Lindberg Diamond Duster Wilhem's Wonder King "T"

[regular guy]

Builders

Anybody know if any of these kits are going to be re released?

Round2 has sort of revived itself and is bringing out a lot of kits

but not many custom show cars,

Show cars were a big part of modeling in the golden era,

Thanks!

[Dave Darby]

Not real familiar with the Diamond Duster, but I wouldn't put it past Round2 to bring that one back.

 

The Wilhelm's Wonder and King T are different stories. The tools that those came from were extensively modified to create other show rod kits. (Someone else here can probably give you the list). 

 

I won't say never, but it would be likely a fairly labor intensive/pricey undertaking for Round2. And yes, I'd love to see those come back, too.

[Mark]

Diamond Duster is one of those Lindberg 1/12 scale motorized kits.  Chassis was shared with the Fiat altered coupe, and when first released in the mid-Sixties the chassis was sold by itself.

[Draggon]

Wilhelm's wonder became the Ice Cream Truck, and the King T was altered to make something else, maybe the Night Crawler. Probably the easiest would be the Diamond Duster. 

[Mark]

King T was first altered into the Carl Casper Paddy Wagon, later the fender unit was modified and added to the Switchers T to create another version from that kit.  Those fenders aren't in the Switchers reissues.

King T chassis is under the Chuck Miller Fire Truck.

[regular guy]

Builders

http://round2corp.com/product/ice-cream-truck-george-barris-commemorative-edition/

Looks like the King "T" is a wild custom of a full fendered model T.

Might as well throw in the AMT Silhouette on the Wish list, but there are

plenty of those around,

Any other forgotten Show Cars that AMT or MPC came out with in 50's or early 60's?

Thanks!

[Snake45]

Any other forgotten Show Cars that AMT or MPC came out with in 50's or early 60's?

Thanks!

There was the Car Craft Dream Rod/Tiger Shark, but they reissued that one about a decade ago and there are probably still enough around on eBay to satisfy demand. (I bought two at the time, and still have most of the parts of a half-built original.)

[regular guy]

Snake

Yours truly owns a Dream Rod, the Car Show edition, complete with rotating display stand!

To give AMT credit, yes they have re issued the Chuck Barris Surf Woody and the Ice Cream wagon.

Revell has been doing a good job of re issuing Big Daddy Ed Roth's Outlaw and Beatnik Bandit,

I think AMT should reissue Wilhelm's Wonder, Tom Cognotti's King "T" and Bill Cushenberry's Silhouette,

.If that's just not possible(the Wonder and the "T"), they ought to re issue whatever parts they do have

in a plastic bag and put it on the Autoworld website,

They've done it before, they had transparent blue leftover Hippie Hemi bodies for $10 bagged awhile ago,

Thanks!.

 

 

Edited October 9, 2016 by regular guy

[stavanzer]

Bob, I don't see the Cushenberry Silhouette being released for a while. A quick look on the 'Bay shows several for sale and some pretty cheap. That tells me that there may not be enough demand for that kit yet. As far as the Tognotti T and Wilhelm's kit, well others have told you where they are now. The Ice Cream truck was just out, that gives you that chassis. Both the Chuck Miller Fire Truck and the Outcast are pretty easy to find as well. Look for Built up of the King T and Wonder on the 'Bay and at Swap meets. You can salvage the bodies and get the new chassis from the more recent kits.

As for what Round2 will do next from a Showrod perspective, I think it is anybody's guess what will happen next. Without any confirmation of sales numbers from Round2, there is no real way to determine if the Showrods they have released have sold well enough to pay for them selves.  My un-educated guess is that they have not, and they are a labor of love, more than a decent revenue stream. I could easily be wrong. For all the clamor about running more old kits of this type, the market for "Thingie" vehicles is smaller subset of an already shrinking market. I'm glad and grateful that these have been re-done, but I'm always pleasantly surprised when another is announced. I've found that my own tastes have shifted in the last ten years, and I'm slowly selling off most of my Showrod kits.  I've only bought a couple of the 'new' Round2 Showrod kits.

[Edsel-Dan]

What about the "Mail Truck" or 'Phone Booth'

The latter at least Would sell

How many are still waiting for the Touch-Tone Terror Just for the Phone Both out of it???

 

I have a Mail Truck but it is Incomplete!

I wanted but Never got the Phone Both

[Snake45]

Snake

To give AMT credit, yes they have re issued the Chuck Barris Surf Woody ...

 

GONG!

[Mark]

How many of them can you get for $516.32?

[regular guy]

Alan

There's the AMT Fireball 500 in their 'stable' too.

I stopped and looked at the Green Hornet car one time in Southern California,

It was sitting in a chain link fence lot,

The interior was very rough, I think it was a faraway shot car, not a close up car,

Those type cars were probably inspired by mid 60's altereds with the roofs cut off,

AMT ought to preserve these kits as part of America's history.

More time goes by the harder it'll be to restore these kits,

Thanks!

[horsepower]

Wouldn't a past winner of America's Most Beautiful Roadster, be considered a show car? We have the Ala Kart, but how about a reissue of the XR-6 roadster? We've been given the '27 T touring that was part of the dual kit when it was first issued, but the Roadster seems to have disappeared, we haven't seen that trick little slant six with its Webers and long tube headers in another kit so maybe some of the parts still exist.

