Last time we looked at muscle cars, we finished up in 1970. Good year, that.
Intermediate coupes seemed to be changing focus; the highlight of the range was increasingly becoming the luxury variant rather than the performance one. As a teen at the time, and a foreigner as well, I felt this was a sellout in favour of the old folks, but I admit that if I’d been trying to pay for, insure and feed a muscle car, and lived in North America, I may have seen things a bit differently.
So far writing these pieces has been easy, but as with the trends with real cars in the seventies, so it was with models. There just weren’t as many muscle car kits being made. As the cars aimed at the youth market diminished, so the American model manufacturers didn’t seem to know where to go next for subject matter, and entered their own little malaise era. The range of annual car kits dwindled – although I did build a Pinto, a Vega, and a Gremlin (because they looked cool), they don’t feature here. Not today. And we’ll catch up with Camaros and the like another day.
Let’s take away the bad taste of Vegas and such, with this ’70 Torino I mentioned last time. Well, not this one; last time’s one was green. Another one of those kits I’ve built lots of. Not enough to do a full story on, not like, say, those Edsels.
But here’s another one. Monogram introduced this kit as a GT in their Pro-Modeler line; this basically seemed to mean more detail than usual, a small number of photoetched badges and details (taillight overlay in this case), and some reference material with the instructions. Revell, which bought out Monogram, later ‘decontented’ the kit a bit and turned it into this Cobra, which reappears in the line every few years. The GT seems to be gone for good. Glad I stocked up on them….
Technically I ought to save this for when I discuss personal luxury coupes, but I’ll sneak in a Monte Carlo here, because it’s an SS454. I imagine Chevy fans after maximum performance would have bought their SS454 as a (smaller, lighter, sportier-looking) Malibu, but at least Chevy made a muscle Monte Carlo available. And AMT made a model of it: back in the day as an annual kit, and in 1997 brought out a state-of-the-art kit of an SS454 – and a lowrider version. Show you that one another time.
What are we to make of the Charger? Previously it had been a visually distinct second intermediate coupe from Dodge, first as a fastback, then as a more formal but still sporty ‘tunnelback’. Perhaps more a proto-personal-luxury coupe? But for 1971 Dodge simplified the range, with the Charger replacing the Coronet hardtop. It looked almost nothing like the Coronet sedans and wagons, which I find a curious tactic. Rather than being a halo model, now it came in a wider range than the Coronet had – even in stripper form. Too bad if you wanted a more formal coupe from Dodge for ’71. This is the original MPC 1971 annual kit, one of my first models in this scale. The brown paint ‘fade’ is how MPC made the kit
It seemed fairly popular as a kit at the time, and MPC updated it through 1974 and reissued it several times over the years. AMT came out with an all-new Charger R/T kit in 1999. It was criticized for having a bench seat interior rather than the more desirable buckets – I felt like saying ‘Hey, it’s a model, guys! A seat swap is easy! Or cut the centre portion to replicate a folded-down armrest!’. I did both… Later AMT revised the tool into a Super Bee street machine with very odd swirly directional wheels; both have been in the catalog almost ever since. I swapped the wheels on this one, couldn’t stand the swirlies.
Over at Plymouth the same basic body was reskinned as the Satellite/Road Runner/GTX. I built the Road Runner annual kit in 1972, but only one poor photo survives (and I can’t find even that!). Monogram added the ’71 to their muscle car range for 1984, but oddly chose to do a Satellite rather than a Road Runner (to avoid licensing fees, probably). Sure looks like a Runner to me….
The kit was later revised to a GTX (again, probably to avoid licensing fees), in which form it has been reissued several times. It’s another one of those models I find myself building again and again.
And again…
And I don’t feel cheated that it’s not a Road Runner; it has the shape, and that means more to me than a name.
Moving on…
…we come to Mercury. Quite a rare kit, this Cyclone is a 1971 annual kit. Initially I painted it purple (a favourite colour back then, too) and added the yellow markings after Ford released a Falcon hardtop in ‘Superbird’ trim, with contrasting paint applied like this. Perhaps fortunately, Ford Australia didn’t combine purple with yellow.
