AMT/ERTL 1/25 American Graffiti 1932 Deuce Coupe

Another of the current flood of reissued kits from Racing Champions this one unfortunately leaves a lot to be desired as an accurate model of Milner's coupe. The body, fenders, interior bucket (barely), radiator shell, grille, and basic engine block might be useful as a starting point but the rest of the parts are just not right. The wheels are close but still not really right, while I don't recall ever seeing high-backed bucket seats in the 60s, and Milner's coupe sure as heck didn't have them! The chassis looks like something from a Model A rather than the correct Deuce rails - I've seen lots of Model A rods on Deuce rails but never vice-versa! The suspension parts are awful, and the intake manifold and carburetors are completely wrong. And don't even bother to look for a correct license plate decal - the only decal included is what's shown in the pic with the tires.

This is an old MPC tool which was originally released to take advantage of the movie's popularity. MPC already had a five-window coupe in its "Switchers" series of street rods and this kit was based on that much more than on reality. In fact, this issue has some of the Switchers parts included although they're not mentioned in the instructions. Passing this off as a model of the AG coupe was taking advantage of the unwary in the 70s and it's no less so now. The Revell diecast is a far better rendition of the real car and well worth the extra cost. That said, if you prefer to work in plastic once you get by the difficulty of getting a clean join between the body and separate top this kit could form the basis of an accurate model - it's just too bad that it won't build that way out of the box.

If you get the impression that I'm less than favorably impressed with this kit, you're right. It's cheesy-looking in the box and its release is a cheesy attempt to cash in on nostalgia. Mature modelers will be disappointed to find out just how bad this pig is and younger modelers will be sure to struggle with the separate top.

After getting a good look at this monstrosity I certainly don't understand why the original MPC kits drew such big bids on eBay - it's barely worth the current MSRP if that and I'm extremely grateful that I got mine for half-price with a Hobby Lobby internet coupon. C'mon Racing Champions - you can do better than this. It's time to bring back the AMT expertise you so unwisely let go.....