Who Made The 'worst Kit Ever' ? My Vote Goes To...

[Jantrix]

I'm sure there are worse ones, but the bad ones that crossed my bench are the Revell Lil John '34 Ford and the AMT '67 GTO.

 

1 hour ago, Sledsel said:

Interesting thread and views. Leaving Palmer out, I have been able to make something that I was pleased with out of every kit I bought except one: The Revell 49 Mercury. There is so much wrong with the entire body that there was no fixing it. I was able to remove the rear 1/4 window frames for future use, but the remainder of the body went in the trash.

I've seen this kit built hundreds of times over the years on the forums. Built it and enjoyed it myself. Most agree that the chop could have been done better, but what was it that you found so distasteful that you'd add it here?

[Snake45]

12 minutes ago, Jantrix said:

I'm sure there are worse ones, but the bad ones that crossed my bench are the Revell Lil John '34 Ford and the AMT '67 GTO.

I managed to carve a decent looking model out of the '67 GTO, but I'll be the first to admit it was 40 miles (hours) of bad road. 

As to the Revell '34 Ford, I've tried several times and it always ends up back in the box. I think I'm gonna end up making a rat(-ish) rod out of it by putting its body on a '32 Ford "Switchers" frame. 

[Ace-Garageguy]

I don't think this one's been mentioned yet...AMT '34 Ford 3-window. It's another one that's so bad, it's not even a parts donor. There is literally nothing in the box that's even close to an accurate rendition of anything on a '34 Ford...with the exception of the body shell itself. And even that takes substantial rework to look decent. Odd that this piece of trash is still on offer for around $50, as a "rare" kit.

NOTE: The kit shown below shares NOTHING with AMT's other '34 Ford kits.

It's always been a mystery to me why NOBODY ever managed to get a '34 Ford car done right in 1/25 (Monogram's 1/24 kits are decent though). Revell's is way underscale, about the right size for a '34 Fiat. The Monogram snapper's hood is way too short. The two from Aurora have serious proportion and dimension issues. AMT's sedan has lotsa issues, and the 5-window, though not horrible, still takes significant mods to actually look like a '34 Ford.

 

EDIT: I have to go along with the C111 mentioned above, too. It was probably the single worst disappointment I've ever had on opening a model car box. To get an accurate-appearing model, it will be about as much work as starting with a block of wood.

Edited December 18, 2019 by Ace-Garageguy

[LL3 Model Worx]

7 hours ago, Jantrix said:

I'm sure there are worse ones, but the bad ones that crossed my bench are the Revell Lil John '34 Ford and the AMT '67 GTO.

I abused myself with that GTO kit quite a few times when I was a kid... never did get one finished that I recall.

I have a "built up" convertible gto my dad built as a kid... not sure of the manufacturer as I haven't looked at it closely in years but I recall it has an old promo style chassis pan with molded in exhaust and diff and steel axles for both front and rear.

My vote for wke I had as a kid and do not remember what it was.... all I can remember was it had a multi piece firewall that collapsed on me so I sent the thing into the wall at warp speed.

Kinda wish I remembered so I could try again now with better skills and most importantly PATIENCE!

[Snake45]

25 minutes ago, LL3 Model Worx said:

I abused myself with that GTO kit quite a few times when I was a kid... never did get one finished that I recall.

Not sure I would have phrased exactly like that....

Around 2002, at a model airplane club of all places, I bought for $15 a cleanly built first issue MPC '67 GTO, from when the body was still straight. One of these days I'm gonna strip and rebuild it, and paint it glossy black just to make y'all cry. 

[LL3 Model Worx]

2 hours ago, Snake45 said:

Not sure I would have phrased exactly like that....

Around 2002, at a model airplane club of all places, I bought for $15 a cleanly built first issue MPC '67 GTO, from when the body was still straight. One of these days I'm gonna strip and rebuild it, and paint it glossy black just to make y'all cry. 

Yea on second glance you are right... maybe not the way to phrase it hahaha.

Here's the one my dad built as a kid... he was probably 8 or 9 

I only have a few of the models he built left... I think 3 "complete" and 1 partially complete.

The survivors have had a very very hard life...

I've named this one "The Creamsicle" lol

[CapSat 6]

21 hours ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

I don't think this one's been mentioned yet...AMT '34 Ford 3-window. It's another one that's so bad, it's not even a parts donor. There is literally nothing in the box that's even close to an accurate rendition of anything on a '34 Ford...with the exception of the body shell itself. And even that takes substantial rework to look decent. Odd that this piece of trash is still on offer for around $50, as a "rare" kit.

NOTE: The kit shown below shares NOTHING with AMT's other '34 Ford kits.

