Met my first Palmer kit today.....

[Fat Brian]

I don't understand how anyone could look at something like that Corvette and go "Yep, we nailed it boys. Time to fire up the molding machine!" Doing nothing would have been better than what was actually accomplished. 

Edited March 17, 2020 by Fat Brian

[c. jackson]

ah yes.....the 67 thunderbird that made my mouth drop as a kid. i couldnt believe how awful it was. someone actually built a 64 galaxie recently that looked halfway decent.

[bisc63]

There is some really nice box art on these old kits, at least some. What a let-down when you open the box. I love that they use a micrometer for the letter "P" in Palmer. The only one who was vaguely familiar with a mic there had to be the guy that drew the logo.

OP, can you show the contents of that "Charger" kit? I'm crazy curious now...

[vamach1]

Another fabulous Palmer kit.  This one isn't horrible like those really cheap ones but the front end and grille is pretty awful.  So, what to do with it?  Well - you can see what I came up with as trying to make something worthy of being put next to an AMT or MPC kit from that era would have been tough.

Edited March 18, 2020 by vamach1

[64Comet404]

5 hours ago, Fat Brian said:

I don't understand how anyone could look at something like that Corvette and go "Yep, we nailed it boys. Time to fire up the molding machine!" Doing nothing would have been better than what was actually accomplished. 

The only Corvettes I remember seeing that resembled a Palmer kit were found on those old amusement park kiddie kar rides.  

[John1955]

19 hours ago, Snake45 said:

The Corvette's actually not too far off in size. SHAPE, however, is another story. 

Actually, as your pic shows, it was far off size. And their Ford Galaxie and all other kits shared the exact same chassis, tires and wheels. A store here sold them at half retail, that's the only reason we kids bought them, 49 cents. A few times, they were even less that price. Meanwhile, Jo-Han was making completely accurate kits that retailed for almost the same price. 

[John1955]

5 hours ago, 64Comet404 said:

The only Corvettes I remember seeing that resembled a Palmer kit were found on those old amusement park kiddie kar rides.  

Good point 

[Snake45]

4 hours ago, John1955 said:

Actually, as your pic shows, it was far off size. 

It's actually very close on length and width, not "far off." It is taller, and of course bloated looking. 

[JollySipper]

10 hours ago, bisc63 said:

OP, can you show the contents of that "Charger" kit? I'm crazy curious now...

Okay, but prepare yourself....

Here it is mocked up, kinda sad really....

I'll give them that the stickers are pretty cool that came with it, but when they stamped them with the cutter, it ruined them!

[John Goschke]

As a kid who had visions of perfectly built Johan and AMT kits in my head, Palmers were the bane of my existence.  This photo from Xmas, 1960, reveals my "joy" on receiving my first Palmer ("Gee, uh, thanks Gramma...), a '60 Olds ragtop, as I recall...

 

[vamach1]

Great old Christmas picture.  I cannot remember buying any "new" PSM kits but I did one across this 70 Boss maybe 15 years ago and the box for an original AMT 69 Mach1.  Suffice it to say the Boss does not really have a Boss engine if compared to say the 1/25 Cougar kit that has a very good 1/25 Boss 302.  As for those old PSM kits, they are good for junkyard dioramas and that's about it.

[bisc63]

Wow. That Charger looks even worse than I expected. I expected very little.

[John1955]

14 hours ago, John Goschke said:

As a kid who had visions of perfectly built Johan and AMT kits in my head, Palmers were the bane of my existence.  This photo from Xmas, 1960, reveals my "joy" on receiving my first Palmer ("Gee, uh, thanks Gramma...), a '60 Olds ragtop, as I recall...

 

I hear ya and I share the pain. Adults who didn't know the hobby didn't realize how bad those Palmer kits were. I was fortunate enough to know my maternal grandparents and my paternal grandma when I was a kid, and they knew we boys loved building model cars, so they often bought us Palmer kits for Christmas and birthdays because they lived in a rural area with no big stores and the tiny store there sold Palmer kits. 

We always smiled (fake smiles) and thanked them, it would have been unkind not to. They never found out that we built them and then blew them up with firecrackers. We never wasted good spray paint on them, and would brush paint them using leftover paint my parents had in the basement (water based usually, wall paint). I am so glad this thread was started, because although I hated Palmer kits, it has brought back so many great memories from my childhood. 

[robdebie]

Seeing how far off these models are, I would guess they were mastered in the Far East, where no-one knew these cars for real. We're now seeing the same thing with many Trumpeter models (aircraft mainly) that have lots of shape problems.

Rob

 

[peteski]

56 minutes ago, robdebie said:

Seeing how far off these models are, I would guess they were mastered in the Far East, where no-one knew these cars for real. We're now seeing the same thing with many Trumpeter models (aircraft mainly) that have lots of shape problems.

Rob

 

I doubt it.  Back when these kits were made, they were designed and produced in the good ol' USA.

[Tom Geiger]

I have a recurring nightmare that there’s a warehouse somewhere in Brooklyn where someone finds the Palmer tooling and reissues this stuff!

[64Comet404]

25 minutes ago, Tom Geiger said:

I have a recurring nightmare that there’s a warehouse somewhere in Brooklyn where someone finds the Palmer tooling and reissues this stuff!

Lindbergh re-popped a bunch of the ‘70s Palmer stuff back in the mid 1980’s, so it is probably somewhere in the Round 2 tooling shed. John G., if you find any of it, back away slowly, and call in the scrap metal dealer to ‘handle it’.

[Motor City]

2 hours ago, Tom Geiger said:

I have a recurring nightmare that there’s a warehouse somewhere in Brooklyn where someone finds the Palmer tooling and reissues this stuff!

Maybe Okey Spalding will do something with it.  ?

[JollySipper]

It's kind of a disappointment that Palmer felt the need to mold a Volvo P1800, that probably means noone else will kit one......... I bet it would sell........

[Impalow]

10 minutes ago, JollySipper said:

It's kind of a disappointment that Palmer felt the need to mold a Volvo P1800, that probably means noone else will kit one......... I bet it would sell........

wait really?    how bad is it?   I would love one of those.

[JollySipper]

Here's a pic I found online of it.... It's not So bad, but probably still the same funky kit design with the interior molded to the top of the body....

Here's a resin body to compare it to....

 

[ewetwo]

I have 2. LOL

 

 

[slusher]

I never owned one as a kid.  Kind of glad now...

[stavanzer]

Man, This makes me want some PSM kits. That Charger is so Awful, that it is good, in a way. I missed out on Palmer kits. I was born in '63, so my model building really took off about 1975 or so. By then, Palmers were not on the Radar.  I do remember Lindberg (ugh), Hawk, Testors, Revell, and Airfix, but the Number one brand (at least where I was in Central California) was Monogram. Back then, the Tom Daniels kits and the great line of 1/48 scale WW2 planes, from Zero to B-17 were the Holy Grail. Revell, was a poor second place, as many of the Revell kits were flimsy, hard to build things.

The Airfix Blister Pack 1/72 Planes were cool and exotic, foreign kits. Always welcomed. Even then, though, by about 1978 or so, I could tell which Airfix planes were old tools and which were newer. The WW1 Sopwith Camel was a turd, while the Avro 504K and Hanover CL Two Seater were new, and beautifully molded (for the time) kits. I found later that the Camel had been tool many, many years before the other two.

When the "Crazy" dies down, I might start chasing some Palmer kits on the 'Bay.

[ewetwo]

If you think the Palmers are bad. Look at some of the Premier kits. They make the palmers look great. LOL. And I don't know the brand of the 4 pictured but notice the yellow and black  one might be a Metropolitan.