taken for granted old kit awareness/knowledge

[62rebel]

i was marooned at work today and had a lot of idle time to surf the 'net... i landed on a site that had a buttload of user reviews for kits, and read a LOT of them. some of them were very informative and helpful in making future buying decisions, and a lot of them i read to see what the reaction was to kits i know WELL.... i was astounded by the amount of negativity directed at kits we "old pharts" drool over in our apparently ancient and decrepit minds.... and by the realization that most of the reviewers were unaware that many of the kits had been around for DECADES.

sure, we put up with promo chassis pans and tub interiors to get desirable old cars; we put up with steel axles and holes through engine blocks. in those days, that was the way it was done, because the kit makers sold "coasters" and "friction" versions of these kits as well.

sure, we put up with MPC and JoHan often having laughable interpretations of engines that were nowhere NEAR accurate. we put up with Revell making incredibly fragile yet beautiful renditions of well known show cars.... we put up with sometimes hopelessly out-of-proportion Monogram kits.

"buy a different kit if you want an accurate version of THIS car" comes up almost every time the review hit on something based on Promo.... buy it from who? usually, only one or two makers did a promo and then a kit to follow it. if that version bites... well, it bites.

sure, in the past fifteen-twenty years, the surviving makers have stepped up their game and redone a major variety of old cars while issuing new ones never kitted before. that's fantastic, and it draws ever more people into a hobby that many people misunderstand. but the makers who answer us old guys and reissue old kits are keeping a part of model BUILDING alive...

so, don't diss that engine-less promo kit; get to work and detail it. are you a modeler or an assembler?

[Monte's Motors]

I'll agree with that.

Why not buy an old promo, we buy resin sometimes in those amounts of parts and are happy.

Having to buy all kinds of extra parts to finish them.

Respecting the old is great and understand that it is retired ways of building.

Edited August 28, 2011 by Monte's Motors

[jeffs396]

Agreed...I especially like mixing the old with the new. For example, the old MPC 1968 Impalas look great in proportions, but lack detail. The newer-tool 1967 Impala bashes NICELY with them, as does the R-M '65-66s. The '65 convertible is giving up quite a few parts for my '68 convertible promo (especially the separate plated windshield frame & uptop ) to replicate my 1:1

If these "naysayer" reviewers don't want the old "crappy" kits, send 'em my way

[Junkman]

You can't expect that every model kit reviewer has a thorough knowlege of the model kit history. And factually, they are correct. The kits matter of factly lack the detail and finesse that is expected nowadays.

Now for us nutters who are into those old kits, I do fully agree with what Jeff wrote. Many of those old kits capture the shape of the real car a lot better than the new ones do. The new ones may be correct, yes, but just cloning something in scale doesn't always look right to the eye, since the persepctive is different when looking at a model. I noticed this the first time, when a friend of mine put his 60 Ford annual next to my new tool 60 AMT Starliner. I now got me a resin body of the annual and want to combine it with the interior and underpinnings of the newer kit. The same goes for the 59 Chevy. I can't pinpoint what it is, but the Revellogram one just doesn't look right to me, whereas the old annual and the AMT El Camino do.

I'm more interested in shape and colour than detail anyway. I'd actually be happy with a curbside of every model I build. The body and trim must look right, not be right IMO. A lot of art must go into making models, not just cloning the real thing in a different size.

