal dash.  Fortunately I was able to buy one cheap at $28.00 plus shipping on ebay.

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