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Posted

The '59 Imperial is a welcome return! Maybe now MCG will step up to the plate with the photo-etch set it so richly deserves. The kit does have some minor fit issues with the roof and front bumper (that needs some trimming under the hood and mating surfaces to get it to snug up to the body).  Someone could cast the taillights in clear red resin for it too.

Paul Hettick mastered a four-door sedan body conversion for it. 

Posted
18 hours ago, MrObsessive said:

One change I'd have to make though is the grille is a little too upright when placed as is. It needs to have a bit more 'slant' to it to appear more like the 1:1.

Been looking at pics of real ones and you're absolutely right. Would take a LOT of work to make this right, but it might be possible to set the bottom edge back a little bit. 

I'd have never noticed this if you hadn't mentioned it. Now I can't UN-see it. :blink:

Posted
1 hour ago, ChrisBcritter said:

 

Paul Hettick mastered a four-door sedan body conversion for it. 

That's what you need to build the 'Sin City' movie car....thus mine 'inspired'.....

Posted
11 hours ago, Rob Hall said:

Straight reissue of an original 1959 AMT kit, was last out around 2007.   Curbside, separate hardtop, builds as a coupe or convertible.   This is the box art of the last reissue:

post-10452-0-32915500-1368143893.jpg

I wish Round2 would issue kits through Model King again. MK helped bring back several lost kits. This imperial was missing the chrome bumpers and maybe other items too.

Posted

That Imperial looks promising.  For those wanting to add some internal detail, how close is the chassis of the Chrysler 300C to what was under a real '59 Imperial?  I know they dropped the Hemi for '59, but would the Chrysler in the '49 Mercury kit be close?

Posted
8 minutes ago, Bob Ellis said:

I wish Round2 would issue kits through Model King again. MK helped bring back several lost kits. This imperial was missing the chrome bumpers and maybe other items too.

Yes, Dave paid to have the chrome shot reverse engineered from an NOS parts tree he supplied to them.  I believe there was also something to do with redoing the wheels to accept available tires too.  Part of his deal with Tomy was that he had the rights to issue each kit for a year,  then they could do as they wished after that.

The deal he had was with Tomy, a toy manufacturer who had no knowledge of the market. They welcomed his business since he paid for the runs he did, with zero risk on their part.  Once Tom Lowe purchased the whole thing from Tomy, he wished to market everything under his own label.

Posted
13 minutes ago, Tom Geiger said:

Yes, Dave paid to have the chrome shot reverse engineered from an NOS parts tree he supplied to them.  I believe there was also something to do with redoing the wheels to accept available tires too.  Part of his deal with Tomy was that he had the rights to issue each kit for a year,  then they could do as they wished after that.

The deal he had was with Tomy, a toy manufacturer who had no knowledge of the market. They welcomed his business since he paid for the runs he did, with zero risk on their part.  Once Tom Lowe purchased the whole thing from Tomy, he wished to market everything under his own label.

Dave'/Model King dealings went back before Tomy buy out to the RC2 era. I helped on many of the reissues that Model King did. RC2 was great to work with as was the vendor in China that ran the kits and cloned tooling. When we reissued the Monte Carlo NASCAR kit the body was trash and the tooling had been disassembled and was a mess. I sent a mint body to China for them to clone. It was a good era. 

Tom Lowe LEASED AMT from Tomy as it is true they had no idea what to do with it. He had his own plans and ended up buying the plastic division. 

This is not a slam of current owners R2 as they have a different business model. Truth is we still offer input on kits and they listen to us. And I've gotten to work on a few of the R2 kits too. Just again a different era. The Imperial is an example. 

For such a small hobby we have it pretty good. 

Posted
On 10/10/2018 at 8:57 PM, Dave Van said:

Dave'/Model King dealings went back before Tomy buy out to the RC2 era.

True!  I've lost track of the ownership of AMT through the succession of owners, but Dave's first kit was the '63 Chevy Impala, and the box was black and white with line drawings on it.  

Posted (edited)

The roof is pretty obviously different, and there's no spare tire on the rear.  Also, on stock Imperials, it wasn't a real tire.

The car in the photo is a modified 4 door hardtop, where the resin body is a sedan.

Edited by Richard Bartrop
Posted

OK...I can see the difference.......So a 4 door Imperial had two different models?? Just trying to figure out a car I don't know much about. thx

Posted

If you want to do something unusual with that Imperial, how about a 2-door station wagon?  At least one was built in 1958, pic below.  For some reason, 2-door wagons were pretty popular in the late Fifties.  Mercury built the 2-door Commuter wagon for '59, and as everybody knows, Chevy also had one.

But an Imperial?  A luxo-barge of a wagon with only 2 doors?  That has to be one of the most impractical cars ever built.  One use I can think of is a Technical Support vehicle for remote road tests.  A couple of engineers in the front seat, the back seat folded down and the "wayback" full of road-test equipment (like that stuff in the last '65 Grand Prix re-issue.)

At a kit swap meet a few years ago, I found a resin kit of a '58 Imperial 2-door wagon.  It's pretty basic, with no chromed parts and a vac-formed windshield.  But it was cheap and weird, so I picked it up.  At another meet I found a resin kit of a '59 Mercury Commuter wagon. 

 

imp_wagon.jpg

Posted
30 minutes ago, Paul Hettick said:

more pics

Maybe you could start a new topic in the Aftermarket section like you did for the '66 Country Squire, and keep all the pics together from start to finish?

Posted
5 hours ago, RancheroSteve said:

Judging from the box art, this (and the other set) is based on the Fujimi tooling, right?

Nope, not even a little bit.  Not to say they didn't crib the idea, but aside from the lack of an actual garage part and the part where's it's the wrong scale, the AMT stuff is clearly MURICA 1960s (I believe the Rigid calendar says 1968 on it)vibe.  Whereas the Fujimi Tools & Garage is more late 1980s, and also includes an actual car lift.  I suspect Fujimi would also realize that a set of sawhorses are useless if they're knee high like the ones included in the other box of bits.

Posted
7 hours ago, RancheroSteve said:

Judging from the box art, this (and the other set) is based on the Fujimi tooling, right?

It's new tooling; basically a re-creation of the Aurora Racing Scenes accessories in a smaller scale.   

Posted
1 hour ago, pack rat said:

It's new tooling; basically a re-creation of the Aurora Racing Scenes accessories in a smaller scale.   

Looks like both guys got new 'dos, too.

AMTPP016M-12-Garage-Accessory-Set-1-side

 

FCpainters.jpg

Posted
1 hour ago, Casey said:

Looks like both guys got new 'dos, too.

AMTPP016M-12-Garage-Accessory-Set-1-side

 

FCpainters.jpg

Love the "Burt Reynolds" 'stache :lol:!  Any idea when these are coming?

Posted
2 hours ago, Casey said:

Looks like both guys got new 'dos, too.

AMTPP016M-12-Garage-Accessory-Set-1-side

 

FCpainters.jpg

For some reason, those guys just started playing War's "Lowrider" in my head. :lol:

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