Hello all,
You've probably seen the movie.......a movie that is right up there with "Carrie". There are a few movies that involves killer vehicles........like Dennis Hopper in the movie "duel"....that one sticks out in my head. And there was the movie that a bunch of trucks tried to demolish a gas station......I think that movie was simply called "Trucks". But.......there are no models of Plymouth Valiants or demonic trucks on the market at the moment........just Christine, produced by Round 2 Models Inc. There is an interesting story here.......
The Admiral and I were at the local Michael's craft store a couple of weeks ago. She likes to do puzzles and wanted to get some glue to mount one she really liked. While we were there, we decided to look at my obsession.......models......to see what they had. In my last blog, I talked about old and new model companied, and how molds never die.......they simply change hands. I promised to talk about this particular company....this is the perfect time. Round 2 has been in business since the early 2000's, and to get started, they bought up a slew of the older molds from bygone companies, such as MPC, AMT, Aurora, and along with others that they could get their hands on. One thing I'm disappointed in the company about, is the fact that with some kits, they removed the actual date stamps and added their own in laser ink. Might not be the biggest thing to lose sleep over, but with some plastics, the writing can be seen through the plastic. For folks who don't like to paint, it might be a buzz kill, but it means that the model must be painted, if one doesn't want to be haunted by it. It possibly can be removed with a cleaner or sandpaper, but I've not tried it yet. Of course, the use of older molds means there will be flash. With the ones I've bought so far, this has rang true.......that and flared mating seams. Sandpaper and filler will be your best friends. It is nice though.......a lot of the old 3 'n 1's are starting to resurface......when I was a lad, They were the best models to buy. They gave you plenty of spare parts!
Looking at the models.......I couldn't make up my mind....there were a couple that I liked. The admiral then spotted Christine......"Jee......why don't you get this one?" I hemmed and hawed a little, but then my mind started to work........that model would make a super looking Pro modified! I built the Revell "Jukebox Ford"...and had a ball with it {wasn't crazy with the decals though}. I shouldn't have mentioned it though, because the admiral got all defensive, and stated that she wanted Christine to be built the way she is supposed to look.
After we got home, my curious nature took over...especially when I saw the kit supplied decals. I don't recall decals being on the car. Now AMT went out of business around 2012. If Round 2 produced the kit, why would they put the AMT logo on it? so I did some research on the model. Originally, Johan was the first to come out with a model of this car......Johan and AMT were two of a handful of companies that produced promo model for car dealerships. It was produced in the later part of the 50's by Johan......it didn't show up on AMT's radar until 1983, when they came out with the "Slammers" series of model cars.
The thing about this though, is that I've seen pictures of the finished model, and it looks like the engine carbs and high hats were merely stuck on the hood, rather than coming out of an opening in the hood, which made me wonder if there was an engine in it. There was also a snap together kit as well, so I may have seen that one......dunno. But as far as I saw, this model was their only offering of this car. Then I stared in disbelief.......my lucky day! In 1993, Revell produced a model of Richard Earle's '58 Plymouth Fury.......Christine!
I'm thinking that this model was part of the series that the "Jukebox Ford" is part of. No matter.....I want it! I began to search.........which produced very little luck. I then turned to places like Etsy, and Mercari........no luck there......E-bay and Amazon were my last hopes. I saw two on E-bay....one was a broken kit {parts missing} and another one that appeared to be still available. I contacted the seller and was told that it had already been sold. This spanned a couple of days.......I sent Alan Bussie at old model kits an e-mail, in the meantime. He didn't have one, and his business is so large now, that he stopped doing reserves {I didn't blame him and understood}. He did agree with me though, that this might be one of Revell's rare kits {every manufacturer has a few}, because he's only handled one in his entire business existence. I decided to give it another look, and I saw another one for around $20.00 more......the first sighting was for $65.00. I selected the 'buy it now'.....and got the kit! Shipping was about $8.00. If I didn't see the second one, I was tempted to pull the trigger on the broken kit....but it would have meant that I'd be scratch producing a few parts.
I got the notification when it was sent out.......due to hit my door step on Thursday. After setting up the notifications with the post office, I got one that stated that I would see it on Wednesday...today! I have the kit, and giving it an examination, I saw that all the parts are there. there was some assembly done though......the engine was partially assembled, along with a few other parts. They were done fairly neatly, but the engine is a head banger due to what needs to be painted. The fellow failed to scrape the chrome though, so all of the parts came off alright except for the intake manifold, which a small piece broke off as I removed it. As luck would have it......I had the exact same manifold in my spare parts box! All is right with the world :)
Of course.......these two models didn't come from the same mold, but one can be sure that the AMT kits did. This is a fair example of how kit can be repurposed to create other kits. The modeling medium touches on a huge variety of subjects, but there are still so many more that are passed over, and I see little reason why there are fictitious kits being produced. Just for a chuckle, I looked at the movie bio, to see how the car became possessed. One would figure that a person at the auto plant died working on that particular car....not the case. Yes......two people at the plant died because of the car, but they died after the car was built. The bio says nothing about how though....was it a rouge fan belt.......a disgruntled safety belt {if they were even mandated then}......perhaps it was a rattled radio?!?!? All that is known, is that as long as the car was driven and loved, it was happy. As the affair was going on, the car would change the owner to the image of it's maniacal self, until it ultimately kills them. Unloved, the car would fall into disrepair. Check out some of the images of this car online........some folks have quite an imagination. I love it!
I hope you enjoy this summary.....I really enjoyed researching it :)
No comments:
Post a Comment