Cobra Daytona Coupe in plastic.

[Steve D.]

Attending the Masscar show yesterday I had an interesting conversation with some one who will remain nameless at this time . But the word is that Accurate Miniatures is currently working on kits of the Daytona Coupe and a roadster that will share the chassis . The kits are supposed to be on par with thier Grand Sports kits and be fully detailed to the max.

Now I don't know about you , but the Daytona Coupe along with a couple of Chapparals are very high on my personal wish list .

Three weeks ago I scored a Gunze Sangyo Daytona Coupe on E-pay for

$ 85 after trying for over a year . (I set my limit at $100 including shipping) And finally I somehow won one while no one was looking !

After going through the kit , it truly is impressive FOR A CURBSIDE KIT , But it is just that , a curbside .

Now I see Scale Motor works has released a curbside kit also WHY ?

At over $150 I cant see how they can justify that price , I mean if they had improved the Gunze kit with full detail or something I might show a little interest , but come on $150 !!! And like I said , I'm not sure if it's even as good as the Gunze kit , never mind better .

I'll build my Gunze kit and paitently wait for Accurate Miniatures Release , And , YES I HAVE it from a good source .

Take care and see you around the clubhouse ,

Steve D.

[Darin Bastedo]

put me down for at least a case of each.

[Billy Kingsley]

After looking over the A-M Corvette Grand Sport I bought from you Steve, if that is indeed true, which I'm guessing I can guess the source, which would lead me to believe it IS, that will be a good thing for that segment of the hobby...

Great to meet you Steve!!

[LDO]

Was it the guy from SA forums who wanted us to e-mail Shelby to make this happen? But seriously, I hope it does happen and I hope it's a good seller. I'll buy a couple...even after telling the guy at SA that he's daydreaming.

[lordairgtar]

Me want, me want!!!!

[Zoom Zoom]

That's a good story. I also thought they were doing great things when I talked w/them a few years ago, but at this point I'm ready to see product, and not hear any more rumors or stories. I'll believe it when I see it. We've waited years now for AM's 289 Cobras and Corvette Grand Sport roadster, where are they? I'm skeptical, at best.

[MonoPed]

...I'll believe it when I see it. We've waited years now for AM's 289 Cobras and Corvette Grand Sport roadster, where are they? I'm skeptical, at best.

My thoughts, exactly!! When the Cobra roadsters were announced, I was finally fired up over a new kit...now I don't believe any announcement untill I see it...

[Zoom Zoom]

My thoughts, exactly!! When the Cobra roadsters were announced, I was finally fired up over a new kit...now I don't believe any announcement untill I see it...

No kidding, I'm over model companies getting people's hopes up by announcing stuff that never sees the light of day. They created the monster that makes people not believe anything unless they see a test shot. Until then, it's all hot air.

[Peter Lombardo]

Stay with me on this story, I do have a reason for the intro...A number of years ago, I purchased the Daytona kit by Gunze Sangyo. I would open it from time to time and look over the kits parts and wonder why they chose to leave the engine out. One day I thought to myself what the heck, and opened up the hood, planning to drop an AMT 289 block in it. Shortly after that I heard that Historic Racing Miniatures, connected to Replicas and miniatures of maryland, was producing a resin kit of the Daytona. I contacted HRM, who sold me just the parts I need to finish off the engine and engine compartment. As I recall, it was a very reasonable charge for the items. As for Accurate Miniatures, I have had a number of email converations with Bob, from AM, who has explained the problems they are experiencing in producing model kits. We, as builders just assume its, wham bam thank you mam, and there is another kit on the market. I have copied one of Bob's emails to me so you can get a flavor of the problem they have. This conversation was from about 3 months ago. I was looking for some decals for a Grand Sport Corvette, which I found from another aftermarket supplier. I was also asking about the roadster and 289 Cobra, and any other projects AM may have been working on. Bob, was telling me in another email that he thought that the hobby was changing and held up the curbside Tamiya models and the lack of detail on the new Revell 2006 Corvette C6R as examples of the trend to less detail and lower cost. We wondered to each other why Revell put lots of detail in the street, C6 and the Zo6, but chose to limit detail on the race car. Here's the email.

