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.

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 1/25^th.

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:

Manx dune buggies have been around for several decades.

Engine

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.

Chassis

The typical VW chassis is a wonder in simplification and the parts in the kit go together easily.

Interior

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.

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.

Engine

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.

Chassis

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.

Interior

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.

Memory Lane……As a bonafide TreadHead, I am not much of a model nostalgic. My first armor kit was the old 1/48 Aurora Sherman. While it was a great kit and got me hooked on my TreadHead ways, I have no desire to find one and build it again. However, building the first model that I ever built would be neat! I actually have one of those. I paid $95.00 for it on Ebay and thought I would never get to actually build it as I could not bring myself to open the seal and have at it. However, I might get to do just that thanks to Revell. Those of you that are car builders know the name Dave Deal. If you don’t, look him up. He hooked up with Revell back in the 1970s and released thirteen model cars and four aircraft. These were not your typical run of the mill kits. They were three dimensional caricature models. They had oversized parts and even more oversized driver’s heads. My very first model was the Baja Humbug. My second was the Glitter Bug.