AMT Mopower Funny Car coming November

[Dragline]

Been a while since I've been here but I was just perusing Modelroundup and noticed the old AMT Mopower AA/FC was on the coming soon page. With a Donovan and unique chassis I would say this is a long awaited kit.

Thoughts?

[Mark]

The mid-Seventies chassis with the Donovan engine was used in a few other AMT funny cars: Mustang II, Monza, Pinto, Vega panel (different from the stock length one issued from '71-'77), and Corvette.

[Mr mopar]

It has the worst body I have ever seen ,the Nitro Charger would have been a better choice. 

[tim boyd]

3 hours ago, Mr mopar said:

It has the worst body I have ever seen ,the Nitro Charger would have been a better choice. 

I agree that the Nitro Charger would be a great choice for a reissue, but it is an entirely different tool than the one used for the MoPower and its derivatives as mentioned by Mark above. 

The Nitro Charger (and two other kits - with 1970 Torino and 1972 Nova bodies - that shared used the engine/chassis tool) were never reissued after their 1971-2 initial production run. 

The final kit using that engine/chassis tooling was the Funny Hugger II, and that alone was reissued around 2005-sh under the Model King label.   To what extent the Nitro Charger even exists in the Round 2 tooling bank is not known outside the walls of Round 2 to the best of my knowledge.  

Here are two pictures that clearly show the differences between the MoPower and Nitro Charger tools...(both models are slightly kitbashed fyi...)  TB

 

 

Edited October 8, 2024 by tim boyd

[Mark]

I never had either of the Mopar body kits mentioned; the Charger looked odd to my eyes.  The Mopower '73-'74 body is something nobody ever ran on a 1:1 funny car, but (to me, anyway) it looks like one would have looked had someone used that body.

[magicmustang]

1 hour ago, Mark said:

The Mopower '73-'74 body is something nobody ever ran on a 1:1 funny car, but (to me, anyway) it looks like one would have looked had someone used that body.

Shirley Muldowney did (at least MPC said she did).  MPC had a kit for one back in the '70s. Have one in my stash.

Edited October 9, 2024 by magicmustang

[Mark]

The actual car used a '71-'72 style body.  When the kits were in the ballpark, MPC retouched photos of the real car for the box art: changing wheels, moving the hood scoop or adding windshield wipers to a Pro Stocker, and so on.  When they used an illustration instead of starting with a photo, the kit was WAY off.

 

[Racephoto1]

The body may be off, but it may be a good starting point to do Alcholic. The body on that car was "off" a lot too.

[Daddyfink]

17 hours ago, magicmustang said:

Shirley Muldowney did (at least MPC said she did).  MPC had a kit for one back in the '70s. Have one in my stash.

The nose is the biggest downfall to this kit, if it would have had the earlier nose, it would have been closer to the real deal. 

[tim boyd]

32 minutes ago, Racephoto1 said:

The body may be off, but it may be a good starting point to do Alcholic. The body on that car was "off" a lot too.

Other than the original Mustang II kit which was a replica of a real car, pretty much all the bodies in this series were intentionally exaggerated and manipulated as part of the design brief, with the Corvette body being the most extreme example.   Another words, they appeared as they were intended to, according to my sources within AMT at the time.  TB 

[Sledsel]

I'm in for a few

 

[Mark]

48 minutes ago, tim boyd said:

Other than the original Mustang II kit which was a replica of a real car, pretty much all the bodies in this series were intentionally exaggerated and manipulated as part of the design brief, with the Corvette body being the most extreme example.   Another words, they appeared as they were intended to, according to my sources within AMT at the time.  TB 

The Mustang II was issued as the Larry Fullerton Trojan Horse, but the first issue of it was the fictitious "Champ".  I've got a sell sheet for the first issue but it is lettered "Stampede".  Apparently Monogram snuck their 1/32 scale snap Mustang II funny car out first with the "Stampede" name on it, so AMT changed theirs.  Not long after it appeared, the Trojan Horse was issued so there aren't many "Champ" Mustang II kits out there.

[A modeler named mike]

On 10/9/2024 at 4:12 PM, Sledsel said:

I'm in for a few

 

I'm gunning for at least one, I spotted a seller on ebay offering them now for $31.95 with a $10.03 shipping charge.. postage is a killer nowadays..