Peter.. we have no decals for the 5000 and 5001 kits.. those pieces became

ancient memories years ago... I have the Corvette GS Roadster done.. have

to find $72K to tool the parts.. I have the reserach done for the 289 Cobra

and the body drawing is complete.. my thinking is changing on this

from a Corvette / Mclaren complxity kit at $40 to a less complex item

with good detail but fewer parts for $20 to $25... just in the thinking stage

at this point.. that wuill lower the tooling to $100K - $150K range..

tell me exactly what pieces you need.

Bob

You can see, cost and a need to find the necessary financing are driving the hold up of the models we are interested in. I hope this helped.

[jbwelda]

i think we are all aware that it costs x dollars to tool up a new release and "x" is a pretty high figure in most cases.

my problem is, though, that these things are somehow preannounced (maybe in this case just rumoured but in many other cases officially announced) and THEN you find out that oh yeah all we need is a quarter million dollars to get them out to you!

let me just state right here: all i need to be a millionaire is about 999,000 dollars!

so the point is, maybe there shouldnt be announcements made until the necessary (and known in advance for sure!) financing has been arranged. personally ive watched exoto (you know that d**c**t company of some repute) "announce" birdcage maseratis, chaparrels (yes theyve done some but promised more) and many other "forthcoming" products and then guess what? they dont show up! whats the point of that?

anyway i hope this cobra sees the market because i would buy at least a couple of each, but i only believe things when they show up on my hobby shop shelf.

[MrObsessive]

Yeah, I have pretty much the same thought as the other guys here. I won't get my hopes up until I see a test shot or better yet..............see it on the shelves ready to buy.

I have both the Gunze Cobra Daytona Coupe as well as the full detailed resin kit from HRM, so I'm not exactly hurtin' to have a new plastic kit at the moment. :wink:

[Peter Lombardo]

Please don't get the wrong idea here. I am not defending AM in this situation. I just thought that the company's attitude was important to bring to light here since I had direct correspondence with AM that spoke to the issue here. I was very frustrated waiting for the McLaren Cam Am to finally come out. I thought it would never come. I agree that the manufacturers have a responsiblity to us, the customers, to not unnecessarily get our hopes up. I do believe they have honorable intentions, but the "little" guy's, have problems with costs to income relationships that must be dealt with. AMT and Revell, seem to have cashflow that allows R & D. I, for one, would not want to see the little guy knocked out of the marketplace. They tend to bring the more interesting subjects to market. My biggest compliant is that the 1/43 scale manufacturers always bring great race car subjects to market, and the 1/24-1/25 guy's do great street cars, but only marginal race subjects.

[MrObsessive]

My biggest compliant is that the 1/43 scale manufacturers always bring great race car subjects to market, and the 1/24-1/25 guy's do great street cars, but only marginal race subjects.

Sad, but true. I'm still waiting for someone to do a full detail plastic kit of one of my favorite '50's racers.......the Ferrari 250 Testarossa with the pontoon fenders. Instead I have to shell out $200+ for a resin kit by Hiro.

In 1:43, you're practically tripping over all kinds of neat racing subjects that will probably never make it to plastic.

[Zoom Zoom]

Sad, but true. I'm still waiting for someone to do a full detail plastic kit of one of my favorite '50's racers.......the Ferrari 250 Testarossa with the pontoon fenders. Instead I have to shell out $200+ for a resin kit by Hiro.

In 1:43, you're practically tripping over all kinds of neat racing subjects that will probably never make it to plastic.

