Back in 85...

[HomeRacingWorld]

[nhdungeonracer]

$5.49

Makes one wonder why we didn't buy more of them at those prices...

[4424ever]

Check out that IMSA camaro!

[Broman62]

Those were the days!! Saw some similar at HOB LOB yesterday and now are $25 and up... what a shame!!!

[dge467]

I built that IMSA Camaro and one of the AMT stock cars back in the 80's when I was in my teens. They were not very good kits! I think I have the instructions still for the Camaro. The Monogram stock cars were the best molds and awesome details! MPC kits at the time were pretty decent too. It is fun to look back at the old catalogs. I got a bunch of the Auto World catalogs from my dad. From the late 60's to the 80's.

[BIG E]

When the kits were fairly new, I used one of those very generic looking amt NASCAR Thunderbirds on our small, 40 foot, 6 lane "squeeze" oval at Islip Miniature Speedway in East Islip, Long Island, NY - just a few miles from the actual old 1/4 mile (barely!) oval at Islip Speedway. Some may remember ABC's "Wide World of Sports" TV show used to broadcast the world championship demolition derby from there for years. This place was about a 30 minute drive from my house, but I preferred Freeport Speedway and spent MANY Saturday nights there watching Late Models and NASCAR pavement modifieds, driven by the late Champion Charlie Jarzombeck and various members of the Brunhoelzel family (who are still active in NASCAR today). Hope I spelled those names correctly!

But I digress - I painted the oval body sky blue with purple #14 decals, and another T-Bird was painted plain ol' Testors green, finished out with Skoal Bandit decals, this one with white #14 numbers. I used that body for road racing at an 8 lane commercial raceway, an original American Model Car Raceways 135' Aristocrat track (commonly referred to as a "hillclimb"). I got my chops busted for using an out of scale "cheapie" body instead of a Monogram fully detailed body, at both venues! The amt kits had no engine detail (no hood to glue on, either), pretty thick plastic and were probably heavier than the much more precision molded 1/24 scale Monogram ones. They were very rugged though, to say the least. Both cars were running on PARMA brass "womp" chassis cut and stretched to fit the wheel base and powered by the 16D motors available at the time (they weren't very good). I had all six of those kits in my collection, but sold them as a lot many years ago at one of the model shows I vend at here in the northeastern US. I still have one T-Bird left somehow, and don't know what I'm going to do with it yet.

They were good kits to use for slot car racing, especially clubs, and as was stated earlier in this thread - they were cheap!
Thanks for the look back, Harry. Enjoy! -- Ernie :>)