Edited August 28, 2011 by Junkman

[MikeMc]

My favorite part has to be the "lowered" rear axle in the 66 Nova kit...I would love to see that in 1:1

[62rebel]

that's where Art trumps Engineering. i'm sure that many kits that simply don't "look" right, do so because the tool maker followed blueprints too directly, and that those blueprints were also made by scaling down factory drawings without allowing for scale proportion changes. they're not "wrong", per se, they just don't look right.

i meant to add that i also looked at several galleries of the reviewer's work........ not to throw stones in glass houses, but some of them show little aptitude for going beyond trimming flash and spraying paint. i then had to consider the level of ability of the builders in reviewing THEIR reviews..... kind of like grading papers in school. i forget that everybody isn't on the same page, so to speak.

when i was early in the hobby, it was just as important to me that the wheels rolled as anything else, because in those days i still played with the darn things. a model that didn't roll was illogical to my young mind..... so, metal axles and rubber tires are sort of "ingrained" in my methodology, although it's mainly to get stable and flat chassis now than for rolling ability! i build up suspensions around those steel axles, and i can sand down rubber tires (rubber being a catch-all term)....

ahhhh, well. vent over. i have to go find out what a Yamaha outboard engine is supposed to look like.

[Aaronw]

I actually tend to prefer in box reviews for much of the same reason. In box reviews usually stick to the facts, objectively stating what is in the box. Many full build reviews tend to lose sight of the big picture and get very subjective. Maybe they get too close when building and their frustrartions come out in the write up, while an in box review tends to just let the sprue shots do most of the talking.

[bbowser]

... i landed on a site that had a buttload of user reviews for kits,

Out of curiosity, what was the site? Sounds like interesting reading.

[Art Anderson]

One of the biggest problems I see with those who review kits, be they on some website, in a magazine, even here on MCM Forums is a lack of knowledge about the particular kit under review! Surely, one important thing, particularly with model car kits, would be to ascertain "Is this kit a new tool, or is it a reissue of something first tooled and molded years, even decades ago?" Far too many ignore this basic step of finding out just what it is they are looking at.

That said, it seems to me that it's pretty hard to be totally objective with a kit review--we all have our prejudices, our likes and dislikes, and those will "color" anything we say or write about a particular model kit subject. We here are fortunate that Model Cars Magazine has a kit reviewer who's been around the block more than a few times, is in his 50's, and has acquired some knowledge as to the background of any reissued model car kit that crosses his desk.

One memory stands out here, from the introduction of the AMT/Ertl '58 Edsel Pacer HT about 12-13yrs ago: There was considerable comment on the old message boards of the time about how overly large the new kit seemed to be vis-a-vis the original 1958 release in the first year of AMT 3in1 kits. I decided to do a comparo, took my MIB AMT curbside 3in1 Customizing Kit off the shelf, laid it out next to the new AMT/Ertl kit. I was fortunate as well to have the actual dimensions of the real car in question--it took perhaps 15 minutes with calipers and calculator to find that BOTH model car bodies were the same length, width and height, and not only that, they were right on the money in that department with the REAL CAR! Not only that, both models very accurately represent the body of the actual car, so then, the only comparison would be in the engine compartment (real easy one--the original AMT kit had none!), the chassis (no brainer there) and the interior--the original kit of course came with a toy-like interior "tub", where the new kit had a full depth platform interior.

And, the latter comparison brings to mind something that younger persons critiquing an old kit generally fail to understand: Those old model kits represented the "state of the art" at the time they were done, as well as the "state" of the market (age range) they were aimed at. So, to judge an old, reissued tool by modern-day standards, without noting the "heritage" if you will, of that kit, is at best disingenuous.

Now, what about a model car subject tooled up by more than one company, with three decades intervening? Case in point, the AMT Trophy Series '59 El Camino vs the Revell '59 Impala. Now, both look very much like '59 Chevrolets, but there are differences, due to the difference in era's, and more importantly, the changes in the industry, and probably a fairly large generational gap between model kit pattern makers of 1963 and those around in 1993. So, necessarily, there would be differences in the interpretation of the two cars (even though they are different body styles, there is a surprisingly large amount of shared sheet metal panels between the two). Now, neither car kit had the benefit of modern technology--both kits were mastered in wood, in 1/10 scale, and then pantographed down to 1/25th scale in tooling. So much of what was done on each body shell was done by human hands, aided by human eyes, interpreted by human brains; so if there are differences, they come from from the uniqueness of all humans, that we are all different at least slightly in how we see, interpret and reproduce such as model car kits.

