Collecting Muscle Car Model Kits. Tim Boyd

(particularly around the wheel openings), and most of the original body trims and badging were removed. As an example, AMT recycled a number of its old annual kit tools for a series of oval track–style Modified kits in 1970–1972. In most cases, given the amount and degree of changes to the body tooling, it was either impossible or unaffordable to return the tooling to showroom stock condition. In those few cases where this was attempted (such as the AMT 1965 GTO and MPC 1970 GTO kits), the resulting product was noticeably compromised versus the original annual kits.

      Finally, in some cases, the original annual kit tooling was scrapped (destroyed) when doing so would provide an advantageous tax write-off benefit to the owner of the tooling. Thus, your chances of seeing the AMT 1963 Meteor kit reissued went out the door when this tooling was scrapped, most probably during the late 1960s and very early 1970s when AMT was facing financial difficulties.

       Reasons Why a Given Annual Kit Has Seen Multiple Reissues

      Why then wasn’t AMT’s 1965 GTO tool changed for the 1966 GTO? That would be the case because the promotionals contract for the 1966 GTO transferred from kitmaker AMT to crosstown rival MPC. This means that AMT didn’t get to see blueprints of Pontiac’s updates for the 1966 GTO. In addition, MPC planned an assembly kit derived from its new GTO promotionals tooling. Thus, it would be unlikely that both AMT and MPC would have offered kits of the same 1966 topic, especially when an AMT kit would have hit the market months after the MPC kit. Therefore, AMT (again looking to maximize its tooling investment) simply re-boxed its existing 1965 GTO tool as a Trophy Series kit, and then continued to reissue that kit for the rest of the decade.

      As a corollary to the above, an annual kit tooling of the final evolution of a real car generation just prior to a major new platform change makes it much more likely to remain available as a reissue. Thus, when Chevrolet introduced its Impala for 1965 with its all-new body and chassis, AMT had to produce all-new tooling for its 1965 Chevy kits. This allowed the company to retain and reissue its previous 1964 Impala kit tooling for decades to come.

      Many individual cases exist that are more involved than the basics discussed above, but if you are wondering why your favorite muscle car kit has never been reissued, it’s probably at least partially because of these considerations.

       The following depicts the life cycle of AMT’s original 1964 Pontiac A-Body tool. It began as a Le Mans convertible (top left) and then underwent minor changes to become the 1964 GTO annual kit (bottom left). The tool was then revised to become the 1965 GTO annual kit (top center). When AMT lost the 1966 GTO contract to MPC, AMT reissued their 1965 GTO with new Trophy Series box art (bottom center). The tool was later modified into a Modified Production racer (not shown), and then underwent a flawed attempt to return the kit to a factory stock form (top right). Further refinements followed (bottom right), but the latest version still falls short of the original annual kit.

       Beginning in the late 1960s, AMT began reissuing some of its outdated annual kit tooling with new box art. Some were straight reissues (such as the 1967 Vette, center left); but more often they were packaged as part of a themed catalog grouping. Shown are reissues from the Elegance Series (center and bottom left), Wild Flower Series (top right), and a couple with a south-of-the-border theme (center and lower right) kit series.

       Some of the most desirable annual kits underwent irrevocable changes to their tooling after the current year production run was completed. For instance, AMT’s 1966 Mustang GT 2+2 body tooling was altered to a shortened wheelbase configuration and joined with new interior and chassis tooling to create an AWB/early-style funny car kit. Meanwhile, the 1966 Mustang GT 2+2 kit’s interior/chassis/engine tooling was repurposed to create a new kit of the Ford Mach 1 Concept Vehicle.

       More changes to highly desirable original annual kit toolings are shown here. AMT’s 1968 Mustang GT was converted to a Shelby GT500. MPC’s 1966 Mustang GT body tooling was modified to become the body of MPC’s Ohio George Gasser kit. AMT’s 1966 Skylark GS, Revell’s 1962 Dodge Dart, MPC’s 1969 Camaro, AMT’s 1970 Mustang, and AMT’s 1971 Torino GT toolings were all modified to create the competition-themed kits shown here. It’s unlikely you’ll ever see the original factory stock kits reissued.

       The Four Waves of Model Car Kit Development

      For each model car kit pictured in Chapters 3 to 13, I’ll include a note as to the “wave” of the kit. Quite simply, this refers to when the kit was first designed and produced, and gives you some idea of the level of detail and accuracy of the resulting kit. Here is the definition for each wave.

       Wave 1

      These are kits that were engineered in the first wave of the modern model kit, which is also the primary period in which annual kits were introduced each year. For purposes of this book, Wave 1 kits were first introduced in 1958 through 1976. Most of these kits replicated the newest Detroit offerings, and were developed from factory blueprints of the real cars. A significant number of these Wave 1 kits are still in production today, and the majority of kits shown in this book are Wave 1 kits.

       Wave 2

      Wave 2 kits were mostly introduced from 1977 to 1986 or so. This means that these Wave 2 kits were developed anywhere from 5 to 20 years or more after the real cars were first introduced. In addition, unlike the 3-in-1 configuration of most Wave 1 and Wave 2 kits generally could be built in one, or at most, two versions. Factory blueprints of muscle cars were generally no longer available to kit developers, and the expertise need to accurately capture the delicate contours of body shells varied across the kit production base, which means that some Wave 2 kits have bodies that are poorly proportioned.

      These Wave 2 kits were sometimes simplified versus Wave 1 kits (containing fewer parts and thereby allowing expedited assembly). On the other hand, some Wave 2 kits produced more accurate, specific muscle car models. For example, Monogram’s Wave 2 1970 Boss 429 kit precisely duplicated the real car, whereas the original Wave 1 kits often did not replicate a specific factory muscle car version in terms of engines, wheels, exterior graphics, and trim.

       Wave 3

      Wave 3 kits originated during the period of 1987 to 1999. This was the period when the adult model car builder became a primary target of the hobby kit manufacturers, and the kits produced during this period were highly detailed and exceedingly accurate in order to meet the expectations of the serious adult builder. While these kits were generally manufactured outside the United States, the kit design still took place in the United States and the tooling was usually created at one of two highly experienced Canadian tooling houses.

       Wave 4

      These kits were first introduced in the years 2000 and beyond. By this point, kit engineering and production was moving overseas, mostly to East Asia and China. Wave 4 kits generally show incredible detail and engraving and superb fit and finish. Surprisingly, though, these kits often contain minor body inaccuracies resulting both from the inability of the tooling sources to actually see the real car they are replicating and from the adoption of computer-aided design to replace the previous practice of developing 1/10th-scale wood masters. The possible use of digital scans of the real car being modeled could largely solve this issue, but the model companies generally state that they cannot afford this added expense given the relatively low sales volume of today’s kits versus those produced in earlier decades.

      Also, keep in mind that in referring to the Wave of each kit, I am referencing the first production date of the original tool the kit was based