What Model Disappointed You The Most Once You Opened The Box?

[tim boyd]

That was the practice in the Ertl days, but it certainly isn't the way it's done at Round2. The box art kits also make the rounds at trade shows, etc, ultimately ending up in display cases at the Auto World store, providing they have survived the packing/shipping etc.

Having built 70-odd kits for them, including 30 box-art kits, I can assure you they're not done using hand-selected extra-special test shots, nor do I have the luxury of "taking my time" to make sure it looks good. Typically they're rush jobs (usually 1-2 weeks on my spare time) using previous issues of the kit I have on hand, or early test shots sent to me which may be a little rough around the edges, have no chrome-plated parts, no clear parts etc etc.

Yes, they add little highlights to the photos here and there, but basically what you see on the box is what you get.

And no, I don't "leave parts off" or take similar short cuts (give me a break!).Z28 sm.JPG

Mike...glad you spoke up here. While it's been many, many years since i did box art models for AMT, my experiences were exactly the same as yours. And just in case some of you are wondering, the pay for these box art models was, shall we say, very modest. TIM

[Maindrian Pace]

The Meng F-350. I waited fifteen years for that kit! Solid proof that American subjects should be tooled by Americans! Of course, Meng isn't the only kit company proving that.

I usually agree with you Roger, but mine looks great.

-MJS

[martinfan5]

I usually agree with you Roger, but mine looks great.

-MJS

As does mine, well probably not as great as yours does

Edited July 26, 2014 by martinfan5

[Thatswhatshesaid]

What is the big issue with this kit that has him so upset but won't tell anyone?

[martinfan5]

What is the big issue with this kit that has him so upset but won't tell anyone?

Nobody knows.

[unclescott58]

It's interesting. I'm rarely disappointed with most kits I buy. A kit a lot of people like to put down for example, is MPC's '67 GTO. Is it a great kit? No. Is it what I except when I buy a kit tooled up from that time period? Yes. Can it be built into a reasonable representation of the full size version? Yes it can. Again, I go back to the days of Palmer kits. It was awfully tough to build their kits to look like a decent representation of the real thing. Even the Pyro kits were not that bad. The Pyro (now Lindberg) Cord 812 is another good example. It's no where as nice as Monogram's Cord 812. Yet I remember building a decent looking car out of it back when I was a teen in the early 1970's. Maybe I have too low of standards? If the basic lines of the body are correct, I tend to like the model. Above and beyond that is icing on the cake.

Scott

[martinfan5]

Anything w/ Revell & a copywrite date of 2012 or newer

All because of lack of detail.

Tamiya McLaren SLR. What! No full detail engine,i was expecting full detail at this price.

Lindberg 48 Lincoln. Same with this,the engine is an joke.

Arii Mercedes SLC. The interior is horrible,close to the Capri posted by Tom Geiger.

That SLR is a very nice kit, even without the full engine detail

I don't have this kit so I haven't seen the tires. One fix would be to fill the tires with sand. An old demo derby trick was to fill the tires with wood chips, then screw them onto the wheels. No flat tires!

These are scale tires, would pencil shavings be a good scaled down representation of woodchips?

[martinfan5]

I would have to go with the Fujimi Toyota Land Cruiser 80. I knew that Fujimi tend to have fewer details than other companies, but I didn't expect it to be one of the "designed to be motorized" kits, that also happened to be closer to 1/22 scale. I'm going to just make a monster truck out of it with a USA-1 kit.

When in doubt, do research , when buying any Japanese kit, its best to check the kit out, this is about one of the best places to see what the kit is going to be like, like for instance, the Toyota LC 80 kit you are talking about, here you can see whats in the box, as well as the instruction sheet.

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/image/10084178n/40/1

The Tamiya version is much better

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/image/10002188a/20/1

Edited July 28, 2014 by martinfan5

[Chuck Most]

I've been disappointed a few times, but the biggest one for me was when I got the reissue of the AMT '50 Ford convertible a few years back- during the twilight era of the RC2 ownership. I was expecting flash and maybe a few warped parts, but this thing was just silly. It was absolutely riddled with molding errors, and a couple of short shot parts for good measure. The body was so bad I knew I couldn't get a decent result trying to fix it. Best of all was RC2's refusal to try and make amends- emails and snail mails regarding the matter went unanswered. So, the kit went in the trash (I didn't even bother trying to save anything from it) and the next time I needed a '50 Ford drop top I just sought out a Millennium Edition version, which, though still fairly rough, was a much better quality molding than the later reissue. I actually stopped buying RC2 products for a while after my experience with that turd of a kit, though I went back when Round 2 took over.

[blubaja]

I almost bought a new Revell kit, owned by Hobbico today. But luckily, my LHS lets me open up their heaps before I commit to purchase. Saves them the trouble of having to return it. And hey, like everybody suggests, don't like it don't buy it fixes everything right?

The newly modified reissue to become the 57 BelAir convertible had horribly sculpted and inaccurate bodylines. This prevented me from having the trouble to built it. Disappointing but not surprised.