It's always been a mystery to me why NOBODY ever managed to get a '34 Ford car done right in 1/25 (Monogram's 1/24 kits are decent though). Revell's is way underscale, about the right size for a '34 Fiat. The Monogram snapper's hood is way too short. The two from Aurora have serious proportion and dimension issues. AMT's sedan has lotsa issues, and the 5-window, though not horrible, still takes significant mods to actually look like a '34 Ford.

 

EDIT: I have to go along with the C111 mentioned above, too. It was probably the single worst disappointment I've ever had on opening a model car box. To get an accurate-appearing model, it will be about as much work as starting with a block of wood.

Just curious- how accurate (to body shape, I guess, as it's not stock) is Revell's 1/16 '34 Street Rod?  

[Ace-Garageguy]

1 hour ago, CapSat 6 said:

Just curious- how accurate (to body shape, I guess, as it's not stock) is Revell's 1/16 '34 Street Rod?  

I finally bought the chopped coupe, and it looks good...though I haven't compared the measurements with those taken from a real car...yet.

There are several threads here regarding the Revell 1/16 '34 Fords...

http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/130357-revell-116-34-ford-whos-built-them/

http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/72178-116-34-ford-coupe-questions/

http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/129563-116-34-ford/

 

[Snake45]

13 hours ago, LL3 Model Worx said:

Yea on second glance you are right... maybe not the way to phrase it hahaha.

Here's the one my dad built as a kid... he was probably 8 or 9 

I only have a few of the models he built left... I think 3 "complete" and 1 partially complete.

The survivors have had a very very hard life...

I've named this one "The Creamsicle" lol

That looks like a '65, not the wretched reissued '67 under discussion. Although the reissues of the '65 are pretty wretched too in their own way. 

[CapSat 6]

38 minutes ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

I finally bought the chopped coupe, and it looks good...though I haven't compared the measurements with those taken from a real car...yet.

There are several threads here regarding the Revell 1/16 '34 Fords...

http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/130357-revell-116-34-ford-whos-built-them/

http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/72178-116-34-ford-coupe-questions/

http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/129563-116-34-ford/

 

Thank you! I have one of those 1/16 kits, and it looks pretty good to me (although I will readily admit that '34 Fords are not my forte). The Street Rod stuff that comes with it, although perhaps dated, still looks pretty impressive.

[Tom Geiger]

I want to nominate the ACE model car company...  balsa at it's finest!

[CapSat 6]

4 minutes ago, Tom Geiger said:

I want to nominate the ACE model car company...  balsa at it's finest!

It looks like something Fred Flintstone would have made. I love it!

[Sledsel]

On 12/18/2019 at 1:52 PM, Jantrix said:

I'm sure there are worse ones, but the bad ones that crossed my bench are the Revell Lil John '34 Ford and the AMT '67 GTO.

 

I've seen this kit built hundreds of times over the years on the forums. Built it and enjoyed it myself. Most agree that the chop could have been done better, but what was it that you found so distasteful that you'd add it here?

#1: the roof looks squashed.

#2: the windshield is too flat, there is not enough "V" in the center. The shape is also too square at the "A" pillar

#3: the rear window is too flat, needs more of a bow to it.

#4: the sides of the body are flat and "slab sided" 49-51 Mercs have a nice smooth arc on the side and the rocker panel rolls under. The kit is too boxy (you can see the arc of the body on the purple cars fender skirt)

#5: the 52ish headlight bezels are too square shaped and not tapered. The front face of them is about a scale 1 1/4" thick (Taper is best seen on the green car)

#6:  The hood is too square in front and the body lines on it are too sharp and totally wrong. (Best seen on the green car)

Of all these things I noticed when I opened the kit, the body just went in the trash.... The time I would spend trying to fix it could be spent chopping the much nicer bodied AMT Mercury

To anyone that likes this kit, kudo's, just not my cup of tea fixing so much.

 

 

 

Edited December 19, 2019 by Sledsel

[LL3 Model Worx]

58 minutes ago, Snake45 said:

That looks like a '65, not the wretched reissued '67 under discussion. Although the reissues of the '65 are pretty wretched too in their own way. 

Yea this one is in fact a 65, I never claimed it was a 67 lol just that it was a convertible... I was the one with the horrible 67 kits as a kid.

Strangely enough I kinda wanna pick one up now to try again... glutton for punishment I guess.

Btw did you get my Email? I kinda think i sent it to the wrong address.

 

 

 

[thatz4u]

On 12/18/2019 at 12:34 PM, Snake45 said:

Since we're excluding Palmer....

I recently dug a reissued MPC '69 Firebird out of the Snakepit and thought I could slap it together without too much trouble. After spending two evenings looking carefully at the body and doing some starter work on it, I threw it back in the box as "unbuildable." Yah, I know, a lot of these have been built, but not to my standards. And my standards are pretty darn low. 

On my build, I used the body, hood, & glass from the MPC & everything else from a Revell Camaro, turned out nice...

