Coming this year from Atlantis models

[Daddyfink]

55 minutes ago, Dave Van said:

The issue with TJ, Dragon and Rommel's is they were cloned in China. Tooling made in China STAYS in China. Not saying it will never happen......just most likely not. There is a book 'China: the 100 year marathon' that talks about this stuff.  Bottom line is if you try and get your tooling out of China it gets lost or damaged beyond use. LOTS of stories out there about this. Thx

Is this what happened to the first shot of the 29 and 30 Revell Fords? 

[slusher]

31 minutes ago, Daddyfink said:

Is this what happened to the first shot of the 29 and 30 Revell Fords? 

I remember that, I didn’t know if I would ever get a 30 Ford!

[Dave Van]

I had friends at RM at the time.....All I ever got was 'tooling became unusable.....

[niteowl7710]

12 hours ago, Dave Van said:

The issue with TJ, Dragon and Rommel's is they were cloned in China. Tooling made in China STAYS in China. Not saying it will never happen......just most likely not. There is a book 'China: the 100 year marathon' that talks about this stuff.  Bottom line is if you try and get your tooling out of China it gets lost or damaged beyond use. LOTS of stories out there about this. Thx

Yet Salvinos JR has all of their tooling done in China and then ships it to California for production. The fact is tooling is big and heavy and a total PITA to ship anywhere years after the fact unless you're just packing away an entire warehouse and drop shipping it out of the country. That's why all the Accurate Miniatures and Galaxie Limited stuff wound up in the care of Academy. All of the Atlantis car stuff from Revell is still in Illinois, some of the Lindberg tooling (that's what 3 owners down the road from Crafthouse now) is still at the tooling facility in Michigan that created that tooling 30+ years ago.

Salvinos has had on again off again talks with Revell for years now about getting more of the Monogram/Revell NASCAR stuff and it's never been about not being able to liberate the tooling from China, but about the costs involved and the price tag of the tooling itself.

Edited March 4 by niteowl7710

[Dave Van]

Salvino's does things different than many from what I can tell. I have no inside info but I bet they pay up front and are firm about the tooling being exported when finished. Stuff cloned in China with production there is MUCH cheaper. When I was doing a lot of work with RC2 and Model King we had whole bodies cloned and no one thought twice as the tooling was cheap.  The tooling and production was bid as one.......

[tim boyd]

3 hours ago, Dave Van said:

I had friends at RM at the time.....All I ever got was 'tooling became unusable.....

I heard a number of different stories from inside and outside of Revell.  Don't believe we will ever hear a definitive story and I believe that may be intentional. 

But if you compare the first and second round kits you will note that about half the parts trees in the second round kits were new tooling....mostly on square section (vs. round on the original kits) parts trees.  Further, some of the inside surfaces on the second round frame rails were not properly finished (you can see EDM marks that should have been polished away) and revised parts feed locations on the Deuce frames were prone to causing warping on the second round kits. 

Nevertheless, it is in my mind a major miracle that between the Hobbico bankruptcy, Covid, and the like, we still eventually got back these kits.  Major Kudos to the Revell and Revell Germany teams for making this happen!   TB  

[Robberbaron]

18 hours ago, niteowl7710 said:

There would have to be that much commiserate tooling that Atlantis has the Revell wants back. When Pete (Atlantis' owner) talked about all of this at last year's IPMS Nats Seminar he mentioned that once all of the tooling was divided up both "sides" wound up with things the other company was supposed to get. Pete said they (Atlantis) were not going to spend physical money to obtain TD (and other) tooling but were working with Revell on a tool by tool basis to swap things back to where they belonged. Last Summer Atlantis still had more than 600 sets of tooling they hadn't even opened yet.

Wonder if that includes inserts?  I have a strong suspicion that when Hobbico sent certain R-M tooling to China, inserts for alternate versions stayed in Illinois, and then got left behind during the bankruptcy/sell-off.

So some recent reissues like tne S-10 and Silverado don't have full factory stock parts now.  Even the '66 Malibu SS 2'N1 (sic) reissue is missing an awful lot of the old "Street Rat" parts, first and foremost the slot mags.

