Post by Deleted on Nov 4, 2009 20:25:20 GMT -5
I've posted this topic in a few forums, & thought it might be appreciated here as well, for those that may not have seen it before.
Almost all of the box art pics are from the instructions site, so, much thanks for that great site Bob.
I'm speaking of the MPC/AMT 68-70 Dodge Charger in all it's variations.
Let's look at it.
For 1968 MPC had the rights to produce Dodge kits, (something they had since 1965, with the Dodge Custom 880 Convertible under their banner & the 65 Coronet they produced for AMT), & brought out a new tool of the 68 Charger R/T, with a better detailed chassis than their 66/67 Charger had.
Here's a pic of that annual kit:
For 1969, Dodge slightly refreshened the Charger, (split grille, & different tail lights), & MPC freshened up the kit to reflect this. Here's a pic of the 69 annual:
1970 brought another freshening of the car, (another new grille, with a loop bumper, & modified tail lights again, as well as faux door scoops), & again MPC updated the annual kit to reflect this.
The 1970 annual kit:
In 1971 Dodge brought out an all new Charger, leaving MPC with an outdated kit, (Note; MPC did tool up a 71 Charger annual kit as well). What to do with this kit? Hmmm, that Nascar racing is certainly getting popular, & Bobby Isaac won the championship in a 1969 Daytona in 70, perhaps that might sell. Add the nosepiece & wing, tool up a new stripped racing interior tub, & convert the rear window from being between two sail panels to being flush with the roof & a stock car is born! Heck Dodge did it the same way!
Here's the box art for that version. Note that on the side panel drawing, you can see the faux scoops from the 70 R/T annual kit that MPC forgot to remove in the initial run. They did remove them in time for the second production run.
Next up for this body was as the Mario Rossi owned, Richard Brooks driven Daytona raced in the 71 Daytona 500, the last Nascar outing for a winged car. This was the same body & parts as the K&K Insurance car above, but with the then new MPC generic stock car chassis, engine & drivetrain. This kit came out in 1972.
Here's that box art:
The kit's tooling sat dormant after that until the "Dukes Of Hazzard" exploded onto America's TV screens in 1979. Realizing that they had the parts in their tooling bank to cash in on this, MPC worked out a licensing deal with Warner Brothers, dusted off that old tooling, found the 69 grille & tail light inserts & cashed in. In doing so however, they forgot to fix the flush rear window or dig out the stock interior tub. Whoops!!! It made no difference as in it's initial run this version sold millions of kits.
Here's a pic of the orginal box art with the AMT/Ertl logo in place of the MPC one, as reissued by AMT in the early part of this decade:
Late 80's, MPC, (now owned by Ertl as AMT is), digs the tooling out yet again, & takes advantage of the flush rear window & makes a 69 Charger 500 by tooling up the proper 68 Coronet grille, apparently finding the stock interior tub this time.
Here's that version:
In the early 90's AMT does another conversion, this time a stock 1969 Daytona. They botch this, giving a very inaccurate & badly proportioned kit.
Here's a pic of one of the later reissues of that kit:
Finally AMT does some more retooling to make a really inaccurate 70 Charger kit under the "Fast & Furious" license. They attempted to redo the rear window back to non flush & did a really bad 70 style grille & loop bumper.
Here's that kit:
That's nine variants from one tool, & with all of those variants, especially the best selling Dukes version, which has been reissued twice, the last time to tie in with the movie in 2005), this may be the biggest selling tool for MPC ever.
Almost all of the box art pics are from the instructions site, so, much thanks for that great site Bob.
I'm speaking of the MPC/AMT 68-70 Dodge Charger in all it's variations.
Let's look at it.
For 1968 MPC had the rights to produce Dodge kits, (something they had since 1965, with the Dodge Custom 880 Convertible under their banner & the 65 Coronet they produced for AMT), & brought out a new tool of the 68 Charger R/T, with a better detailed chassis than their 66/67 Charger had.
Here's a pic of that annual kit:
For 1969, Dodge slightly refreshened the Charger, (split grille, & different tail lights), & MPC freshened up the kit to reflect this. Here's a pic of the 69 annual:
1970 brought another freshening of the car, (another new grille, with a loop bumper, & modified tail lights again, as well as faux door scoops), & again MPC updated the annual kit to reflect this.
The 1970 annual kit:
In 1971 Dodge brought out an all new Charger, leaving MPC with an outdated kit, (Note; MPC did tool up a 71 Charger annual kit as well). What to do with this kit? Hmmm, that Nascar racing is certainly getting popular, & Bobby Isaac won the championship in a 1969 Daytona in 70, perhaps that might sell. Add the nosepiece & wing, tool up a new stripped racing interior tub, & convert the rear window from being between two sail panels to being flush with the roof & a stock car is born! Heck Dodge did it the same way!
Here's the box art for that version. Note that on the side panel drawing, you can see the faux scoops from the 70 R/T annual kit that MPC forgot to remove in the initial run. They did remove them in time for the second production run.
Next up for this body was as the Mario Rossi owned, Richard Brooks driven Daytona raced in the 71 Daytona 500, the last Nascar outing for a winged car. This was the same body & parts as the K&K Insurance car above, but with the then new MPC generic stock car chassis, engine & drivetrain. This kit came out in 1972.
Here's that box art:
The kit's tooling sat dormant after that until the "Dukes Of Hazzard" exploded onto America's TV screens in 1979. Realizing that they had the parts in their tooling bank to cash in on this, MPC worked out a licensing deal with Warner Brothers, dusted off that old tooling, found the 69 grille & tail light inserts & cashed in. In doing so however, they forgot to fix the flush rear window or dig out the stock interior tub. Whoops!!! It made no difference as in it's initial run this version sold millions of kits.
Here's a pic of the orginal box art with the AMT/Ertl logo in place of the MPC one, as reissued by AMT in the early part of this decade:
Late 80's, MPC, (now owned by Ertl as AMT is), digs the tooling out yet again, & takes advantage of the flush rear window & makes a 69 Charger 500 by tooling up the proper 68 Coronet grille, apparently finding the stock interior tub this time.
Here's that version:
In the early 90's AMT does another conversion, this time a stock 1969 Daytona. They botch this, giving a very inaccurate & badly proportioned kit.
Here's a pic of one of the later reissues of that kit:
Finally AMT does some more retooling to make a really inaccurate 70 Charger kit under the "Fast & Furious" license. They attempted to redo the rear window back to non flush & did a really bad 70 style grille & loop bumper.
Here's that kit:
That's nine variants from one tool, & with all of those variants, especially the best selling Dukes version, which has been reissued twice, the last time to tie in with the movie in 2005), this may be the biggest selling tool for MPC ever.
It's an interweb thing.....