About the AMT/ERTL 1966 Olds 442s

A few months back there were some questions raised as to the accuracy of this kit and its box art on one of the forums. Having sold many and owned a couple when they were brand new, and since I've made my living using Photoshop, I thought I'd offer some data you might find useful about this kit and the box art...

First thing: the car on the cover and the car in the box are different models. The car on the cover is an F-85 Holiday Coupe, model 3617. The kit car in the box is a Cutlass Holiday Coupe, model 3817. Both equipped with either 4-4-2 performance option L69 which came with 3-2bbl carburetors, or option L78 which included the more common Quadrajet 4bbl carburetor. Both of these packages included the red line tires shown on the box along with heavy duty wheels. A no cost white line exchange option was also available.

As for the box art 1:1 photo, the rumors that the top was either a different color or had a vinyl top are true, it was was definitely Photoshopped. The tell-tail clue is the two-tone/vinyl top chrome separator between the windshield and the vent windows that they forgot to remove when they were making changes. From my sales experience, average buyers bought 4-4-2s with a vinyl top. Boy racers on the other hand skipped the vinyl top but equipped theirs with heavy duty items for weekend fun at the strip.

Just in case you're interested, the following interior colors were appropriate for both the coupe and convertible versions of this kit.

Parchment Pearl (Opalescent) white with matching headliner and Black carpet, Black with Ivory headliner and Black carpet, Red with Parchment Pearl headliner and Dark Maroon carpeting and Blue (matches 66 Olds color code D Lucerne Mist) with matching headliner and Dark Blue carpeting. All of these had vinyl seating surfaces.

Vinyl tops came in Black and Beige (actually an off white)

Convertible tops came in Beige (Khaki comes real close), Black, Blue (a bit darker then the interior Blue) and White.

I'll be posting the actual paint chips and swatches of everything on the builders guide page at the Resin Realm shortly.

Hope this has been of interest and/or helpful to you.

Jerry

Back in the day...Mine anyway,

seat covers were very popular and available in a wider variety of colors and textures than factory interiors. In 1953, Ford for example, had 14 different styles of factory seat covers available in 3 or 4 colors. If you didn't want seat covers you got your choice of 1 pattern for each model in 2 or 3 colors. Below is a factory brochure spread with a couple of examples and the style list.

Click on either photo to see a larger version.

Here's an interesting fact I'll bet you weren't aware of... Fingerhut, the catalog sales folks, got their start in 1948 making seat covers to fit most makes and models of American cars. Below is the interior of their 3 fold brochure for 1953 featuring a Ford Sunliner decked out with one of their seat cover sets. Pretty Spiffy, aye what?

Seat covers got so popular that you could buy them via catalog or in just about any major retail outlet back then. Sears, Wards and other catalog companies were good sources as were auto parts stores like Western Auto and Firestone Tire outlets.

These covers are not very difficult to make. I'll be posting a bunch in color from another source to give you some examples to work from. If you've got one of the newer printers that uses pigmented inks you can make some really nice covers for your models using decal paper and a softening solution.


Hope you enjoyed today's post. Your comments are welcome

Jerry K

We're back!

We've been away for a couple of weeks due to a death in the family. Posting to the blog will resume this week. Thanks for your patience.

Jerry K

This'll give you something to grin about...

If you drive around Detroit you'll see a wide variety of Chevy billboards that will definitely make your day a whole lot better, not to mention reminding you of the best times this country ever had.

If the print is too small click on them to see a larger version.

Enjoy

Jerry K

Whoops!!!

We forgot to include some corrected and up-dated information in the last post so we edited and re-posted it. Check out the corrected version below for additional details and links to cars and colors discussed in the post.

If you are reading this in an a e-Mail Message, Click Here! if that doesn't work, go to the Realm Home Page and click on the flashing News & Up-Dates link at the top of the page

Sorry about that...

Jerry K

Cars and colors...The '50s

Color always seems to be a hot topic especially when referring to what was available on a specific make/model//year, and contrary to popular opinion, you couldn't have any color you wanted just because you had the money to pay for it. There were of course, some exceptions to that rule and those were;

Special Models... Cars like the 53 Buick Skylark, 53 Olds Fiesta, 56 & 57 Lincoln Continental and the 57 Cadillac Brougham had specific paint and interior choices, but since they were painted on their own special lines, it wasn't all that difficult to order a special color...you just had to pay a hefty premium,

Factory Executive Cars. You had to be pretty high up on the food chain to get one of these cars that were, for the most part, painted in the corporate design shops. Harley Earl took it a step further than most by having special models built for his pleasure,

Fleets, of course, could have any color/combination they wanted if the order was sizable enough.

As for the rest of us...Back in the '50s you and I pretty much took what the manufacturer offered. All the major manufacturers took great pains to choose colors, both interior and exterior, that gave the best viewing impression and offered the greatest curbside appeal, and they made few if any exceptions to the general public depending on the dealer body to handle special requests.

Let's look at the 1953 Ford model line for example, starting with the Victoria 2 door hardtop.  The Vicky was available in a single solid color, Sungate Ivory, and 8 no extra cost two-tone combinations. The scan below is from one of the original factory brochures that attests to these facts.

The 53 Sunliner was chosen to be the Pace car for the Indy 500 in 53 to honor Ford's 50th anniversary. It was painted in 'Pace Car White' which is a very close match to what would become 1956 Mercury Classic White. Ford also made available to dealers a Pace car edition in Sungate Ivory with a special gold and black interior. Dealers could also purchase the Pace car decals for use on convertibles out of their inventory and evidently a few did, so it's kosher to build yours in any available light color (parts of the decal set were in black),  just remember to use stock interior colors for it. By the way, the convertible was the only passenger car available in red.

The sedan delivery could be had in all colors available on station wagons, and Mainline 2 and 4 door sedans plus the business/club coupe had no two-tone options at all even though they had the same chrome belt line strip used on Customline models to separate two colors.

The Pace Car Convertible and the Victoria are available from Lindberg, the sedan Delivery, Country Squire, Customline 2 door sedan and Mainline 4 door sedan are available from STAR Models uncleaned and from the Resin Realm cleaned and ready for primer (the Resin Realm version of the Country Squire and Sedan Delivery include the color of your choice in a one ounce bottle of single stage acrylic enamel). A Ranch Wagon is also available from STAR Models.

Look for more color facts here in the near future. If you're a strictly stock builder you might find them useful. And please remember too, that we have all 1953 Ford paint in stock including Spring Colors for those of you wishing to build a 'Documented' Car.

Thanks for stopping by and happy Modeling

Jerry K

Can a 1/25th scale Revell 29 Model A Pick-Up be worth more than a grand?

Well, this one is...

Yes, that gold look'n stuff is...GOLD. 14K solid gold. As for that shiny silver stuff...ya you guessed it, it's pure silver. Click on the photos to see larger versions.

Everything that worked on the Revell kit works on this metal masterpiece. Doors, tail gate, steering and the 4 piece piano hinged hood.

The top, interior and tires are anodized silver.

This is what happens when an ex jeweler turned modeler with too much time on his hands gets a wild hair. Having left over gold and silver from his business helps a bit too.

Happy modeling

Jerry K