Revell History

[espo]

The March issue of Hemmings Classic Car magazine has a short history of how Revell got into the model business after WW II. They have some pictures of several of the very early kits and a poster for the Highway Pioneers showing all of the different kits in that series. Does anyone else remember the Metalflake show car series ?? Nice box art for the '51 Henry J Drag Coupe and Ed Roth's Outlaw roadster. Very informative read.     

[Mark]

Right after I dump HCC, they now have to start doing some decent articles...

Thomas Graham has written books about Revell, Monogram, and Aurora.  Nothing about AMT (or Jo-Han); from what I have heard he isn't a "car guy".  With the founders of those companies long gone, we'll probably never see anything on them in any great detail.  I haven't got the Aurora book, but the other two are very good.  The old Rod & Custom Models magazine had short articles on several companies also.  No real history provided (there wasn't as much of it in 1964!) but some good pictures of work in progress.

[Eshaver]

Right after I dump HCC, they now have to start doing some decent articles...

Thomas Graham has written books about Revell, Monogram, and Aurora.  Nothing about AMT (or Jo-Han); from what I have heard he isn't a "car guy".  With the founders of those companies long gone, we'll probably never see anything on them in any great detail.  I haven't got the Aurora book, but the other two are very good.  The old Rod & Custom Models magazine had short articles on several companies also.  No real history provided (there wasn't as much of it in 1964!) but some good pictures of work in progress.

Probably ANYTHING you might wish to know about A M T , or SOME S M P for that matter is going to be Art Anderson .

[Snake45]

Does anyone else remember the Metalflake show car series ?? .     

I remember a Metalflake Dodge or Plymouth of some kind from, what, 1962? It was molded in a clear-ish plastic with flakes, and the idea was you could brush paint them on the inside for a cool finish. I'd love to run across a glue bomb of one of those and give the system a try sometime.

[Mark]

I remember a Metalflake Dodge or Plymouth of some kind from, what, 1962? It was molded in a clear-ish plastic with flakes, and the idea was you could brush paint them on the inside for a cool finish. I'd love to run across a glue bomb of one of those and give the system a try sometime.

Revell reissued all of their '62 Chrysler/Plymouth/Dodge kits as Metalflake versions after the initial issues sank like a stone.  I've got a '63 Revell catalog; should look at that to see if those are in there.  The "paint it on the inside" deal didn't really work because the bodies were thicker (a LOT thicker) in some areas than in others, and that's not even getting into the chassis mounting posts, molded-in radiator wall, or interior mounting bosses.  The Metalflake issues have custom parts.  I'm not sure if the original issues did or not.  I've got a first-issue Dodge Dart four-door hardtop, but it's still sealed.  I haven't looked at it in a long while but I don't recall optional parts being mentioned. 

One of my older brothers was building models back then; I remember him telling me about one of his buddies trying the "paint it on the inside" method back in the day and being bugged by all the stuff on the inside of the body.  Had they been designed with that in mind, they probably could have pulled it off to some extent.  I've got an Imperial four-door hardtop kit now; didn't get it for the Metalflake deal but rather because I wanted the four-door to go with the AMT hardtop and convertible, and the Metalflake kit was the first one I ran across.  If I'd found the regular issue first, I'd probably have snagged that. 

[espo]

I had built one of the Chryslers back in the day, and it just didn't look right. We didn't even know to primer anything and it wouldn't have worked in this application anyway. As I recall I used some shade of red and it turned out looking more pink than red. The kit it's self was as good as anything you could get at that time but the Metalflake thing just didn't work.

[Edsel-Dan]

I have the Newport Convertible from the 'Metalflake' series

still need a part or 2 though

[Tom Geiger]

The metalflake car was Jim Keeler's idea.  A vendor had brought in the metal flakes and Jim had an idea... he took some out to the manufacturing floor and had a few tests done suspending the flakes in clear.  Every model manufacturer got a surge of demand at the beginning of each model year, but sales sagged by mid-year because kids had already bought the cars they wanted.  So this was an experiment as the mid-year release.  

As said, I've never seen one painted the prescribed way. All the glue bombs I've owned were never painted, so they were just opaque metal flake bodies with glue on the inside showing through.  But did they sell well enough for Revell to make that mid-year profit?  

[Snake45]

I was recently rereading an ancient Rod & Custom mag that showed Ed Roth promoting and painting one of the "flaky" Mopars.

[Greg Myers]

Probably ANYTHING you might wish to know about A M T , or SOME S M P for that matter is going to be Art Anderson .

Did he write a book ?

[Snake45]

Did he write a book ?

If you could compile all his posts here, it would probably make a pretty good one. The man's a walking encyclopedia of all things vintage US car and the models thereof!

[Don Sikora II]

 

Revell reissued all of their '62 Chrysler/Plymouth/Dodge kits as Metalflake versions after the initial issues sank like a stone.  I've got a '63 Revell catalog; should look at that to see if those are in there.  The "paint it on the inside" deal didn't really work because the bodies were thicker (a LOT thicker) in some areas than in others, and that's not even getting into the chassis mounting posts, molded-in radiator wall, or interior mounting bosses.  The Metalflake issues have custom parts.  I'm not sure if the original issues did or not.  I've got a first-issue Dodge Dart four-door hardtop, but it's still sealed.  I haven't looked at it in a long while but I don't recall optional parts being mentioned. 

Pretty sure all of Revell's 1962 Chrysler Corporation cars included some custom parts in their original issues. The Metalflake issues added a smaller second chrome tree with additional custom goodies along with a small clear-red tree that included custom taillight lenses. 

Have an old built up of the Metalflake '62 Dodge that somebody sprayed the outside of the body Candy Apple Red....the result looks much better than cars with the paint on the inside.

[Eshaver]

Greg , Art and I converse back and forth on Faceless Book all the time . I've filled in a few blanks for him on occasion and having him on the phone is a delight .  I'm too busy trying to republish my first book, actually , a Text book on the history of retail gasoline

[Greg Myers]

Looking forward to the book

[robertw]

 The Aurora book is also excellen and well worh the read, if you have any interest in the history behind our hobby..  I too regret that we've not seen books of the Graham quality on AMT, MPC & IMC but I keep my hopes up.. There have also been histories of Matchbox, Airfix, Frog and ESCI written. I will admit that I enjoy the history behind the models I build just as much as the building of the kit.