Revell's "Hot Rod Hydro" - What's New and Different with this reissue?

[mike 51]

Another interesting review...thanks Tim.

[dodgefever]

I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere (or maybe I overlooked it)...did Revell wipe the "Chrysler Fire Power" lettering from the valve covers?

Looks that way, must be licensing BS. That would explain the change from 'Hemi' to 'Hot Rod' as well. Lame.

[GLMFAA1]

Went to Wikipedia and looked up Chrysler hemi and found twelve different cubic inch hemi's from the 50/60's

392 was a Chrysler and 341 was a Desoto engine Cubic inches ranged from 241 to 392 until the late 60 intro of the 426 The 'hemi' hydro should have 'firedome' heads

greg

[DrGlueblob]

Calnaga Castings has quite a few trick parts for this kit, including a Jacuzzi Jet Drive.

[sfhess]

Went to Wikipedia and looked up Chrysler hemi and found twelve different cubic inch hemi's from the 50/60's

392 was a Chrysler and 341 was a Desoto engine Cubic inches ranged from 241 to 392 until the late 60 intro of the 426 The 'hemi' hydro should have 'firedome' heads

greg

The irony is that the current "Hemi" is technically not a Hemi.......

[jeffbrad]

Going to do mine with the Olds engine out of the 50 custom instead of the hemi. Going to use the stock version for tow vehicle

Edited June 29, 2015 by jeffbrad

[Dave Toups]

Norm at Replicas and Miniatures makes a conversion set to turn this, and the Hemi Hydro, back into the original 60's issue "Go and Show" Drag Boat.

Edited June 30, 2015 by Dave Toups

[High octane]

Calnaga Castings has a nice jet drive for boat kits, however you must remember that prop drive boats are faster than jet drives. I followed drag boat racing as well as Unlimited Hydro Plane racing back in the 90's for 'bout 7-8 years. It was a blast.

[tim boyd]

Norm at Replicas and Miniatures makes a conversion set to turn this, and the Hemi Hydro, back into the original 60's issue "Go and Show" Drag Boat.

Yes...the conversion set is pictured and described in detail in my on-line review in the link of the original post. Original box art, too, in case anyone has not yet looked at the link. Cheers..>TIM .

Edited June 30, 2015 by tim boyd

[tim boyd]

Calnaga Castings has a nice jet drive for boat kits, however you must remember that prop drive boats are faster than jet drives. I followed drag boat racing as well as Unlimited Hydro Plane racing back in the 90's for 'bout 7-8 years. It was a blast.

Agreed, Steve's jet drive boat castings are outstanding....they are sized for the AMT Hull Raiser kit, but I presume they would adapt well for the Revell Hot Rod Hydro.

Steve also makes a revised seating unit, ,again sized for the Hull Raiser, that might be too narrow to adapt to the Hot Rod Hydro's much wider hull.

Steve did an article on his ski boat model using his conversion pieces in MCM several years ago.

Cheers....TIM

[62rebel]

I've avoided buying one of these up till now; Tim's review and his examples have me wanting to give this one a try.

[TimKustom]

as usual, very nice review. Love those boats!

[Atmobil]

I have two issues of this boat in my stash, the combo kit with the 65 Chevy step side and the 1971 issue that has been started by someone a long time ago. I do have plans on building one with a MPC Corvette body on it as I found some really cool pictures online that gave me the idea:

And here is some of the pictures I found:

[carrucha]

Good review. At last year's Billetproof show in Antioch, CA they had a special area for vintage hot rod boats. Pretty cool!

Edited July 11, 2015 by carrucha

[tmathew1us]

Great review, as usual Tim.

I also wondered about the change from "Hemi" to "Hot Rod." We know that Revell has licensing for the Hemi name, but maybe has to pay each time? Perhaps this was done to widen the appeal to anti-Hemi folks? (as if there is anyone out there who doesn't love a Hemi )

This appears to be a great canvas for a nice boat/land vehicle set. I can't wait to see what you guys will do with it...

