Why does the same car vary by kit manufacturer?

[oldcarfan]

I was looking at two bodies that I had, the Revell 1968 Mustang and the AMT 1967. They were both the same scale and yet not much was interchangeable. The roof heights and widths were off, and some other things were slightly different too. They measure a real car, so you would think the models would turn out virtually the same. Is it just the designer's interpretation or artistic license? I noticed the same thing a while back between older kits like AMTs Pacer and Pinto and MPCs versions. Either way, I like the cars, it just made me wonder. I'm not criticizing either, it just seems odd that they can vary by a fairly good amount and yet still be good representations of the same car.

[Harry P.]

Simple answer: different model companies have different employees. And obviously different takes on what "accuracy" means. Some companies care more than others.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Simple answer: different model companies have different employees. And obviously different takes on what "accuracy" means. Some companies care more than others.

Yup...and then, you get the old saw about models not looking "right" if they're accurately scaled, so you have kit designers making "artistic corrections and interpretations" instead of scale models.

[Dann Tier]

Simple answer: different model companies have different employees. And obviously different takes on what "accuracy" means. Some companies care more than others.

So true.

[pharoah]

Yeah,compare an AMT mid 60's  Corvette with a Palmer version. Eww

[espo]

Very interesting. I am finishing a build now that is a model of a '67 El Camino that I owned from 1967 until 1974. I used the front clip, frame, firewall and drive train and interior from the Revell '67 Chevelle SS kit #7145. The body from the firewall back is from the Revell #85-7648 '66 El Camino kit. The differences are far more than you would think. The shape of the back edge of the hood opening  is different along with the shape of the leading edge of the door opening.  The height of the cowl ( between the windshield and the hood opening ) is also different. This is from the same company. These are challenges that can be overcome but are still hard to understand. Like Bill Engwer said " artistic corrections and interpretations " . I know in the real world this same thing can be done, and have seen this done years ago when a friend wrecked his El Camino.

[MrObsessive]

I look no further than what Revell did between their '59 and '60 Chevy Impala hardtop kits. Same basic car in 1:1, but IMO Revell (then Monogram) missed the mark in the shape of the roofline on the '59------totally wrong in my eyes. They do the '60 a bit later, and it's 'bout perfect. One of the reasons I did the roof swap that I did when I wanted to build my '59.

So yeah, there were some major "corrections and interpretations" going on there!

[ChrisBcritter]

Wonder if AMT had access to factory blueprints and MPC didn't?

One exception to the rule would be the '59 Fords - AMT, Revell, and PMC (of all people) had models whose parts could be swapped around and dimensions that were near identical.

[Edsel-Dan]

Lost this reply with a Disconnect during Post!!

 

It Is amazing how well the 3 59 Ford kits/promo's share parts

Especially as Revell's kit had a Multi-piece body!!

 

And Yes, I used Rev parts on Both AMT & PMC restoration projects

with NO modification needed!! (Except to Inset the tail lights in PMC bodies--they were surface mounted instead)

 

Also, did anyone notice how Revell Of Germany Corrected the Skyliner kit to read "Fairlane 500"

when they re-issued it in their 50th Anniversary series, while

Rev-US reverted to calling it Galaxie on their SSP re-issue a couple years later??

An error started with the Skip's Fiesta series issue

Did they Not do the research?? or even Look at the Marque on the rear fenders??

[Exotics_Builder]

The Revell 2010 Camaro pretty well fits under the AMT 2011 Convertible and 2013 ZL1.  Which means you do more detail there if you want.  In other cases, not much fit in some areas.

[Art Anderson]

I was looking at two bodies that I had, the Revell 1968 Mustang and the AMT 1967. They were both the same scale and yet not much was interchangeable. The roof heights and widths were off, and some other things were slightly different too. They measure a real car, so you would think the models would turn out virtually the same. Is it just the designer's interpretation or artistic license? I noticed the same thing a while back between older kits like AMTs Pacer and Pinto and MPCs versions. Either way, I like the cars, it just made me wonder. I'm not criticizing either, it just seems odd that they can vary by a fairly good amount and yet still be good representations of the same car.

If you have never photographed and measured a real car for the purpose of shrinking that down by a factor of 25 in order to make a 1/25 scale model kit, you really can't begin to imagine how difficult, and often inexact a "science" that can become.  While we all love to think that this is the age of computerized perfection, bear in mind that digital technology is but a tool, and ultimately someone's human eyes and mind have to decide what is correct and what is not.  That was even more true back in the days before the likes of CAD, and certainly today's reliance on 3D scans made from CAD files.

