JS23U

Was this model converted from the 67/68 MPC annual kit? If not, where are the remains of the annual? Ok, chassis/engine are still present in the 69 and 73 versions, but the body parts?

Sorry Bob, I misread your first post. I thought you were talking about the kit of the 72 Nova but you meant the original car.

Bob, are you sure about that? At least in the issue I have, the painted box from the eighties, black plastic, doesn't have them. It has the Nova/Camaro Rally wheels and some custom five spokes, IIRC. I have a version of them 70 Impala, the Fire Chief, that has baby moons with Bowties. Don't know if they were included in any other version of the 70 Impala. Just coincidentally, the Fire Chief consequently has both wheels that John is looking for...

That's what I also think. The 71/72 turned into the NASCAR, for which they just needed the body, bumpers valance etc. Side markers, door handles and the like had to go and were restored on the yellow 1987 version. When the 73 RR annual came the chassis, engine and interior possibly were "free" to use, as the NASCAR didn't need them, hence the identical underbody parts of all years. If I remember correctly the dash of the 74 Roadrunner had changed to the 1975-78 versions as a result of retooling it to the later annuals and the four-door (Police)-versions. This is true to all versions of the 74 car starting with the 1983 issued model. The 74 Charger has a similar history. The annual was turned into a NASCAR and again the body details were lost. Then around 1980 the red plastic version was issued for which side markers, door handles etc. had to be restored. That body still had the racing gas cap on the left quarter.

69 Chevy pickup was available as an annual from both AMT and MPC. AMT seems to me as more correct. But both are quite expensive...

Amazing that the 69 and 70 GTX promos and some others were still available in the late 70s!

The Firefighter represents the 79 front end as well. Seems to be a 4x4 version of the LRT/Warlock/Pumping Iron but should be essentially the same.

Great build! I agree with you on the accuracy of most old models. There are although some that are not so nice. The 69 Firebird is such an example. I would love to build an accurate Trans Am or Firebird 400. AMTs 68 Ford Galaxie isn't the nicest one either. Too large wheel wells, funny looking vent windows among other things. I have yet to see a corrected build of that beautiful car.

I have a 2 door Hardtop as well, but I think it is an R&R. Quite well done.

The MPC Mustang 67 and 68 were not that bad. The front end, and especially the grille was wrong, of course. Too round shape and lacks depth. But I admit, the old AMT is best of them all.

We still need a good rendition of these hub caps/trim rings. Every single one I know is somehow wrong.

Nice article! From what I found out the Royal Knight is a 79 model (released in late 78), it could be called an annual. The following kits you mention are 80, 81 and 82 models. MPC made promos of exactly these years as well. No 1978 was made by MPC, I think the Monogram is a 78. Except for the 87 SS noone ever made a model year after the 82.

I might be interested as well. Would love to have a chrome front bumper for the Boss 351. A nicely made resin convertible body would be great. I think that is a good looking car, often thought about doing this conversion myself.

Totally agree, but I am a bit biased owning a 71 Super Bee in Hemi Orange BTW I heard that this white Hemi is NOT the last one. There is a Hemi Super Bee (coincidentally it is white also) with a sunroof with the VIN ending 195xxx. It is (or was?) owned by Lou Kanellis. The rkcharlotte car is 192xxx.

AFAIK the M46 was only available on Barracudas (and maybe Gran Coupes) but not on 'Cudas. With today's focus on muscle cars that option might have been buried in oblivion. Adding to the fact that it surely is really rare...

A 72 Montego GT? You bet I'll be buying one (at least)...!

AFAIK the engine and trans was bolted to the front subframe (aka k-member) along with some other stuff like the steering gear, then the body was lowered down onto this assembly. So room between the inner fenders have to be wider than the engine from exhaust header to exhaust header. Also, the engine bay of an e-body should be the same as a 1971/72 b-body. At least from rad wall to firewall and inner fender to inner fender. The cowl area is different as well as the room in front of the rad wall. Tim, sent you a pm. Couldn't get through to you via mail...

The orange one is a pieced together clone, judging from the photos. The car wears Barracuda (not 'Cuda) nameplate, and that's what it probably originally was: A Barracuda. The funny looking shaker with black painted surround is wrong, the side marker housings are black instead of body color. The rear wing is a 1971 gull wing. The air cleaner is a 340 unit without snorkel, a 440 has dual snorkels. Nice looking car, but not original. The pink one looks convincing and correct except for the later steering wheel. But pink Six Barrel four speed 'Cudas are so rare that I'd doubt the originality of this car until I've seen the data plate. It is just to good to be true...

