1971 Plymouth ‘Cuda 440 Convertible – Revell

Third time’s the charm, right? I’ve done the ’71 ‘Cuda kit by Revell/Monogram twice so far, one as but a wee lad and the second time as a little test between mixing enamel paints and using photo etch parts, in either case royally screwing it up. Like, thoroughly. So when I got my hands on a cheap brand new Nash Bridges ‘Cuda kit by Revell, I figured let’s A) do this right for a change, you utter fool and B) no really, do this kit justice for a friggin’ change. I needed a little, tiny break from working on decals at a lovely rate of one entire sheet per day, so I picked up on doing the ’76 Mustang II turning it into a Cobra II and this ’71 ‘Cuda convertible – using it as a little distraction and as well to prove that this website hasn’t just died for that one page named “Decals“. Also, I wanted to give the ’71 ‘Cuda decals I made a whirl, see how they turned out.

But first things first, most car enthusiasts will know about either the weird little gem of a TV show called “Nash Bridges” or at the very least his supposed all-yellow 1971 HEMI ‘Cuda convertible. Which, given how ungodly rare the ’71 Cuda as a convertible is by itself, rarely was an actual ’71 Cuda convertible, nor a HEMI – but that’s TV for ya’, they can’t just buy a 1971 ‘Cuda with a HEMI and be a convertible, hell one of those sold for 3.5 million dollar in 2014(given only 11 HEMI Cuda convertibles were ever built in 1971). I mean, Christ, a 440 equipped 6 barrel ‘Cuda convertible is still valued between 300,000$ and 450,000$. So they substituted the all ‘Curious Yellow’ 1971 ‘Cuda with several 1970s that were front and tail-swapped to look like a ’71 and they added the fender grilles afterwards as well. There was only one 1971 ‘Cuda on the show, the other three were from 1970 and not one had a HEMI block in there. But hey, that’s TV for ya’ – they still all caught over 150K a piece afterwards from Barrett Jackson or eBay so in a way, even the “not real deal” cars that were engine, front and rear swapped were still valuable as sin.

And y’know what, despite the fact that Don Johnson and the Nash Bridges show as well are now just a blip on TV history(lets be fair here, despite the sweet-ass car and decent cast, Johnson will forever be Sonny Crockett in every role) – the ’71 Cuda itself remains a star and then some. As I said earlier, the ’71 HEMI convertibles catch literal millions and they increase in value literally every single day, and the still ungodly quick and gorgeous ’71 Cudas with 340s, 383s and 440s convertible or hard top are well over 100K more expensive than the average house price in the United States(189K) – so you could have a ‘Cuda 440, or you could have a whole house and a hundred grand left over. They were and still are American muscle in absolute perfection; it’s ungodly pretty, it’s ungodly fast, it’s ungodly thirsty and it’s ungodly unwieldy. It nailed every point of being a peak muscle car era vehicle, besides the at the time sale price – one of the reasons why the ‘Cuda was always a more rare sight out there regardless of the shape it came in was because at the time is was one of the most expensive of the bunch. It’s sister car of the same year with the same engine was 400$ cheaper(the ‘Cuda HEMI was 3433$ + 1228$ HEMI upgrade, the Challenger R/T was 3273$ + 892$ for the HEMI), the 1969 Camaro Z/28 grand totaled a person 3185$(2726$ + 458$ for the Z/28 package) and for reference, a 1970 Mustang Boss 302 ran a person 3720$(all the previous prices were 1969-1971 dollar value) – so in reality, the ‘Cuda was of course the premium quality car but it also cost a person a premium to get a hold of.