[regular guy]

Horsepower

You got me there, the XR6 is a bonafide showcar made from the ground up,

The XR6 resembles the Eldon Invader and the Liindberg Duster in the front end,

The XR6, Diamond Duster, Invader and Silhouette all had the 'Electric Razor' front end and

were all tight 2 passenger roadsters. The XR6 was cycle fendered and the others were full body.

Did think of the Ala Kart during these posts and forgot to put it in. AMT has a Chrysler slant 6, it's in the Deora.

They could re issue the parts they do have in 'Custom Packs' and put a Skill Level 4 required on them.

Maybe they could get the molds declared Historic somethingsl because they are.

Any other AMT/MPC showcars we missed?

Regular Guy

 

Edited October 9, 2016 by regular guy

[horsepower]

Well, you did mention the Alexander Brothers build of the Deora, and not sure if you're talking about Don Tognotti's (Tognotti's Auto World in Sacramento) King T or what. But I've been lucky enough to see it when it was on the circuit when it won the AMBR, and decades later it was on display in the store in Sacramento, also last year it was on the Barrett Jackson auction after it's restoration.

[Dave Darby]

Wouldn't a past winner of America's Most Beautiful Roadster, be considered a show car? We have the Ala Kart, but how about a reissue of the XR-6 roadster? We've been given the '27 T touring that was part of the dual kit when it was first issued, but the Roadster seems to have disappeared, we haven't seen that trick little slant six with its Webers and long tube headers in another kit so maybe some of the parts still exist.

Most of the XR6 bits bit the dust when AMT converted the tool to build "My Mother the Car". That said, it would be interesting to see just how much of those parts still exist of either version.

[Mark]

Most of the XR6 bits bit the dust when AMT converted the tool to build "My Mother the Car". That said, it would be interesting to see just how much of those parts still exist of either version.

I'd bet little, if anything.  In the past, whenever I'd see one of those XR-6/'27 tub double kits at a show, often the '27 would be missing, built, or at least started.  The XR-6 parts would usually be intact.  That would indicate that the '27 touring was the thing that sold the kit in the first place.  I'd bet that the '27/XR-6 was easily the least popular of the AMT double kits: only one issue, no re-boxings, then trimmed back to the MMTC Porter just two years later.  The horrible box art certainly didn't help the sales effort.

That said, it'd be cool to see the original fenderless rod version returned to the '27 tub.  Only a handful of the original optional parts were brought back when the '27 was reissued by itself later on.

[regular guy]

Builders

To give AMT/MPC credit they brought back the Piranha/Spy Car, AMTronic and the Transporter.

Those are all examples of early 60's Space Program inspired styling,

So what's missing are the 100% original creation Showrods.

As far as AMT's ability to build these, they can.

They have what they call Model Makers on their payroll,

They can produce any missing parts either from an original part

or adding to or removing from another part,

They can also make a part from scratch from a picture or drawings,

AMT just needs the will to bring out the flagships of modeling,

the custom show rod,

Regular Guy

[Richard Bartrop]

Kudos to AMT for bringing back all those kits, but how much did they have to do to the molds to make them happen?

As has been mentioned many times before, making molds isn't cheap.   I don't think it's so much a question of whether they have the will so much as are there enough people out there willing to buy the kits to make it worth their while?

[regular guy]

Mr Bartrop

To refine this request, let's make the XR6, Wilhelm's Wonder, the Silhouette and the Lindberg Diamond  Duster,

These are Show Rods not based on a production car, so we'll leave the King "T" out for now.

They are MIA in Round 2's flurry of releases's since their reinvigoration 3 or 4 years ago.

I'm doing my duty as a modeler to say what I'd like to see re released, whether their

stock skyrockets after they release the kits is their side of the fence,

Like taking the car in to get if fixed, just tell them the symptoms, don't tell them how to fix it,

Thanks!

 

 

[Mike999]

I'd bet little, if anything.  In the past, whenever I'd see one of those XR-6/'27 tub double kits at a show, often the '27 would be missing, built, or at least started.  The XR-6 parts would usually be intact.  That would indicate that the '27 touring was the thing that sold the kit in the first place.  I'd bet that the '27/XR-6 was easily the least popular of the AMT double kits: only one issue, no re-boxings, then trimmed back to the MMTC Porter just two years later.  The horrible box art certainly didn't help the sales effort.

That said, it'd be cool to see the original fenderless rod version returned to the '27 tub.  Only a handful of the original optional parts were brought back when the '27 was reissued by itself later on.

I noticed the same thing about the 1927/XR-6 double kit at shows, going back many years.  A lot of those hot-rodded Slant-6 engines were missing too.  IMO, the XR-6 wasn't too popular because it went full-bore on the short-lived "asymmetrical" styling trend of the early Sixties. Though I personally think it was a great-looking hot rod and would like to have it back.

At least we still have the "Police" version of the '27, last released about 10 years ago and the only issue with the neat side-curtains.  It has some of the vintage speed equipment, complete with an exhaust cut-out tube for the headers, IIRC.  It also has great vintage police gear - helmets, sawed-off shotgun, chrome flashlight, etc.

A little research shows that the Police '27 in the kit was highly optioned for a cop car, or even for a "mainstreamer" 1927 T Phaeton. It has a lot of items that were extra-cost options in 1927 - bumpers, chrome radiator shell, wind-wings, wire wheels, etc.  Confusing things even more, some items were standard on the 1927 closed Fords but optional at extra cost on the Phaetons and other open cars.  e.g., the standard wheels on open cars were wooden artillery wheels painted black, like the wheels in the AMT 23/25 T kits.  You could get those wheels finished in natural wood in 1927, but it cost extra.