[Snake45]

35 minutes ago, LL3 Model Worx said:

Btw did you get my Email? I kinda think i sent it to the wrong address.

No. Try again. SnakeACP45 at AOL dot com. 

[Richard Bartrop]

2 hours ago, Tom Geiger said:

I want to nominate the ACE model car company...  balsa at it's finest!

Ah yes, the good old days of, "Here's a block of wood.  Just remove everything that doesn't look like a Ford Club Coupe."

And as horrible as those old Palmers were, the Premiere kits were even worse.

[mr moto]

On 12/19/2019 at 3:27 PM, Richard Bartrop said:

And as horrible as those old Palmers were, the Premiere kits were even worse.

Strange but TRUE!

[Atmobil]

Interesting thread. My vote go for the reissue of the mpc 72 pontiac gto. I bought it cheap and atempted a speedbuild of it. Nothing would fit right. Had to cut off quite a chunk of the back of the floorpan to get it to fit inside the body. Atleast the kit was cheap ?

 

Another kit that looked bad is Sharp Mercedes 250 /8.  It was priced at about 100 dollars when I found it at a show. I looked at it and took pictures of the contents but did not buy it. I have owned 2 fullscale /8's and the kit resembled the real thing only in theory. The model has 4 wheels and so does the real car but nothing else is similar. 

Here is some pictures of the box and kit:

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/sharp-tsm-7-mercedes-benz--1190740

https://en.todocoleccion.net/model-cars-scale-1-24/sharp-kit-no-tsm-7-300-mercedes-benz-cuerda-para-montar-escala-1-24-~x28649311

 

Edited December 21, 2019 by Atmobil

[Fat Brian]

On 12/19/2019 at 2:56 PM, Sledsel said:

#1: the roof looks squashed.

#2: the windshield is too flat, there is not enough "V" in the center. The shape is also too square at the "A" pillar

#3: the rear window is too flat, needs more of a bow to it.

#4: the sides of the body are flat and "slab sided" 49-51 Mercs have a nice smooth arc on the side and the rocker panel rolls under. The kit is too boxy (you can see the arc of the body on the purple cars fender skirt)

#5: the 52ish headlight bezels are too square shaped and not tapered. The front face of them is about a scale 1 1/4" thick (Taper is best seen on the green car)

#6:  The hood is too square in front and the body lines on it are too sharp and totally wrong. (Best seen on the green car)

Of all these things I noticed when I opened the kit, the body just went in the trash.... The time I would spend trying to fix it could be spent chopping the much nicer bodied AMT Mercury

To anyone that likes this kit, kudo's, just not my cup of tea fixing so much.

 

 

 

Thanks for breaking this down, now I can't unsee some of them unfortunately. 

[Sledsel]

On 12/21/2019 at 1:04 PM, Fat Brian said:

Thanks for breaking this down, now I can't unsee some of them unfortunately. 

Sorry man.... and I did not list everything, just the major things.

 

[LL3 Model Worx]

On 12/21/2019 at 12:41 PM, Atmobil said:

Interesting thread. My vote go for the reissue of the mpc 72 pontiac gto. I bought it cheap and atempted a speedbuild of it. Nothing would fit right. Had to cut off quite a chunk of the back of the floorpan to get it to fit inside the body. Atleast the kit was cheap ?

 

Another kit that looked bad is Sharp Mercedes 250 /8.  It was priced at about 100 dollars when I found it at a show. I looked at it and took pictures of the contents but did not buy it. I have owned 2 fullscale /8's and the kit resembled the real thing only in theory. The model has 4 wheels and so does the real car but nothing else is similar. 

Here is some pictures of the box and kit:

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/sharp-tsm-7-mercedes-benz--1190740

https://en.todocoleccion.net/model-cars-scale-1-24/sharp-kit-no-tsm-7-300-mercedes-benz-cuerda-para-montar-escala-1-24-~x28649311

 

I have that MPC GTO.... picked up at Ollie's for next to nothing, I think $7

It is an utter dog... the body on mine has so much flash that is so thick I may need a saw or dremel to remove it.

The rest of it I didn't even look at after seeing that...

Hopefully its decent for a few parts, but I'm not holding my breath.

[Mike999]

Somebody already posted the awesome ARII "Soryturd" 1/20 scale dune buggy.  Here's another from the same series, the "Hurrycane."  With "Sand Super" tires, tiny winch (?) and smiley-faces on the light covers.

 

[DukeE]

The smiley faces on the lights are actually correct. KC Highlites I think used them. Buggies at least aren't prototypic. Truly the C111 is awful. 

Arii reboxed Otaki and LS stuff, so those are ok. Some great airplanes from them (Pitts, BD2J). Soryturd and Drug Racer are awesome names. I need the kits just for the boxes. 

[afx]

33 minutes ago, DukeE said:

The smiley faces on the lights are actually correct. KC Highlites I think used them.