And hopefully they support the window frame with some removable plastic runner. I have two of the old kits, one with a broken frame, one with a bent frame. I once compared the Chevelle Hardtop with the convertible and the El Camino annual (not the newer tool 68). It seems to me they all came out of the same mold. There are some funny parting lines on the El Caminos interior where they omitted the rear passenger compartment.

While digging for 'Cuda shaker colors I found this: http://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=4480873&page=0&fpart=1&vc=1 Original poster asks for the shaker color for his B5 blue 'Cuda. But it goes on with exact argent color and texture, primer overspray on the inside (!), primer color and so on. On page 2 is an interesting post quoting one of the original painters at Fram. Long but interesting read. Edit: And this http://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=A12&Number=6782246&Searchpage=2&Main=6779076&Words=%2Bshaker+%2Bcolor&topic=&Search=true#Post6782246

Were getting a bit off topic here with the 72 440-6 cars... but I love this kind of talk I can't add much to what Chris said. I have read of some more cars none of which seems to be proven. And I don't have any VINs of these. I heard 4 Chargers and 2 RRs had been built, including the three that were mentioned above. All of the cars are told to be automatics. One RR is said to be blue, but which blue is up to your guess. BTW the pic of the red Charger's fender tag is probably mine. John, an ex employee at Ron Slobe's R&R salvage in Missouri gave the original photos of that specific Charger to me when we visited the yard in 1999. The Charger was already sold, so I never saw it in person. Slobe had owned some buildings full of rare Mopars, of which we only saw the remains, because he unfortunately died in 1993 (?). To come back to the topic he also had a white 70 Cuda convertible 440-6 pilot car. IIRC the VIN ended 0B100006. But again, I didn't see that car either...

Tim, I don't say that there never was a blue shaker car. Chrysler surprises people every now and then. Just think of Hemi four doors or 72 Six Pack cars. Chris: You are right on vinyl tops and interiors. But for stripes there were both possibilities. On a 70 Challenger the longitudinal stripe was available in light (pale) green, this was V6F. On the other hand the strobe stripe on the 'Cuda was a high impact colored stripe, hence the J in the code, not F. John: If you see this red striped 'Cuda please try to make a picture of the fender tag (under the hood on the left inner fender). There should be a code like V6E (or maybe V6R) for a red stripe. But you probably know that...

The green strobe stripe should be V4J, shouldn't it? Like in FJ5 or FJ6 for Limelight or Sassy Grass Green, respectively. I doubt the accuracy of Peter Sessler's books. They are quite old and at least when I looked at them had a lot of errors. The Dana 60 axle was used on all RB-engined (440, 440-6, Hemi) cars with four speed transmission plus the same engines when they got the 4.10-axle ratio on automatic cars.

Does anyone have a pic of a 'cuda with a factory blue shaker? Also, I have quite a collection of fender tag pictures, but none of them shows V6W for a white (or even red) hockey stripe... They must be very rare, I tend to believe many of the restored cars with a white stripe got them because on that specific car the owner liked it better than a black one or whatever belonged on the car.

Nice build, Tim ! You know that white hockey stripes were not available from the factory? Concerning the wheel wells: Starting in about mid-January 1970 the Hemicudas got the wheel well trim (chrome) deleted. This was only on the Hemis, all others kept their chrome trim. Could be of help when correcting those areas on the kit. About the shaker colors I am pretty sure that the silver shaker was standard on early cars unless you ordered a red car. Later in the year black was available. My guess is that black replaced silver on the shakers as there was no option code to choose if you wanted silver or black. 71 shakers were all black, hence it would make sence to me that late 70 shakers were already black. Maybe someone knows more about the red shaker cars. As I know several red cars with silver shaker there must have been a connection to something else, maybe the colored bumper group or the painted sport mirrors. I would doubt any other color available than these three as Chrysler (or the manufacturer of the shaker bubbles) had difficulties getting them painted, as someone already wrote. AFAIK they found a solution but it was quite expensive, so they limited it to red. I have seen sevaral body colored shakers on Cudas as well as Challengers. But I'd doubt every single one unless someone shows me some good proof like a photo from the day of delivery or something like that. Even then the dealer could have painted it...