About time I included a Chevelle. So here are two. This ’72 is another one of those kits that come back into the catalog every few years.
Likewise this GTO. A kit that seems to have been around forever, but really shows its age. Engraving isn’t as sharp as perhaps it used to be, suspensions aren’t as well detailed as current kits, and there are some things that just make you wonder why they did them like that.
Here’s a newish ’72 Olds 442 from Revell. A fantastic kit. You’d think a Cutlass Supreme would be a natural follow-up to the convertible, but no, they tooled up for the fastback hardtop instead. I have three of the old Johan ’70 442 kits with that bodystyle, so I didn’t buy one.
Much like Plymouth, MPC persevered with the Road Runner, in fact it’s still available under the AMT brand, however this ’74 is an eighties ‘GTX’ reissue I built back then. The ultra=dark windows were an unfortunate affliction of many eighties MPC kits. Those stripes were painted freehand; I wouldn’t want to try that now!
Let’s finish up with another Charger. This is an eighties reissue of the MPC ’74 annual, minus the original’s custom pieces. The box art picture made it look rather toylike so I went for black with a cut-down version of the decal graphics provided.
Oh – late entry/ second thoughts. Any AMC fans in the house? I don’t know whether you could call the AMC Matador a muscle car, maybe with the 401 and X trim, but here’s my ’75. Funny to think I built this one fifty years ago.
No idea where we’re going next time. I’ve got several topics roughed out, but some need photos, which means finding a specific model to photograph (where DID I put that Blower Bentley?), or finishing up a specific model (there’s a ‘69 Grand Prix on the bench as I write this). Catch up with you soon!
How about one of these?
Well yes, the Ford 427 was certainly a muscle engine, but belongs to an earlier era than the cars in today’s story. There’s a nice dual carb one in AMT’s 66 Fairlane 427 kit.
That AMC Matador must be a rare kit, I never saw one even back in the day.I built the AMT version of the `71 Charger because I always liked the thin post coupe and the high back bench seat with the armrest. I just bought the AMT `70 Monte Carlo at a model club I belong to only last week from a member who sells models and paint every month. It looks like it should be a fun build, but there is still that scatchbuilt ‘steampunk’ like French ironclad ‘Redoutible’ sitting on the workbench in the garage. It`s just too damn hot and humid here in New Jersey to work on it.
Phil, I wonder whether they did a smaller production run of Matadors. It stands to reason a Corvette, Camaro or Mustang would be more popular. I bought that one down here – I’d guess hardly any Aussie teens knew what it was. I’ve hardly ever seen any built up pics online, and the online kit dealers rarely have them. I built a second one last year (or was it the year before?), and have a third kit unbuilt.
That Monte Carlo’s a great kit.
Hot and humid, huh? Down here it’s 2C and the grass is crunchy. Shame we can’t average out our weather….
The 71 Roadrunner/GTX has something off about its proportions that I notice in my 1:18 Ertl GTX, I wonder if they simply scaled up one of these old MPC kits for them.
This era is my favorite design wise, the Muscle car era may have died detuned but it died beautiful with these sleek bodies. Only one I have a hard time with is the Chevelle, that formalized 71-72 facelift was either aping it’s big brother Monte Carlo or previewing things to come with the Collonades but it’s very incongruous to the rest of the body. Especially since it’s round taillights leaned even more towards sporty.
Matt, I haven’t noticed an error in the GTX proportions, but then I’ve never seen the real thing. Now you’ll have me going back for another look!
I totally agree with you about the styling in that era. To me it seemed a high point that wasn’t approached again until the late nineties/early 2000s. And the Chevelle: adding needless bulk and formality/boxiness seemed to be the way US styling was heading. I find the use of only two headlights on such a large car particularly strange.
Proportions is probably the wrong word, maybe definition? The sides seem too flat and the loop bumper and grille seem too shallow. Other thing that bugs me is the seam for the front valance is in the wrong place, which my diecast ertl has as well. Mind you It’s one of my favorite cars I’ve looked at a lot so I’m probably being nitpicky.
