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Posted

At one time, I had a ton of these things, and you couldn't give 'em away! I found an article in an old Petersen "Drag Racing" magazine of a Super Comp Corvette FC called "da Big Kahuna" (that wasn't all that was big, in the article, either!?). I thought "Man, that old Firefighter Corvette would be an excellent starting point for this car! I wish I still had one. Guess I'll look around. How much could they be?" I found one at $80, and the rest of them are around $120! Yikes!

Posted

On eBay?   If yes, then the asking prices have nothing to do with "real" prices.   To get more realistic numbers you would have to look for the competed auction prices.

Posted

The completed sales probably aren't far off from those prices.  Those kits haven't been reissued, haven't been out since the late Eighties, and a couple of them might not be reissued as the bodies were altered to fit monster truck tires on the rear.  The Dodge "024 Charger" bodied cars were going for stupid money even several years ago.

  • Like 1
Posted
4 hours ago, peteski said:

On eBay?   If yes, then the asking prices have nothing to do with "real" prices.   To get more realistic numbers you would have to look for the competed auction prices.

I understand that. I didn't find any at auction, only at set prices. $120. Model Roundup has one for abut $80. I think a lot of it's because they haven't been reissued since they did the "monster " version with giant tractor tires. There just isn't a ton of them around, anymore.

 

2 hours ago, Mark said:

The completed sales probably aren't far off from those prices.  Those kits haven't been reissued, haven't been out since the late Eighties, and a couple of them might not be reissued as the bodies were altered to fit monster truck tires on the rear.  The Dodge "024 Charger" bodied cars were going for stupid money even several years ago.

Yes, they did butcher the rear wheel openings, for sure. In the early-mid '80sm those kits were everywhere! Corvettes, Firebirds--I'd forgotten the Omnis.

Posted

From what I see, if any kit has been out of production for longer than 10 minutes, Ebay prices go through the roof. Many times, their prices are absurd even when the kits are currently IN production. 

Like Barrett-Jackson, Ebay is usually not a good place for bargains anymore. Sellers have the idea that anything they have is valuable and that any buy-it-now price they put is an easy sale.

I must be one of the few that adds the costs of fees and shipping to the total price of what they're selling. So I don't buy from there much.

I still find deals at kit shows and swap meets and at antique stores and garage sales, so prices for those old kits aren't "etched in stone". You just have to look in other places besides the easy spots.

BTW, I have a Firebird funny car body, I just don't build cars like that, so I don't see $50-$80 for it. I'm sure there are other builders who place a realistic  value based on their interest in it and not what Ebay says it's worth.

Posted (edited)

Many of the eBay listings are sellers fishing.  They'll have the same items, listed and relisted, I have seen some that were listed continuously for nearly two years.  With 1:1 cars, it will be listed and relisted a few times, drop off, then resurface a few months later at the same bloated asking price or reserve.

eBay neglected, alienated, and drove away the people who built them up, trying to become another Amazon.  Listings are way, way down, so give out free/cheap listings and endless relistings to prop up the numbers.  Widen search parameters to make it look like there are more items than there really are, to try to keep people "in the store" longer, in hopes they'll buy something.  I can't remember the last time I actually bid on an item...now it's just find the lowest Buy It Now deal on a given item...

Edited by Mark
Spelling
Posted

Thankfully that was only done to the late Seventies 'Vette and Firebird bodies.

Those funny cars probably didn't set the world on fire sales-wise because they were fictional cars and didn't include markings for actual cars from the era.  So the "monster" versions were just a way to wring a few more sales out of them.  Besides fixing the body butchery, you'd have to track down slicks and rear wheels to fix them.  I believe the front ends were raised a bit by installing the front axle upside down.

  • Confused 1
Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, Vintage AMT said:

That is just horrible............*

MPC-6477-2.jpg.e5f010aa64b0f114d107c4d2fc8b3afe.jpg

Whoa! I’m sorry, but I too find the above horribly ugly. No offense meant to anybody who likes it. 

Edited by unclescott58
Posted
2 hours ago, Vintage AMT said:

That is just horrible............*

MPC-6477-2.jpg.e5f010aa64b0f114d107c4d2fc8b3afe.jpg

By the way, how does a “Monster Funny Car” even work? It’s neither fish nor fowl. “Super Dirt-Racing Funny Car”? Is there such a thing in real life? I’ve never heard of it. It makes no sense. 

Posted
3 hours ago, Mark said:

Those funny cars probably didn't set the world on fire sales-wise because they were fictional cars and didn't include markings for actual cars from the era.

I suspect that is the case. The bodies are pretty nice renditions of those they represent. That wouldn't be a surprise, given that Tom West was at MPC at the time they were introduced (If I remember correctly).

Posted
1 hour ago, unclescott58 said:

By the way, how does a “Monster Funny Car” even work? It’s neither fish nor fowl. “Super Dirt-Racing Funny Car”? Is there such a thing in real life? I’ve never heard of it. It makes no sense. 

How it works, is you latch onto the latest fad, modify an existing item to take advantage of it, and sell a few of them and make some money.

If you examine enough annual kits, you'll see drag versions that don't resemble anything you'd see on a drag strip.  Not much different from this, really...

 

  • Like 1
Posted
1 hour ago, Straightliner59 said:

I suspect that is the case. The bodies are pretty nice renditions of those they represent. That wouldn't be a surprise, given that Tom West was at MPC at the time they were introduced (If I remember correctly).

Yes, Tom told me on how they where supposed to be based on real cars, i.e. the Corvette was supposed to be the Tom McEwen Coors car, and so on, but MPC didn't want to pay too much for the license, so they became generic cars, and according to him, they sold pretty good 

Posted

MPC wouldn't get licensing to do these as actual cars, but they later got licensing for several NASCAR cars and put the decals into those awful kits they did, with the cut-down generic chassis from their Seventies kits and different front clips on a Buick Regal body.  All of the sponsors were various brands of tobacco, too, before people got their undies in a bunch over things like that.

Just in time to run smack into (or get run over by) the first group of Monogram NASCAR kits...

Posted
1 hour ago, Daddyfink said:

Yes, Tom told me on how they where supposed to be based on real cars, i.e. the Corvette was supposed to be the Tom McEwen Coors car, and so on, but MPC didn't want to pay too much for the license, so they became generic cars, and according to him, they sold pretty good 

That Corvette FC is one of those kits, like the Monogram Slingshot--it's as recognizable as McEwen's car, as the Slingshot is the Cook and Bedwell dragster. Every drag car modeler I knew/know had multiples of them. Of course, we're a small segment of the hobby.

Posted

It certainly couldn’t hurt them to pop out some Omni’s and see how they do. Perhaps the changes to the Corvette and Firebird bodies are pretty easily fixed. Those were nice bodies before the Monster Treatment. I would like to see these come back! 

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