Collecting Muscle Car Model Kits. Tim Boyd
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Название: Collecting Muscle Car Model Kits
Автор: Tim Boyd
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Автомобили и ПДД
isbn: 9781613254851
isbn:
Revell-Monogram
In 1986, Odyssey Partners acquired the Monogram and Revell product lines and brands. While production was consolidated at Monogram’s Morton Grove, Illinois, plant, product development and sales staffs remained separated at first. After a number of ownership changes, including a period of ownership by Binney & Smith, the maker of Crayola products, hobby conglomerate Hobbico purchased Revell-Monogram in 2007.
Galaxie Limited
Best known as the former editor and owner of Scale Auto Enthusiast magazine (and also a muscle car collector of note), Gary Schmidt formed the model car kit company Galaxie Limited. It has produced a limited portfolio of superb 1/25th-scale model cars and fifth-wheel/tow-behind trailer kits. Although none of these kits are muscle cars, there is the hope that its kit range might expand in that direction in the future.
Polar Lights
Starting in 1995, a new company headed by Tom Lowe produced a series of toy kits that largely replicated the Aurora kit range of the 1950s and 1960s. It then produced several all-new 1/25th-scale car kits. Racing Champions, and then Round 2 eventually acquired Polar Lights.
Round 2
Tom Lowe resurfaced as the owner of a new company, Round 2, which acquired the production rights, and soon thereafter the full ownership of all tooling for the AMT, AMT-Ertl, MPC, Lindberg, and Polar Lights product ranges. Round 2 has implemented an aggressive reissue program, including often-spectacular box art and the recreation of almost-original issue versions of numerous kit topics.
Moebius Models
Another new kitmaker has surfaced within the last decade; its product lineup includes new 1/25th-scale car kits of topics that have never been produced before in that scale. Owner Frank Winspur has directed a kit lineup including a series of 1950s Hudson Hornet kits that set numerous new standards for car kits.
Model King
This concern primarily markets limited-edition short production runs from tooling owned by other kitmakers. It has recently developed a close relationship with Moebius Models, introducing exclusive kit derivatives from its tooling that feature famous racing topics.
All the Others
Other companies producing 1/24th- and 1/25th-scale styrene model kits of this era include such makers as Hubley, ITC, Palmer/PSM, PMC, and Pyro. Generally, their products are either of marginal quality or they produced fine kits but only of a few specific subjects. Most collectors view these makers as footnotes rather than main participants in the model car kit business.
Round 2 currently owns and produces kits under the AMT, MPC, Lindberg, Ertl, and Polar Lights brands. Recently, Round 2 has reboxed a number of modern-era kits that were engineered by AMT-Ertl during the late 1980s to early 2000s, using newly created box art (shown here) that is reminiscent of AMT’s original 1960s to early 1970s annual kits.
CHAPTER
2
THE FOUR WAVES OF MODEL CAR KIT EVOLUTION AND THE ENVY FACTOR
You don’t have to be a kit expert to make sense of what is to come here, but it will definitely help if I at least define a few basics. There are a number of terms that have developed during the roughly six decades of the modern kit era that I’ll use throughout this book, so I’ll tackle that subject first.
Then I need to cover the basics of why some of your favorite muscle car kits of the 1960s were never reissued, while others seem to reappear at regular intervals. Next I’ll define the four generations (or waves) of model car kit development. Then there’s the subject of collectability. Which kits are most desirable and why?
Shall we get started?
Key Model Car Kit Terms Defined
To help your understanding of the kits discussed, it will be helpful to define some of the terms you’ll see throughout this book.
1/1-Scale
This is the term that model car builders and collectors use to refer to the real car that is being duplicated by the model. Most model cars are 1/25th the size of the real car, while the real car is 1/1 the size of the real car!
1/24th Scale, 1/25th Scale, or the Popular Scales
The vast majority of muscle car model kits have been produced in 1/25th scale (that is, 1/25th the size of the real car). Most remaining kits have been produced in 1/24th scale. Together, these are called the popular scales, or bi-scale.
While a built 1/25th-scale model will be slightly smaller in size than the same topic rendered in 1/24th scale, most kit collectors view them as the same in terms of desirability, and they display them together. (A few muscle car model kits have been produced in other scales, including 1/8th, 1/12th, 1/16th, 1/20th, 1/32nd, 1/43, and 1/48th the size of the real cars; for the sake of brevity, these kits are not discussed in this book.)
Annual Kit
This refers to the yearly production run of model car kits that duplicated the current model year offerings in the dealer showrooms of America. By the mid-fall of each year, 1 to 2 months after the debut of real cars, convertible kits of the current crop of 1/1-scale cars became available at the local hobby store, drug store, hardware store, or department store. A month or two after that, the hardtop kits appeared on the store shelves.
Promotionals
These are the preassembled and pre-painted (or molded in color) “toys” that were typically given away by auto dealers back in the day. Promotionals were the first new scale cars to hit the market each year, often coinciding with the dealer’s annual new car showing week. In some years, friction models were also available at the local toy store; these were promotionals with an added flywheel mechanism that allowed the kits to be rolled across a floor.
Unlike model kits, promotionals did not offer multiple building versions and omitted opening hoods with engines. The same tools (or modifications to these tools) later produced the unassembled annual kit versions that are the primary subject of this book. Promotionals were typically produced in a sturdier Cycolac plastic versus the styrene used in assembly kits.
3-in-1
Most annual model car kits contained parts to construct the kit in one of three versions. These versions were usually showroom stock, custom (mild and/or wild “advanced custom”), and competition (drag, rally, or oval track racing). When these kits were new, most builders constructed them in the custom or racing versions, not the showroom stock configuration.
Reissue
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