Ah. Yes, that can be a problem sometimes. A certain ’70 Challenger comes to mind, where the body sides are definitely too flat for an early seventies car, and lack that characteristic ‘tuck under’ effect. I’ve read that this can be a problem when they try to make a plastic kit off tooling designed for a diecast car. I don’t know whether this is generally correct or just applies to some models. In the case of this Challenger I just gave it my best shot.
These are all great, Peter! I am an AMC fan, so I was especially happy to see the green Matador. Our 1970 Torino looks like the Falcon offered in your market. It’s a great observation that once the muscle car offerings had dried up, so did available model kits based on new models.
Also, at first glance I had thought the Mercury was a Plymouth Duster! I’d now like to see pictures of both cars in profile, nose-to-tail, just to compare.
Even the Chevelle had some Duster like qualities to its shape. And so the Cutlass too. But I shudder to think the Merc looked like a Duster, although its a good observation.
Unfortunately the Mercury is packed away now; that was a photo I had on file. The Duster’s longer in front and rear of course, and the tail’s pointed in profile rather than being straight vertical like the Mercury. But there is a lot of Duster similarity in the side window shape. Here’s a similar view of a Duster for reference.
It’s funny, MPC for one valiantly tried to soldier on with Chargers and Road Runners through ’74, and did the new Dodge and Plymouth intermediates for ’75-6 (even as a police car!) but never picked up on any of GM’s colonnade cars, or Ford’s big Torino. (That’s from memory: that cursed AI has infested the net with known misinformation.) They did try the small Nova-based GTO, but I don’t think anybody much cared. It took until about ten years ago for us to get a kit of the colonnade MC, and more recently a Gran Torino. But they’re not muscle cars. Americans may have changed their buying habits to PLCs and broughams, but I guess the model makers figured they’d have limited youth appeal.
That Duster is gorgeous Peter, Sherwood Green Metallic no less, with a matching interior. what a nice actual car that would have been.
Sounds like I’d better do a Duster story, perhaps? I did a general small Mopar story back in ’23 (says he checking a tattered hand-written index), but maybe Dusters and Dart Sports need their own story. Maybe after I build the AMT Demon – but I’ve gotta buy one first.
I did this Duster about fifteen years back, and wanted to get away from the typical overused black or white/black interiors. So I figured several shades of green with yellowish inserts (to pick up off the yellowish shade of the Sherwood Green) in the seats would make a nice change. I’m not sure many people would have chosen these colours to buy on a real car, but as a model it turns heads big time.
Actually after looking at that Holden Monaro GTS rerun I see A LOT of Cyclone in it (or it in the Cyclone). There’s definitely a familiar theme of semi-fastback shapes of the era though, I can see duster too, especially with that custom paint scheme which I swear I’ve seen a duster in before
Some great models here. Not surprised by the number of Mopars, Chrysler put so much effort into this segment, plus the E body, shame about the timing.
As I get older I do prefer the mid to late 60s cars over these, which is a reversal of how I used to feel.
The Matador looks good too, did they include bumpers in the kit ? I assume not, as the hole for the brackets aren’t there.
And yes, amazing you built it in 1975, I don’t think anything I had in 1975 is still around, except my much treasured copy of World Cars 1973
I built a bunch of models in the later 60s and early 70s that have somehow survived. I should shoot them some day, but their build quality pales in comparison to Peter’s.
Thanks Lee. I’d be interested to see them.
Thanks jonco. Yep, Mopar models certainly seemed to be where the action was. They absolutely aced it for styling, and had the BEST colour range. I probably have built at least twice as many Mopar models from the ’70-’72 era than Fords and Chevys put together. And yet I grew up in a Ford-driving family – as they say, go figure! But I’ve never owned a real Mopar.
Yes, the Matador kit came with bumpers. You had to punch out the flashed-over holes in the front and rear pans to fit them, so I guess AMT figured kids would leave them off. Since the FMVSS standards don’t apply to models, I left them off both of mine. 🙂
And all the better without bumpers, I agree with the kids.
Your talent assembling these is truly amazing. You must have the patience of Jobe! I always look forward to your post sharing your collection. Isn’t amazing how much better a Matador coupe looks without the bumpers?
Thank you. More to come!