The worst offender were two kits offered by Revell. An early 90s Mustang LX notchback. The engine and chassis are very good. But the body is completely, unfortunately scrap material. Luckily, after being notified of this by numerous people, Revell had released a second issue of this kit, with added on parts. But unfortunately, the body was still trash. So you can build half of the kit. But can never finish it with the supplied body, rendering the kit unbuildable.

[lordairgtar]

I picked up one of those as well; the body looks like I could improve it by cutting it vertically just behind the door almost to the top of the doors and spreading it apart at the bottom, sticking a wedge in wide enough to take out the kink in the body and filling it in. Anyone tried to fix this issue?

No, the body isn't bad, it's the trim. Sand or grind that off and remake the trim straight.

[lordairgtar]

I actually own the box art vehicle for one of the laster versions of the Deora kit. I got it at a GSL auction years ago. The cars on the boxes are heavily airbrushed. The box art vehicles are built without glass or lenses to avoid glare in pictures and to make the interior visible. The air brush artist draws them in. My car is quite different than how it looks on the box. They even changed the tone of the paint job.

They haven't used the no glass rule for years. Digital cameras and photoshop eliminated the need for such trickery.

[lordairgtar]

I don't eat their food, so I have no idea.

But once a few years back I was the art director on a photo shoot for a print ad for a muffin mix. The ad was going to feature a photo of a basket of their blueberry muffins.

We got there at the appointed time the morning of the shoot, we all had coffee, etc... the client came to the shoot with a very large box full of muffins.

First they spent an hour or so picking out the nice looking muffins, until they had it down to the "stars" that were good enough, in their opinion, to be used in the photo. Then the "food stylist" literally picked at the sugar crystals and the blueberries on the muffins with tweezers... rearranging the individual grains of sugar, removing some, moving others around, "styling" the blueberries, etc. This took several hours.

By the time the client and the stylist had done their thing and arranged the muffins in the basket for the shot, it was late afternoon!

And all that was just for a basket of freakin' muffins!

Edit: we did get to eat any of the "rejects" we wanted... they were good!

Same thing is done for Mc Ds hamburgers. Those nicely arranged sesame seeds are glued in place.

[Greg Myers]

Nobody knows.

Gotta have the "Super Secret Decoder Ring"

[Jordan White]

When in doubt, do research , when buying any Japanese kit, its best to check the kit out, this is about one of the best places to see what the kit is going to be like, like for instance, the Toyota LC 80 kit you are talking about, here you can see whats in the box, as well as the instruction sheet.

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/image/10084178n/40/1

The Tamiya version is much better

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/image/10002188a/20/1

Yup, I ended up buying the Tamiya version soon after since I knew of their quality, since I've already built their Mitsubishi Montero kit. I figured the Fujimi version would have at least been on par with their Suzuki Jimny kit.

[blubaja]

Fujimi is very hit and miss anymore.

[martinfan5]

Fujimi is very hit and miss anymore.

Yes they are

[jbwelda]

I disagree about Fujimi. if you accept that they are curbside with maybe some simplified undercarriage and interior, at least the bodies are usually smack dead on to my eye and the number of variations they issue is astounding. I am talking mostly about "tuner" and drift cars for the JDM.

jb

[Ben]

Revell Mustang LX

[martinfan5]

I disagree about Fujimi. if you accept that they are curbside with maybe some simplified undercarriage and interior, at least the bodies are usually smack dead on to my eye and the number of variations they issue is astounding. I am talking mostly about "tuner" and drift cars for the JDM.

jb

Early kits from Aoshima can be the same way.

[niteowl7710]

Fujimi is very hit and miss anymore.

You have to take into consideration when the J80 Land Cruiser was first tooled, and compared to other early 90s kits from Fujimi (EM kits excluded) it's about the same, and the Tamiya one is vastly superior before you even get to the full detail part.

Fujimi did a J100 ('98-'07) Land Cruiser, and it's on par with a Mid 2000s kit, new chassis, poly caps, non-motorized, etc. Be nice if they'd update it to the current J200 bodystyle and offer LHD and Lexus markings for it and the J100, but Fujimi is REALLY all about the JDM market.

[1/24DragAndStreetCars]

The AMT 72 GTO and 69 general lee, many messed up molds, TONS of flash, and even missing parts... that is why I stick with revel and others from now on

[Guest]

The AMT 72 GTO and 69 general lee, many messed up molds, TONS of flash, and even missing parts... that is why I stick with revel and others from now on

Those are actually MPC kits.

[ianguilly]

Lindberg 72 challenger, what a horrible kit. I had to work so hard to finish a half decent one.

[ChrisPflug]

AMT 70 Challenger- Have a 1:1 Challenger R/T and was hoping to build a decent hardtop- was hoping the box art was just bad and the contents would be better

decent convertible body after molding in the front valance and engine bay is nice but most of the other parts are misshapen compared to the original car- all the interior much more sharp and squared off compared to the 1:1, bizarre looking oversized shaker setup, crude engine, etc.

The latest die cast based Revell was bad (with nice interior detail) but terrible enough to be obvious from the box

The Lindberg '72 started out as Palmer's attempt to make a "normal" model kit of the '71 Challenger by copying the MPC annual- the update to '72 was very poorly done and the "custom" pieces pretty cheesy