Testors reissues of Johan kits

[bobthehobbyguy]

In 1998 and 2006 Testors did reissues of the Johan Comet, Barracuda, and the AMX. (From the Directory of Model Car kits 8th edition)

Since it has been often stated the the Johan tooling was not compatible with the standard model injection machines. How was it possible for Testors to produce those kits?

[Rob Hall]

No idea..wonder if they were new old stock kits that Testors added new boxes and those ugly metal wheels to..I thought the actual Johan/Seville/X-El manufacturing entity was gone well before 1998...

[Dave Van]

Testors leased the tooling. Okey Spalding has the AMX promo tolling still, or did when I did some decal work for him. 

I'd like to know where the 59 Rambler wagon and Turbine tooling ended up. Both were in good condition when last seen. 

[bobthehobbyguy]

So how was Testors able to produce those kits if the tooling wasn't compatible with model injection machines?

[Mark]

One of the kits that I have, box side panel info includes "manufactured for Testors by SeVille Enterprises".  Like the earlier AMT-boxed Jo-Han kits, the Testors ones were manufactured at the Jo-Han facility.

Testors never manufactured kits, they bought bagged kits from other companies and added their own decals and instruction sheets.

[Rob Hall]

Interesting...when did the Jo-han facility cease to be?  Apparently later than I thought..

[Mark]

I don't think Testors had any of those Jo-Han kits in 2006.  That directory has a bunch of errors in it (not unexpected for such an ambitious project) and that's one of them.

SeVille shut down Jo-Han around 1999.  The building was even gone by 2006.  I went through Detroit in '06, was going to check out the area but I kind of stuck out in that neighborhood...

[bobthehobbyguy]

I'm surprised that the directory was wrong. It makes sense that Seville did the release in 1999 but the mention of the 2006 reissue through me. Could that have been unsold stock that Testors had? However that seems to be a long time to hold on to old stock.

Thanks to all for providing some answers and hopefully more about this can be clarified.

[Mark]

Wasn't Okey selling police cars, 442s, and a handful of pro stock Comet kits around 2006?  Those weren't new production, just pieced together from stock.  All of those were in Jo-Han boxes.

[Force]

The Testors HSO kits with the metal wheels and photo etch were issued in 1998-99 if you go by the date on the instructions wich is the only date on these kits, the Scalemates timeline for these kits are not correct as I believe these HSO series kits came about the same time as they have subsequent numbers, 7401 for the Olds 442, 7402 for the Plymouth 'Cuda, 7403 for the AMX and 7404 for the Rambler S/C, I have a few of them in my stash.
As far as I know Testors did not mold any kits themselves so they had kits molded for them from other manyfacturers or reboxed bagged kits from others like Italeri, Lindberg, Jo-Han and others.
One thing I know is that the AMX, Mercury Comet, Plymouth 'Cuda, Olds 442 and Rambler S/C tooling is missing after the last Testors issues and Testors was to issue another batch of these kits but it never happened due to that, who did the earlier issues for Testors I don't know...if it was left over stock from Jo-Han or if anyone else did the molding for them, if it was another company one would think the molds would still be there.

Edited October 14, 2023 by Force

[Don Sikora II]

19 hours ago, Mark said:

Wasn't Okey selling police cars, 442s, and a handful of pro stock Comet kits around 2006?  Those weren't new production, just pieced together from stock.  All of those were in Jo-Han boxes.

I think Okey was selling that old stock much earlier, possibly 2000 or thereabouts. The Rambler wagon and snap Turbine car were about the same time, and this was well before 2006.

After the Seville liquidation, I bought two inexpensive cases of the Pro Street Rambler kits from a seller on eBay. If I remember correctly that was in 1998 or '99.

[Mark]

I too bought a carton of the Rambler kits...as I remember the total came to under $40, on my doorstep.  Sold three or four a couple of years later for about $20 apiece, leaving eight free Rambler kits.

[bobthehobbyguy]

Again thanks to all for providing info.

It makes sense that Seville supplied the kits to Testors and since Seville went out of business around 2000 that there were no more kits produced after that.