[Mark C.]

15 hours ago, niteowl7710 said:

Yet Salvinos JR has all of their tooling done in China and then ships it to California for production. 

That sounds like apples and oranges, though.  Contracting a Chinese company to manufacture tooling and ship it to you is different from contracting with a Chinese company to produce plastic kits using your tooling.

In the first case, the company doesn’t get paid if the product is not delivered.  In the second case the company gets paid when the model kits are delivered, but whatever happens to the tooling after the fact is collateral damage and happens after the money is made from the contract.  Being in a communist country, action to be compensated for “lost” tooling will likely not be practically possible.

[niteowl7710]

20 hours ago, Mark C. said:

That sounds like apples and oranges, though.  Contracting a Chinese company to manufacture tooling and ship it to you is different from contracting with a Chinese company to produce plastic kits using your tooling.

In the first case, the company doesn’t get paid if the product is not delivered.  In the second case the company gets paid when the model kits are delivered, but whatever happens to the tooling after the fact is collateral damage and happens after the money is made from the contract.  Being in a communist country, action to be compensated for “lost” tooling will likely not be practically possible.

I'll grant you that last part, but like I said SJR's modest quest to obtain more of the NASCAR stuff (they for instance have the Lumina body, but not the rest of the GM kit that goes underneath it) isn't couched in leaving the tooling in China. It's acquiring it and shipping it to California. You can say whatever you want about Rick and his bravado/brashness, but he's not going to buy something he would not actually be able to obtain.

[niteowl7710]

On 3/4/2025 at 1:59 AM, Robberbaron said:

Wonder if that includes inserts?  I have a strong suspicion that when Hobbico sent certain R-M tooling to China, inserts for alternate versions stayed in Illinois, and then got left behind during the bankruptcy/sell-off.

So some recent reissues like tne S-10 and Silverado don't have full factory stock parts now.  Even the '66 Malibu SS 2'N1 (sic) reissue is missing an awful lot of the old "Street Rat" parts, first and foremost the slot mags.

That would have been Binney & Smith's (Crayola/Hallmark) doing as Hobbico didn't buy Revell until 2007 which is almost a decade down the line of when the tooling was sent across the Pacific. What exists where and if it exists at all - as Revell has moved the tooling within China several times over the past nearly three decades - depends on housekeeping and inventory management. The 2WD S-10 parts have been AWOL for a long time, it's part of why the kit was never reissued past the 1999 Lowrider release. If the inserts were lying around in Illinois I would think someone would have found them in the intervening 20 years between the mass migration and when Hobbico went belly up.

[Mark C.]

1 hour ago, niteowl7710 said:

I'll grant you that last part, but like I said SJR's modest quest to obtain more of the NASCAR stuff (they for instance have the Lumina body, but not the rest of the GM kit that goes underneath it) isn't couched in leaving the tooling in China. It's acquiring it and shipping it to California. You can say whatever you want about Rick and his bravado/brashness, but he's not going to buy something he would not actually be able to obtain.

The post I responded to sounded like they were having their tooling “done” (i.e. manufactured) in China and then shipped to the states for model production (squeezing molten plastic into the molds).

Now you are saying that he is buying existing tooling from Revell that was previously used, and currently located in, China.  I can’t comment on that, but thanks for clearing it up.

[k357]

On 2/28/2025 at 7:12 AM, Reegs said:

The AMT Streaker AWB will be the last kit I buy.

No wait! The Moebius '65 Barracuda will be the last kit I buy.

No wait! The Atlantis '57 Nomad will be the last kit I buy.

No wait! The Moebius Coronet AWB will be the last kit I buy.

No wait! The Moebius '47 Chevy Coupe will be the last kit I buy.

No wait! The Atlantis '23 Comp Roadster will be the last kit I buy.

No wait...

When's the Barracuda supposed to be released? That'll make a great companion to the Super Stock A990 which is a great kit!

[Mr. Metallic]

40 minutes ago, k357 said:

When's the Barracuda supposed to be released? That'll make a great companion to the Super Stock A990 which is a great kit!

FYI, the 65 Barracuda is not from Moebius, but Round2. Probably before the end of 2025.