MPC kits came out with their annuals in 1966. My first kit of theirs was a '66 Bonneville. The molding was a little thinner than AMT kits and with excellent detail. They did give AMT a run for their money at the time. Revell was known for their line of "unbuildables". Their chrome tree molding was piss poor at the time and way too fine in detail for the average 10 year old to accomplish. Bob
I would guess it depends on if you have an architect scale, or an engineer scale. Architects work in inches per foot, so 1:24 would be easier, engineers work in decimal, so 1:25 would be easier.
I am getting ready to ship an AMT, in 1986 they were in Dyersville, Iowa or at least the offices were.
Love all the comments. I lived in a seven bedroom Victorian Farmhouse on a hundred acre piece of property directly across a two lane road from the Troy AMT. I grew up building models given to me after a tour of the plant with my brother. As many kits as we could carry if I recall. We would get to sit in the Custom cars from Hollywood by Barris and Winfield and Big Daddy etc. The Silhouette, Piranha, Munster Koach, Dragula, Batmobile, Deora, Ala Karte, the cars would be on display for a few days on the lawn right on Maple road. Lived there from first grade till seventh grade.
I built tons of those. All of em. AMT Peterbilt car hauler, with sides I made from plastic sheets. I had an impressive parts box with two or three of everything. Great way to grow up in the early 70's.
Those model car kit companies were a pretty friendly bunch with each other. The guy who developed the 3 in 1 kits while at AMT was George Toteff. He went on to found MPC with my cousin (**** Branstner), and some of the kits they produced ended up in AMT packaging. They were located in Mt. Clemens, the heart of Chrysler country. Between Mt Clemens and Troy, there existed a huge number of tool and die makers - those were really some "old skool" guys with a true love of craft.
The buildings still there...p*** it all the time. Not only were we building bad *** cars....we were building bad *** models
AMT models were $1.49 retail and we usually got them for 25-50 cents less on sale! Boy those were the days. Now the same kits are $25.00 or more! Of course kids have no interest in cars or models of them, their heads are down and their thumbs have calluses on them! KK
I was wondering how much they were back then. Cigarettes were 25 cents a pack, so for sure $1.49 was still a number for us kids. We were also doing model aircraft and ships - I can remember doing the USS Missouri and USS Enterprise - musta set the old man back quite a bit - probably crimped his Prince Albert pipe tobacco purchase for the week.
Just an FYI. There was an AMT plant in Baltimore. I have a couple of friends that worked there. If I remember the stories right, it was on Washington Blvd (Rt. 1). Will try to find out for sure. Gene.
^^^^^^^ " Good afternoon, Mam. Could you tell me if your refridgerator's running? Well, you better go catch it!" Yuk, yuk. ( 12 year old humor) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Revelle had better glue ( I think) ????? Bought these at a church bazaar for 2 bucks each- complete, "3 way" kits, with a display base/ pen holder for your desk. The Continental could be made as a station wagon- COOL!
How fitting: the old man did use PA, and my little brothers liked Rat Fink and anything BDR - which the old man hated. ironic - or justice
Crank your calendars up to 2,010...then look at ANY Revell '32. The frames are 100% scale, bodies (3 window coupe, 5 window, '32 sedan, '32 Highboy roadster) are also like shrunken down from the real thing. Revell came out swingin', finally...if a little too late...I can build a scale '32 anything now, without having to Kit Bash something to death. Just look back at the AMT '32 Coupe. Looked sectioned, but the top was sorta scale... I bashed a Monogram '32 roadster body with the AMT top to get scale cowl and quarters...just to have a scale model of my '32 5 window highboy I had when just a 'nipper'... (ex wife burned all my pictures, and I wanted Trophy wife to see how my '32 was. Trophy wife fell in love with the shop, and in 3 or 4 months knew more about '32 structure and lines than most guys...) LOL
Dyersville was(is?) the location of Ertl Toys. As I recall, Fred Ertl bought out both AMT and MPC for their tooling, and then sold all the obsolete kit inventory for more than he paid for the whole companies. Such a deal!
I used to build them when I was a kid. The address I remember was in Troy, Michigan. They were high quality, very detailed kits.
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