All the above aside, I owned an all original '59 Chevrolet at the time the Revell Impala kit came out--I used parts from the El Camino and the roof panel from a JoHan '59 Cadillac 6-window sedan to master a '59 Biscayne 2dr sedan--and in judging the Revell body shell and details against my all original car (trust me, the sheet metal panels are IDENTICAL between the 2dr sedan and the Impala convertible!). the only inaccuracy in the Revell kit I found was that the taillight bezels are too large. On a real '59 Chevy, the taillight bezel is actually about a quarter-inch smaller all around than the sheet metal area/shape it attaches too--and EVERY model kit of a '59 Chevy misses that. Now, would I complain about that as a kit reviewer? Probably not, it's just not that important (1/4" in 1/25th scale is a mere 10-thousandths of an inch).

Art

[disabled modeler]

I agree with you all but to me the old version and simplified kits are great kits still...just gives one the opportunity to use their skills/experience to make them as detailed as one wishes. I like both the newer issues and the older ones...just wish they would get back to the 3 in 1 concept again and/or include the original accessories some came with. Many kits over the years has had problems with lack of detail and very faint trim on the bodies,etc. It is nice to see the companies are thinking of the older kits again though....some body styles are timeless.

[Eshaver]

I hate to say this but many of these same people belittle a New kit to the point where I'm surprised ANYONE would want to ever venture ANY New kit to these people . Look at all the whining going on over the Hudson ! Ed Shaver

[62rebel]

i'd love to whine over the new Hudson!

[Chuck Most]

so, don't diss that engine-less promo kit; get to work and detail it. are you a modeler or an assembler?

I'm an assembler... but I might use parts from four or five different kits to make my model!

I tend to agree with what is in your signature line-

METAL AXLES AND HOLES IN OIL PANS?

NOT A PROBLEM TO ME.

I don't believe what makes a good kit (or a good build of a kit) has much of anything to do with parts count. Yeah, I know- a more detailed kit will always smoke a curbside in a contest, but I don't build for contests, so that doesn't concern me much. And personally I'd rather have a simple kit that looks good over one that's got a lot of parts but is kind of cruddy overall (Trumpeter Monte Carlo, anyone?). I don't know when people got so hung up on parts count- and the thing that really gets me is the same guys who gripe about how crude and simplified 'old' kits are are the same ones who swoon whenever some curbside Tamiya kit gets reissued. About the only advantage that kit might have over a golden oldie is it lacks that metal axle in the oil pan, besides that, it's just a matter of whether or not you like the subject.

[Eshaver]

Dang it Chuck, stop antagonizing the Arm Chair Engineers ! Ed Shaver

[62rebel]

"back in the day" we had little or no voice in what the makers did, except vote with our money, and there weren't many options available to kids with an itch to build a model this weekend....... we're gaining ground on the "mainstream" model culture, you know, those guys who build airplanes, tanks, ships, etc.... with a repop promo and a donor kit and some resin parts and some imagineering, there's not many subjects we can't do in some way. i cut up a pair of Revell bass boat kits the other night to make a race car trailer and a bed box for my replica of my last F150.... eyeballed the whole deal.....

i've done a couple of Polar Lights snap kits recently... when i see some more for a bargain price i WILL snatch them up. while they are relatively simple, they still look convincing with the proper paint detailing.

which brings me back to the intial rant... the reviewers i read. in particular, there was a review of the relatively rare JoHan Olds Cutlass Supreme hardtop, basically an unassembled promo; that seemed to imply that the reviewer expected full detail and an engine, 3-n-1 options and a paint-n-glue accessory kit as well.... dissed the kit for low level of detail in the dash, low parts count, and apparently the kit was too difficult for them to master...... i built that kit twenty years ago ago and while it didn't jump off the table and morph into a finished kit, it definitely took longer to paint than to build.