Bob Ellis Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 (edited) The '65 Chevelle Modified kit is close to what I remember at a track in Norwood, MA back in 1971. It was a 1/4 mile track. Follow this link where you will see these cars. www.norwoodarena.com This has a great track history, pictures of cars through out all the years. I went there last time in 1971 Edited July 22, 2014 by Bob Ellis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisBcritter Posted July 23, 2014 Share Posted July 23, 2014 Thanks for the link, Bob - lots of inspiration there. The Volkswagen Mini Stocks were new to me - might be something fun to do with that IMC VW I've had sitting around forever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Ellis Posted July 23, 2014 Share Posted July 23, 2014 Chris, it's funny you mention the VWs. I remember them racing at the Norwood 1/4 mile track. They were incredibly loud with a buzzing sound. Like bees at 150 decibels. Not super fast, but as a group, they were competitive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dale W. Verts Posted July 23, 2014 Share Posted July 23, 2014 John, I believe links/information is always welcome. Dale Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james460 Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 The PPP wheels are really nice. They are molded between 1/24-1/25 scale so they work well for both scales. They come with decals for the call out either Goodyear/Firestone. I haven't tried their newer dirt, square treaded tires which would probably go nice with the any of the stocker kits. I think they may come with hoosier decals but not sure. Most of the major after market model suppliers have them listed as in stock. They are good stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Gorday Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 Yes, you can google Plastic Performance Products, and get lots of information. The actual business is owned by David Hawkins and he is a pleasure to deal with. He is in Asheville, North Carolina, and the number is 828 670 1450. The tire decals that I have gotten from him are Firestone. He tells me that any of his tires will fit any of his wheels. I have not tried the dirt tires yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt T. Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 Plastic Performance Products = beautiful stuff. Gorgeously molded wheels and tires. Intricate detail. For dirt tires, you can get square tread or angle cut, and I believe McCrearys, Hoosiers, Good Years and American Racer markings. Buy early, buy often! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Florent Posted December 26, 2014 Share Posted December 26, 2014 The original serie of the Modified Stockers by AMT hit the stores for the first time in 1971. This is the very year I saw them arrived on the market, I remember very well. Another fact is that I found also this information somewhere in a book. I believe it was in a book titled Stock Car Model Kit encyclopedia & Price Guide by Bill Coulter, or it was somewhere else, on internet maybe. I came back from a foster home on August 15th, 1970 and these kits were not on the market yet. They arrived the following year and I remember exactly where I saw them for the first time and they were just arrived. Not long after, these kits started to pop out all around in stores and Hobby shops. in 1968, when Dad started to bring the kids to the short tracks to see the races, I was so fascinated by these race cars that I started to build Stock Car scale models with my built street car kits that I dismanteled and rebuilded into short trackers, radiussing the wheel openings and other jobs, modifying them into what looked as close as possible as Stock Car racers, and at this time there were only kits that looked alike stock cars on the market, but they were generic and looked more like some kind of mix of road racers, rally cars or street cars with decals of numbers, sport stripes and automotive brand name decals supplied in the kits. Nice box arts but nothing that really looked like real stock cars, or at least looking like Late Model Sportsman or Modified classes of the time. I was building roll cages with the sprues of the kits back then, till the Modified Stockers serie arrived on the market. I was so happy of this. As a teenage of 15 years old,I was dreaming of these kits but coudn't afford buying all of the different ones in the series. Some desapeared before I could buy them, like the '69 Falcon and the '65 Oldsmobiles that me and my young brothers never had. In these days, and some others from other series released in the following years (Modified with the Tobias chassis, the MPC serie (Rat Trap Vega, Pinto Rough Rider and so on), the USAC short