Fujimi may be our saving grace; they're doing a lot of Ferraris these days, from modern cars such as the Fiorano, Superamerica, F430, and vintage stuff such as the Boxers. They have just announced they're going to do Gilles Villeneuve's Ferrari 126C2 in 1/20 scale. Here's hoping/dreaming that the Testa Rossa, Lusso, and perhaps other vintage Ferraris might be in their future pipeline-I think they're finding the Ferrari license to be worth it, as they're bringing more and more of them out. And if they say they're going to do it, it won't be 3 years of nada while we twiddle our thumbs waiting for...nada :wink:

[Steve D.]

Looking at my stash of unbuilt kit's , that ought to give me just about enough time , to clear out space , for these future releases . And yes El Camino Billy , I belive you do know the source .

As for companies planning on future releases , all we can do is wish and hope for the best . I'd rather hear some of the positive news once in a while , instead of all the doom and gloom from the like's of Lindberg and AMT .

Take care and see you around the clubhouse

Steve D.

[jbwelda]

if fujimi is doing ferraris then i hope they do maseratis as well. modern ones and vintage ones. reason i bring this up is that if you look at cmc's ad for their (fantastic by the way) birdcage, they license the name maserati through ferrari so they must own that license and hence if fujimi is under contract to use the ferrari name maybe they have implied rights to maseratis as well.

speaking of which there is some killer maser around my neighborhood, dont know the model but its very recent and you can hear it about 10 blocks away...and its got a quiet exhaust system.

[lumpulus]

What gets released these days is what's popular. end of story.

All the garage kit makers churn out Ferrari variants like there's no tomorrow, but if you are sick of prancing horses, there's not alot out there.

Most Gunze Hi Tech kits so overpriced it's ridiculous. With the exception of the Jag, they just aren't worth it, imho.

[935k3]

.according to the new catalogue, Academy is bringing us a new tool Cobra Daytona Coupe this year. You can flip through the catalogue here:

http://www.academy-europe.de/divhtm/katalog.htm

This was posted at another Forum. I hope it's for real.

[Tom Jackson]

Oh I hope so .

[Len Woodruff]

It doesn't look to me to be the 64/65 Pete Brock designed Cobra Daytona's. What it looks like is the street version manufactured by the company in South Africa. It will probably have a Ford Motorsports engine and different wheels. Here is a picture of the car.

Edited January 31, 2010 by Len Woodruff

[Zoom Zoom]

It doesn't look to me to be the 64/65 Pete Brock designed Cobra Daytona's. What it looks like is the street version manufactured by the company in South Africa. It will probably have a Ford Motorsports engine and different wheels. Here is a picture of the car.

Pete Brock certainly did design the Superformance Coupe that I think is in that photo (he designed the originals as well). Without the limitations of the original car, the new one has much better proportions. Pete prefers the new car, so do I...and to be perfectly honest, I'd rather have the Superformance Coupe vs. a vintage Daytona coupe...since I already have an expensive resin kit

Either way, good news...I think.

Academy...what a weird company to do the Cobra Daytona...time will tell if it's a decent kit or not.

[bigphoto]

One of the bad things about the originals is that some of the dimensions were off from the first two

as "Luigi and Guido" misinterpreted the blue prints so the last 4 weren't exactly like the first two,

story has it that the first two were the same the second two were identical to each other and the last

two were identical to each other and the there was the John Wilment coupe also.

Just some food for thought

[gbdolfans]

when I went to the link,all it had was aircraft.When I got to the last page of a/c.,it caused my Firefox to crash.

Thanks

[MonoPed]

No way! Superformance Coupe or not, it's cool. After the Accurate Miniatures stunt with the 289 Cobras, I'm not exactly holding my breath though...

[Chuck Kourouklis]

Well I love Academy's birds, and I don't think they're that notorious for announcing projects and pulling them back. A legitimate, somewhat mainstream Daytona kit - original or Superformance - would be most welcome to me.

Based on their aircraft, I'd anticipate something at least on the order of the Accurate Miniatures GS Corvettes (with 15 years of progress in tooling refinement). Time will tell...