In celebration of the Revell 1983 Hurst Olds Cutlass having released a few days ago, I figured I’d give the old ’69 H/O a go, a model I’ve made around a year ago.
This kit’s doing the Hurst Olds proud. Not only is it a beautiful representation of the Cutlass as done by Hurst, it’s also got all sorts of extras that make this kit and model stand out on top of the rest. AMT’s been doing these special-ish editions of certain models, they would come in a prettier package, remolded parts that are less brittle and riddled with flash and then some little bonuses. In this kit you’d get a miniature fold model of the box it came in along with a Hurst Shifters sticker to make displaying your model a little more special.
The model quality is really high, even higher than most of AMT’s stuff. It’s got some extra separate custom goodies such as chrome exhaust headers, custom chrome valve covers
and rallye rims. A really really nice thing that usually no model maker ever does is supply pre-printed brand tires, this one comes with a set of lovely looking Goodyear Polyglas GT tires. On top of that, all the parts that effectively make this a Hurst/Olds are optional, separate from the model. So if your heart desires, you could make this a beefy stock Oldsmobile Cutlass 442 instead. The difficulty is pretty high but thanks to it the model does some extra stuff that most don’t, like functional and turn-able wheels, deeper engine detail as well as a much more detailed interior.
Now, the downsides to this kit are luckily just a few… There’s no designated spot for the hood intakes so it was mostly guesswork. Also I couldn’t for the life of me attach the mirrors, they’re meant to sit in a sliver on the body but it wasn’t molded onto it. Discovered that one to late and would’ve needed to scrape into the paint and glue the hell out of them to make ’em stay.
Another downside is that the instructions are rather… vague. They’re correct at least, don’t get me wrong here but having a picture of the entire rear suspension get up in a single panel with about 20 arrows all over the place that also have to be attached in a specific unmentioned order, kind of a pain in the ass.
’69 Hurst/Olds Cutlass 455 specifications:
Kit: AMT6898
Skill Level: 2
Parts: 85
Molded in: White
Scale: 1/25
This was my first AMT model car I built. That was almost 30 years ago. This model gave me such a good impression of AMT that I thought all AMT models were like this. Then came their 64 impala, which was a shock. Then I unwrapped a 69 TransAM which was terrible. The interior was of such poor quality I mailed (snail mail back then) AMT complaining about their lousy quality. To my surprise they mailed me a new interior and it was identical to the one I already had.