trackers ('70 Monte-Carlo, '70 Chevelle, '72 Cuda and others) and also the Nascar serie from MPC (Coo Coo Marlin and Jim Hurtibise Chevelles, Petty, Buddy Baker and so on). These ones were produced from the early to the mid seventies. MPC and Jo-Han had started to produce some annual models with some generic Nascar versions, and Jo-Han produced 2 Petty cars, not so accurate but not too bad kits., a little too close to street cars with more or less accurate rollcages but nice graphics . Most of them were not really short trackers and were not really superspeedway racers neighter. Just fake Stock Cars or some kind of Street Stock stock cars maybe. All these kits had their flaws. The Nascar kits of the 80s and up were more accurate but I never liked these new styles of bodies and I never had been interested to build any of these kits, except I take some parts of roll cages, stering wheels, screw jacks and part of frames and this is about it. I use these parts to buld old school short trackers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Casey Posted March 9, 2018 Share Posted March 9, 2018 (edited) The following still exist and have been reissued within the last decade or so, either by Ertl or RC2 and/or by Model King and maybe another company, too? I don't recall Round2 ever having reissued any of the Modified Stocker kits: I don't think the '65 GTO Modified Stocker has ever been reissued? That box art, tho... Are the '34 Ford and Pinto from this same series of kits? Edited March 9, 2018 by Casey Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Casey Posted March 9, 2018 Share Posted March 9, 2018 On 7/11/2014 at 12:53 AM, DR JAY said: I sure do like the Header-manifolds that came in the Impala kit...PERFECT for that Mystery-Motor 1963 Chevrolet conversion. Are these essentially (exactly?) the same chrome parts from the original AMT '66 Impala kit, maybe with the grille "texture" removed? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob Hall Posted March 9, 2018 Share Posted March 9, 2018 (edited) 19 minutes ago, Casey said: The following still exist and have been reissued within the last decade or so, either by Ertl or RC2 and/or by Model King and maybe another company, too? I don't recall Round2 ever having reissued any of the Modified Stocker kits: I don't think the '65 GTO Modified Stocker has ever been reissued, though?: The '69 Torino and '65 GTO were converted back to stock form in the 80s, I think... Edited March 9, 2018 by Rob Hall Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snake45 Posted March 9, 2018 Share Posted March 9, 2018 4 hours ago, Rob Hall said: The '69 Torino and '65 GTO were converted back to stock form in the 80s, I think... Wouldn't it be great if the '65 Chevelle and the '66 Skylark could be converted back, too? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob Hall Posted March 9, 2018 Share Posted March 9, 2018 32 minutes ago, Snake45 said: Wouldn't it be great if the '65 Chevelle and the '66 Skylark could be converted back, too? Yes, and the '65 Olds and '65 Fairlane also.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Posted March 10, 2018 Share Posted March 10, 2018 I wouldn't count on seeing any of the others returned to stock...too many parts were altered. It would probably be cheaper to just copy an early issue '65 GTO kit to create a new tool... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Van Posted March 10, 2018 Share Posted March 10, 2018 RC2 clone a stock 69 Torino body for the reissue of the street car....both still exist. The Gremlin was a Toby Tobias tube chassis NE modified and the body was a highly modified custom body and was never a stock Gremlin. It's a 5 piece assembly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Casey Posted March 10, 2018 Share Posted March 10, 2018 19 minutes ago, Dave Van said: The Gremlin was a Toby Tobias tube chassis NE modified and the body was a highly modified custom body and was never a stock Gremlin. It's a 5 piece assembly. Does the same apply to the '34 Ford and Pinto kits? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snake45 Posted March 10, 2018 Share Posted March 10, 2018 45 minutes ago, Mark said: I wouldn't count on seeing any of the others returned to stock...too many parts were altered. It would probably be cheaper to just copy an early issue '65 GTO kit to create a new tool... We really need an all new '65 GTO kit from somebody. The AMT kit wasn't great when it was new, and it's gotten worse with every reissue. I'm not a particular fan of this car, but I do recognize the fact that it's an absolutely iconic musclecar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iBorg Posted March 10, 2018 Share Posted March 10, 2018 The origination of Gremlin is from AMT. AMT released several kits with multi-piece bodies in their modified series. These included the Gremlin, a 65 Mustang, 36 Plymouth, 37 Chevy, 35 Chevy, 40 Ford. The Pinto and a Vega were released by MPC. The AMT kits had a great Tobias chassis with a bit of a funky interior. The MPC kits used a modified '57 Chevy chassis. Both were fairly accurate for their time frame. MPC also released a stock kit of a Pinto at the same time their modified kit was on the market, so I'm certain the stock version still exists. As far as I know, MPC never did a stock '34 Ford. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Sikora II Posted March 10, 2018 Share Posted March 10, 2018 7 hours ago, Casey said: Are these essentially (exactly?) the same chrome parts from the original AMT '66 Impala kit, maybe with the grille "texture" removed? Yes, they probably just cut the steel deeper to remove the stock grille bars and create that flat area. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Van Posted March 10, 2018 Share Posted March 10, 2018 1 hour ago, Casey said: Does the same apply to the '34 Ford and Pinto kits? iBorg has it right. The MPC 34 Ford, Pinto, Vega and 37 Chevy were what I call Southern modified using 57 Chevy chassis and BBC motor no matter the make of body. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FordRodnKustom Posted March 10, 2018 Share Posted March 10, 2018 (edited) I'm by far not an expert on this but I think the Gremlin, 40 Ford coupe, 36 Plymouth. Mustang and 37 Chevy series with the multi piece bodies represent the Tobias chassis dirt modifieds where as the Vega, 34 Ford, 36 Chevy and Pinto as Dave said above with the tri five Chevy style chassis represent an asphalt modified but I might add that they would be correct for a Northeast tour car as well. As for the full bodied Modified Stocker series I would suggest that they loosely represent cars from the Modified Sportsman division from the period. JMHO. Tobias type dirt modified Gremlin and Mustang Asphalt Modified pinto Sportsman Chevelle Edited March 11, 2018 by FordRodnKustom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Ellis Posted March 12, 2018 Share Posted March 12, 2018 On 3/9/2018 at 7:36 PM, Mark said: I wouldn't count on seeing any of the others returned to stock...too many parts were altered. It would probably be cheaper to just copy an early issue '65 GTO kit to create a new tool... It took many tries for ERTL to get the 65 GTO right back to stock. The first one was bad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snake45 Posted March 12, 2018 Share Posted March 12, 2018 1 hour ago, Bob Ellis said: It took many tries for ERTL to get the 65 GTO right back to stock. The first one was bad. I haven't seen one yet where the headlights are back to stock, as on the original kits and promos. They keep making that part worse and worse. I also haven't seen one where they EVER corrected the shape of the rear fender tips from the '64 shape. It's easily enough fixed, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone do so. A decent model can be made from the kit if you fix the rear and can get a resin copy of the original promo headlights and front bumper and maybe fix a few other things. But the only things I ever see anyone gripe about is the rear fender emblems and the seat upholstery. Someday soon I'm gonna have to do one, just to show y'all how it's done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Ellis Posted March 12, 2018 Share Posted March 12, 2018 1 hour ago, Snake45 said: I haven't seen one yet where the headlights are back to stock, as on the original kits and promos. They keep making that part worse and worse. I also haven't seen one where they EVER corrected the shape of the rear fender tips from the '64 shape. It's easily enough fixed, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone do so. A decent model can be made from the kit if you fix the rear and can get a resin copy of the original promo headlights and front bumper and maybe fix a few other things. But the only things I ever see anyone gripe about is the rear fender emblems and the seat upholstery. Someday soon I'm gonna have to do one, just to show y'all how it's done. AMT messed up the rear tips in 1965, never right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfhess Posted March 12, 2018 Share Posted March 12, 2018 (edited) Scroll down in this page to see what Speed City Resins did to correct the 65 GTO body to make an AWB drag car:http://speedcityresin.com/InProgressPage2.html ( I am in the process of "un-altering" one of these bodies to make a nice-looking 65 GTO/LeMans.) Edited March 12, 2018 by sfhess Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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