But I mean, if I were alive in 1971, if I had what now is the equivalent of 30,000$ in 1971 money, and I wanted a car that was fun, luxurious and borderline undrivable(as just about any muscle car was), I’d get a ‘Cuda, cause as I said, it was just about peak muscle car, it was aggressively styled, it was stupidly difficult to keep straight on the road and it was staggeringly quick in every respect. So, y’know, that was three paragraphs to basically summarize “the car is good fun“, hooray! Though in the model kit world, the ‘Cudas never really had a lot of attention headed their way – MPC did annuals of the car from 1968 through 1974, AMT did the Barracudas from 1965 through 1969 and Jo-Han also did 1970 and 1971 and those kits just had a bunch of exactly-as-they-were re-releases in the 1980s and 1990s, with Jo-Han’s last blast in 1992, MPC’s in 1980 and AMT Ertl re-released a Snap-Tite 1974 ‘Cuda twice in early 2003 and again in 2010 – but Monogram and Revell remain reigning kings on this, in 1982 Monogram released the 1971 ‘Cuda kit and arguably, to date, it remains to be the best ‘Cuda kit out there for that year.

To be fair, it has been re-released nine times since… 1982 it came out, in 1985 it was put out again as a street machine(pretty much the same but with the twin snorkel intake hood), then again in 1991 and another time in 1998 both as the stock versions again, then in 2000 it saw the return of the street machine, then in 2002 it got re-released again, in 2003 they changed the tool up again for the first time in 18 years by releasing this particular Nash Bridges edition, which saw another re-release in 2007, then another one in 2009 and one last one in 2012. But still, it’s the best 1971 kit out there, even with its flaws. Granted, Revell’s 2013’s new tool of the 1970 ‘Cuda is now the best ‘Cuda kit in general, but for ’71 – ain’t no better than the Monogram release from thirty six Goddamn years ago.

Though like I said in the beginning, I’ve royally dicked this kit up twice before in the past and I wanted to do it proper for a change, just once. So I used the can of Plum Crazy Purple metallic I had left over from doing the ’74 Gremlin some time ago, which I knew wasn’t the right Plum Crazy, given its from the new generation Challenger, but still looks absolutely lovely on the ‘Cuda. Then I tore the 440 V8 block from a ’70 GTX kit which I knew would fit given Monogram’s simplistic, yet absolutely excellent chassis and engine blocks, though I couldn’t get the carbs to match the location of the Shaker so I just… glued the Shaker to the underside of the hood, which works well enough aesthetically. I also took the five spoke wheels from the same kit, as per usual, the wheels fit the tires perfectly and the adapters were 100% identical.

For the rest, I used pretty plain slightly off-white satin and matte enamel paints for the interior which is the true star of this kit, for a somewhat one-off release, they really did an excellent job with the interior. The detailing, the thickness and the look of it all is absolutely spot on and I will say, no convertible kit had the door panels meet the interior door panels so supremely on the dot as it does here. The kit does pack a lot more decals than any of the other releases, like side marker lights, full dash and arm rest decals, so forth, which weren’t included on any of the other ’71 Cuda releases. Hell, one of the Nash Bridges Cuda releases has Goodyear GT Radial white letter tire decals as a bonus too, go figure, a utter rarity to find in kit decal sheets due to licensing. I didn’t need any though given I used my own created decals but it’s actually really, really nice to see the extra effort put into basically a little distraction kit that was apparently only gonna get released twice.

All I would’ve asked for in this kit would’ve been a option to put the top up, that would be it, really. For the rest, goodness is this still a solid kit after all these years. Despite the simplified nature, which is par for the course with older Monogram kits like pretty blocky engine bay detail and the one issue where getting the chassis to fit deep into the body shell enough for you to slot the rear valance on there with the exhausts sticking correctly out of the ports… those were an annoying twenty minutes. The exhausts are molded onto the chassis, which is fine and all, but the real valance has the exhausts sticking out there and you have to place that absolutely perfectly so you can force the chassis/exhausts through – which either means, it won’t go deep enough and tear the rear off, or it does fit perfectly and you’re done. No middle ground. Despite that… boy, great kit, what a great kit.

’71 Plymouth ‘Cuda 440 Convertible specifications:
Kit: #85-2381
Skill Level: 2
Parts: 72
Molded in: White
Scale: 1/24