AMT Nascar queries.....

Hello all,
I have recently been infected by the Nascar bug and there are a couple of 2004 Nascar kits made by AMT at my LHS. I have seen the quality of some of the kitsets on the forums and this has made me want one even more!

I have a couple of queries though about these kits and am wondering if someone can answer them for me. The kits I am looking at are the 04 Home Depot car driven by Tony Stewart, and the 04 Interstate batteries car of Labonte.

1. What is the fit of the recent kits like in general? lots of sanding and bogging? I remember the Monogram Valvoline car i made a few years ago was horrible.
2. How accurate are the cars? Not in terms of engine bay area, but more cockpit. I would like to detail one up, although from memory the seats in the standard kits are god awful and are not very refined.
3. How does the stance of the car fit overall? Does it take a mammoth effort to make the 4 wheels sit flat on the ground?

I have not touched an AMT/Monogram kit for many years as i got tired of the crap moulding and bad fitting of the kits i brought. Im sure they are a lot better now but would like to hear from someone who has recently built one of them.


If someone can answer my queries I would be most grateful.

Cheers
WRCfan

Okay.

Firstly, which Monogram T-bird did you build? Off the top of my head, I can think of as many as 5 individual toolings for NASCAR Thunderbirds with as many as four tooling revisions each out of Monogram's stable. That, coupled with Monogram's old tendency to mold the kits in their old brittle (and prone to warp) colored plastic, made for some fairly unbuildable kits.

The new AMT NASCAR kits, I must admit, I'm fairly unfamiliar with although I have seen the bodies (as they're 1:25th instead of 1:24th, and ergo smaller, they've become popular in the slot car racing division I compete in on Thursday nights). The bodies have the right basic contours, but seem "rough hewn" compared to the Revell Monogram kits.

Engine & chassis? Your guess is as good as mine.

Now, if you look to the Revell/Monogram kits, you want to pick up one of the Skill Level 3 kits. They're based on slightly older tooling, but are more detailed than the Skill Level 2 kits which are based on the Pro Finish prepainted series.

Also, keep in mind, the SL2 Revell/Monogram Chevy kits are tooled to represent current "superspeedway" style cars with extended "snout" and more raked rooflines. The SL3 kits are slightly older tooling that represent "snub nose" 1 1/2 mile track/short track noses and more bubbled rooflines.

http://www.angelfire.com/nj4/mm0/index.html

if you want to go into extreme detail. check those guys out.

AMT nascar kits, are complete garbage!!, chassis is wayyyyyyyyyy outdated, engines are incorrect, parts dont fit, tires are horrible.

i would recommend buying Revell kits, they are the way to go for nascar modeling. especially if you want to add some nice details.