Round 2 / Polar Lights have recently been reissuing many of the drag racing kits of cars that were campaigned in the early and mid seventies calling them the Legends of the Quarter Mile. By today’s standards, these kits are rather dated with many pluses and many more minuses.
Kit includes:
Pro-Modified cars are some of the most killer machines on the planet! I mean what is not to love about an old muscle car that has been stretched, chopped, and a throwing a HUGE powerful engine under the hood? They combine power, speed, coolness and creativity into some crowd pleasing machinery. Dick Brown Motorsports runs this beautifully modified 1955 Crown Victoria with a stretched Boss 429 engine. I have no idea the last time this monster raced. I know it was driven by Norm Wizner, who also appears to be a custom builder as well as a driver. He runs a customizing shop that has a 2005 copyright on it and all the links on the bottom page were bad. I was able to find two photographs of this real machine and only one of them had a date on it…..2011. Norm must love the Fords. In 1987 he built the Mega Ford to take on the Chevys on the circuit.
What do you get when you give a Revell designer free reign on coming up with a design for a Pro Gasser style car? Nothing….absolutely nothing. At least not anything that has ever driven down the ¼ mile strip at any race track on this green Earth. Does that make it a bad thing? Not at all. What you get is a supposedly 1953 Studebaker body done in fiberglass that can pull wheelies at any light! Not a bad promo idea. Let’s paint it in a two tone metallic green and blue and call it “Miss Deal” and add a five Ace card hand on the rear fenders to cement the name home! Way to go!
This is what appears to have been done by Revell back in the 70s. While the idea may have come from the real vehicle “Suicide King”, no one is really sure. The box art is most impressive and who doesn’t love seeing a car pulling a wheelie coming off the line at a race?
Wow, how much cooler can a car model get? You take a 1932 Ford Sedan, chop the heck outta it and add a scale skeleton to boot!!! Super great idea! Man, talk about old! This kit has been around since I was born and possibly before! Having no idea about car models, I immediately hit the old internet and this baby has been around since 1964 for sure. The real car was built by Dave Stuckey of Kansas starting in 1954. A young girl from Dodge City gave the car it’s Moniker because she thought it’s interior resembled a coffin. Monogram got hooked on the car in 1962 when they saw it at the National Roadster Show in California.
Sonny Crockett, Rico Tubbs and Elvis (not the Legendary Singer) were all familiar names for anyone growing up in 1982. Fast Cars, Fast and sexy women, drugs, guns and fast boats! What was not to want or like? Even the Music rocked! OK…maybe not rocked but definitely top 10 hits. If none of this is ringing bells, you definitely missed out on MIAMI VICE. This was one of NBC’s crown jewels in the hit series. Men’s fashion, pop song stars, and the automotive industry were all influenced by this five year series. The theme song alone garnered two Grammy awards. People Magazine stated that Miami Vice “was the first show to look really new and different since the color TV was invented”. Now that is a pretty bold statement. Two distinct, expensive and beautiful cars were also featured in the series. There was a black 1972 Ferrari Daytona Spyder 365 GTS/4 and a white 1986 Ferrari Testarossa! The Sypder was actually a kit car based on a 1980 Corvette chassis.
Prior to its arrival I did some research for my review of this kit and I came across a statement on a social media site. “My best piece of advice when you go to the hobby shop to buy this kit? Three simple words, BUY A CASE!” Made me laugh. When the kit arrived and I opened the box I thought “BUY A CASE.” Well that was short lived. Maybe just a few. Upon further examination I found that this is the “Sizzler” kit first engineered during the 60s, just newly scaled down to 1/25th.
Still though, fans of early drag racing (early50s to late 60s) are going to love this kit. The instruction sheet points out 6 different variations to the model. By my calculations there are well over 576 possible combinations to this kit. I can see others kit bashing different motor combinations, various wheels, wings and all sorts of crazy ideas.
Parts count:
A rather large box arrived from the Review Corp helper the other day, containing several car kits and one airplane. The boxes all were the same to me. These are cars and to be honest, other than helping a nice lady sell off her late son’s collection, I know nothing about cars. I am however learning a large amount of information from them. This kit had a lot more weight to it than all the others and I wanted to know why. Was it the two metal axles, additional parts, super detail stuff that added to the weight? I had to know!
We all know the story of Monogram and Revell becoming one entity. I thought that most of the Monogram line was re-kitted using the 85- as an identifier. However, I also thought Monogram kits were all 1/24 and only Revell kits in 1/25. This is an 85- numbered kit but in 1/25 so maybe my assumptions were wrong. Either way, this is a really nice kit.
Manx dune buggies have been around for several decades.
The kit engine is all chrome and fits together very well with very little flash. I decided to use a nCovair engine from my parts box for this build mostly because I had a set of big sand paddle tires that I was itching to use.
The typical VW chassis is a wonder in simplification and the parts in the kit go together easily.
There’s not much to a dune buggy interior. The kit seats looked a trifle small to me, so I substituted a pair of bomber seats from my stock. This buggy was made to play in the sand so there is no carpeting or upholstery. I modified the kit rollbar and tied it into the front support bar from the kit. The dashboard was left out so the tachometer was mounted on the steering column. The kit offers a couple versions for the rear seat area – a bench seat or panels to cover up the seating area.
The Subaru BRZ is a lightweight sports car that is a product of a special partnership between Toyota and Subaru. The result of this relationship has yielded 3 different nameplates; Toyota 86 (Japan), Subaru BRZ (Japan/US) and the Scion FR-S (US). Sporting a 2.0L “Boxer” engine producing 200hp, the “Toyobaru Twins” have been all the rage in the US driving market in 2013. Aoshima has capitalized on this demand by releasing several kits (and several more in 2014) of these wonderful vehicles.
A cousin of mine had a Pacer X back in the late 1970s and I thought it was a pretty cool little car, so I thought I’d give the MPC kit a review. I was greatly disappointed in the kit.
The kit engine is pretty well detailed and the parts fit properly as long as you can get past all the flash. I decided to go to the wild side and installed a small block Chevy engine.
The chassis in the kit I received was warped. Even soaking it in hot water wasn’t enough to bring it all the way back. All the running gear is molded as one big piece with very poor engraving.
The interior matched the chassis for being warped and poorly engraved. Keeping with the different motif, I left out the back seat and covered it with popsicle sticks. I painted the body in HOK limegold kandy or a silver and a gold basecoat.
