is this not right or is it me

[bubbaman]

ok the 57 chevy by amt - dosen`t even have parts numbered - i mean if you didn`t know basic  car parts  it could be confusing !!   - 

[Art Anderson]

ok the 57 chevy by amt - dosen`t even have parts numbered - i mean if you didn`t know basic  car parts  it could be confusing !!   - 

Traditionally, AMT  never did number the parts in their kits--certainly not those done many years ago.  Which AMT '57 Chevy kit do you have?  Is it the one with the opening trunk lid, or is it the older kit which dates from 1962, having no opening trunk?

Art

[bubbaman]

no open trunk

[Snake45]

Take heart. Sometimes the numbers on the instruction sheets are wrong anyway.

[Art Anderson]

no open trunk

OK, then the answer is easy!   That kit was first released in 1962, and back then, almost nobody making plastic model kits added part numbers to their sprues.  So, why not add them later, afterwards?  The simple answer is that most all model kit tooling is cut in steel, and once that steel mold tooling has been approved for production, it gets "case hardened", after which any new engraving is not only hard to cut in, but also can raise the spectre of the tool (molds) actually cracking in service--given that molten plastic is injected into them at several hundred PSI.  But, even with the somewhat limited instruction sheets in that kit, the various parts should be pretty easy to identify--we kids did it back in 1962, at anywhere from 10 to my then age of 17.

Art Anderson

[PARTSMARTY]

Even on kits that have numbers-sometimes they're still hard to read.The only advantage I have is this is my 43rd year as an auto parts man-even 30 years with G.M. parts-sometimes little things can still be confusing-lol !!!

[misterNNL]

I'm sure that I am not the only person that learned what the parts of real cars were called through a combination of model car kit instructions and those 25¢ car magazines I bought.I wonder if the numbering of parts was an early attempt at marketing the kits to countries that did not have American English as their first language.