 

Art

[2002p51]

Sometimes it works out. I built this Dodge Demon a few years ago. The body is an MPC orginal, molded back in the '70s.

The chassis, interior, and engine all came from the AMT '71 Duster 340 kit of much more recent vintage.

Everything fit surprisingly well.

 

 

 

 

 

[Harry P.]

...bear in mind that digital technology is but a tool, and ultimately someone's human eyes and mind have to decide what is correct and what is not...

If we assume the kitmakers have access to 3D CAD files (and I realize they don't always), but if we assume they do, and reducing is a matter of simple math, explain why "human eyes and mind" are needed to decide what is correct.

That's like saying, yes, Geometry tells us that length times width equals area... but we need a human to "interpret" the answer?

[oldcarfan]

I subscribe to the old adage, "If it looks right it is right!" It is amazing how good they have done over the years in recreating the full size designs. Palmer excepted, of course!

[Art Anderson]

If we assume the kitmakers have access to 3D CAD files (and I realize they don't always), but if we assume they do, and reducing is a matter of simple math, explain why "human eyes and mind" are needed to decide what is correct.

That's like saying, yes, Geometry tells us that length times width equals area... but we need a human to "interpret" the answer?

Harry, might I suggest you give it a try sometime, you might begin to think a little bit differently.

Art

"Factory Blueprints", truthfully, are of very limited usefulness in creating model kits--simply because they don't give nearly the information needed much of the time.  It's more a matter of researching the actual car, ideally being able to spend some serious time with camera and measuring devices in hand.  A reference photo shoot, for example, can involve a couple of hundred photo's, most of which are concentrated on portions of say, the car body, with measuring tapes and/or a folding carpenters' rule laid up against what is being photographed.  

Edited January 29, 2016 by Art Anderson
Edited it

[Art Anderson]

If we assume the kitmakers have access to 3D CAD files (and I realize they don't always), but if we assume they do, and reducing is a matter of simple math, explain why "human eyes and mind" are needed to decide what is correct.

That's like saying, yes, Geometry tells us that length times width equals area... but we need a human to "interpret" the answer?

Well,CAD files are CAD files, and they may or may not be accurate--after all,one of the very first lessons I learned in Computer Science 101 in college (Summer of 1969 if that means anything) is the acronym GIGO, which translates to "Garbage in, Garbage Out".  Does that mean that all computer data as it relates to scaling down a real car to make a model of it is garbage?  No, it does not.  However, more often than not, such information simply has to be fed into the machine by a human or humans, who are actually translating what they (or other humans) have seen or observed.  Simply put, the computer is but a tool (highly technical and perhaps complex, but nonetheless no more or less a tool than a hammer or a screwdriver). 

Bear in mind, that a model car (and the illustration starting this topic involves TWO real cars, the design and styling of which were done long BEFORE computers were anything more than electronic calculating machines!   Unfortunately, model companies (and those within those model companies who do the actual work of product development) don't have the multi-millions of dollars worth of equipment, along with a very large staff of stylists, engineers and craftsmen at their disposal that the likes of Ford, GM, Fiat-Chrysler Automotive (or any other automaker), but have very small development teams, anywhere from 1 to perhaps a dozen in product development, with computer skills and computers of course, but it is NOT the same thing.  So, the human equation steps in, and depending on the commitment of a particular model company to scale fidelity, up or down, does affect the final outcome.  In all this, computer technology, at the model kit development level, simply has replaced the draftsman at his drawing board, the pattern-making tooling mockup sculptor with carving tools in hand, and the old-fashioned toolmaker at a 3-dimensional pantograph milling machine. The best that can be done with cars manufactured before digital technology such as is available today is simply old-fashioned detective work--the upcoming '65 Comet Cyclone stems in large part from perhaps 400 photographs taken of a real car, perhaps 30% with specially marked rulers and measuring tapes laid on or next to portions of the body to give exact dimensions of those parts--but unless one is referencing a rust bucket, it's just not possible to measure each and every body panel.

As for access to 3D CAD files, even that can be problematic, depending on the depth of what a real automaker might provide (I still remember, when at Playing Mantis from 2002 to the end of 2004 (doing product development for Johnny Lightning diecast (1/64, 1/24, and 1/18 scale) we got a set of body loft drawings from Ford Motor Company for the 1964-66 Mustang which were TOTALLY useless--they were FULL SIZE drawings, the same actual size as the real car!  Try working with something like that in a 12' square office sometime!  And yet, when I was assigned to develop the Johnny Lightning 1/24 scale 1957 Ford Courier Sedan Delivery,  Ford's then diecast model subsidiary and licensing office was able to send me a set of 4-view basic line drawings of that car, which along with the nearly 100 photographs we'd already found, were enough to make a very credible 1/24 scale model. As with any car designed before modern digital imaging, scanning, even CAD meant, and still means creating all of that data.  And then, as hinted above, there is the level of commitment to making a correct scale model--some companies and some management teams (the former often outlive the latter!)--can make or break the final product.  Now, as for the two differing Mustang model kits which started this conversation are concerned, they were done by two different teams, by competing model companies, with all the opportunities perhaps with wildly differing budgets.   But on the flip side of it, there are numerous instances where a modeler has taken a body shell from Model Company A, played with it on the body shell from Model Company B, and found that it fit with little more than a swipe of a file here or there, or perhaps adding very thin strips of styrene to enlarge the hood the very small distance needed for a reasonably good fit.

In short, Harry, the process as nowhere nearly as simplistic as you seem to suggest!

Art

[Ace-Garageguy]

It takes time, skill and commitment. We know that. 

It's possibly not "simplistic", but it IS a very straightforward operation if the people involved are competent to do the work. It is NOT magic.

It does NOT take a multi-million dollar budget to take photographs of a car, print the photos out, and proceed to take measurements from the real car and write them on the photographs. I've done it myself, more than once, most recently to get dimensions for a 1930 Ford roadster body...not available as an accurate 1/25 model anywhere I know.

And if the real car isn't available, there are numerous ways of determining accurate dimensions from photographs...again accessible to people who are motivated and competent. Yes, it's more difficult, and it takes some judgement, but it's hardly impossible. And PEOPLE can do it perfectly accurately with no computer intervention. The resulting data is LATER put into CAD format to actually cut the tools.

There's no excuse for someone who's getting paid to make a "scale model" to measure something that's 12" in reality and make it a scale 13" on the model.

When two model-car companies have BOTH done their measuring and dividing reasonably accurately, the parts interchange fairly easily...sometimes perfectly...and the models look exactly like what they represent.

Edited January 29, 2016 by Ace-Garageguy

[Harry P.]

Art... I know that the process can be complicated, depending on what is available to the kitmakers. Yes, as you point out, the "old school" way of doing it (taking photos and measurements off an existing car), then hand-carving a master, as they used to do, always includes the possibility of human error. Absolutely.

But I was talking specifically about the "new way" of engineering a model kit... an instance where good, modern, 3D scan files of the real car are available to the kitmaker. In that case, I don't see how scaling down the files can possibly need any sort of "interpretation." Numbers are numbers, and a ratio (1/25, for instance) is a ratio. Yes, there would still need to be concessions made to accommodate the injection-molding process (for example, obviously the thickness of sheet metal cannot be accurately recreated in 1/25 scale, it would be paper-thin).  But if modern 3D scan files are available, it would be impossible to make a mistake as far as overall contours, proportions, positioning of the B pillar, wheel opening curvatures, slope of the windshield, etc.

[Art Anderson]

Art... I know that the process can be complicated, depending on what is available to the kitmakers. Yes, as you point out, the "old school" way of doing it (taking photos and measurements off an existing car), then hand-carving a master, as they used to do, always includes the possibility of human error. Absolutely.

But I was talking specifically about the "new way" of engineering a model kit... an instance where good, modern, 3D scan files of the real car are available to the kitmaker. In that case, I don't see how scaling down the files can possibly need any sort of "interpretation." Numbers are numbers, and a ratio (1/25, for instance) is a ratio. Yes, there would still need to be concessions made to accommodate the injection-molding process (for example, obviously the thickness of sheet metal cannot be accurately recreated in 1/25 scale, it would be paper-thin).  But if modern 3D scan files are available, it would be impossible to make a mistake as far as overall contours, proportions, positioning of the B pillar, wheel opening curvatures, slope of the windshield, etc.

And, the original post in this thread talks about models of cars produced now almost half a century ago--no CAD files from the automaker there.

[Harry P.]

Right you are. My post was specifically in reply to your comments regarding the "human element."