...

[checkmate]

I've just bought one of these to have a go at.

One question regarding boat kits, how much difference is there between this and the boat in the Aqua Rod Van kit?

[Edsel-Dan]

This one is REVELL, the other AMT!!

[checkmate]

This one is REVELL, the other AMT!!

So in other words you don't know.

[Len Woodruff]

I love the Corvette on the top of the boat. Look forward to more progress shots.

[tim boyd]

Rob...the AMT kit is a replica of the Kindsvater hull, powered by a SOHC 427 Ford.  This comt is a major rehahs of the original AMT  Rayson Craft Trophy Ser es kit of 1963.  

This version of the AMT was originally released as the "Hull Raiser" in 1968, along with a combo kit version including the AMT Custom 1968 Firebird.  It was again reissued in a combo kit with AMT's Chevy C25 Van around 1975, as the "Aqau Rod" version you mentioned.  It was last riessued around 2005 or so as a Model King kit in combo with the MPc 1970 Bonneville convertible.  

At this link you can see multiple built up versions of both the  Revell and AMT kits.  http://public.fotki.com/funman1712/tim-boyds-124th--12/boyd-model-boats/boyd-boats-/

Cheersl.TIM 

 ,  

 

 

 

Edited July 29, 2015 by tim boyd

[checkmate]

Thanks heaps for that Tim, I've been chasing an Aqua Rod Van kit for my van collection but have been unable to get one so far. Checking box arts online I learnt it had a Ford engine but was wondering how similar they'd be. I was going to maybe get some aftermarket Aqua Rod decals and build up a Chev van and Hot Rod Hydro and decal the pair as Aqua Rod if they were close. Interesting to check out the differences.

Thanks again.

[Jairus]

It's not a Hydro.  It's a flat bottom drag boat.  Never understand why they used that name...
But nice to see they used my decals.

Shame they didn't use the artwork.

[spike morelli]

On ‎6‎/‎25‎/‎2015 at 6:49 AM, Snake45 said:

I just looked at the instruction sheets for the original and the SSP reissue, and I'm confused.

 

Revell seems to have you mount the engine backwards.

 

To clarify, the engine SHOULD be mounted backwards (at least it is on every one of this kind of boat I've ever seen), and they want you to mount it frontwards.

 

They have the driveshaft coming out of the front cover, instead of from the flywheel end of the engine. Is this real? Was this ever actually done by anyone?

Snake,

           The orientation of which end of the engine goes forward, usually depends on the boat's useage. Drag boats, by and large, have the driveline taken off of the flywheel end, which is also the heaviest duty mounting for a driveline adaptor. However, in the early days of drag boats, the popular engines being used, like the 394 Olds or 354/392 Chrysler hemi, had very large, heavy duty crank snouts which could handle the tremendous amounts of torque. So, for the most part, the engines are mounted backwards on the majority of Drag boats and ski boats, with the exception of the earliest ones, BUT...…..Boats that require turning at high speed, like circle race or endure style boats will most often take the driveline off of the crank snout on the timing cover end. In this way, the engine's torque actually "helps" the boat to turn. The Weber-carbed small block Chevy photo that AFX posted is a circle race boat....as was the original Revell kit "Varooom", an SK class circle boat, so driving off the crank snout on those two is proper . Yes, this style of drive generally requires a left-hand turning prop, as opposed to a right-handed prop used on flywheel-forward boats. The overwhelmingly appropriate side to place the driver is , like your car, on the left side. Some Jet boats and outboards will put the driver on the right, likely more due to the hand throttles mounted on the right gunwale ( the inside edge of the passenger compartment).

Edited November 11, 2018 by spike morelli

[Snake45]

Very cool and informative, thanks! 

[Casey]

On 6/30/2015 at 8:24 AM, Dave Toups said: