Post by casey on Nov 6, 2011 0:26:48 GMT -5
I happened upon and purchased this kit after wondering what it was like for many years, so I thought I'd do a Retro Review for anyone else who may be curious what the kit is like.
This kit was produced in 1980, when Lesney Products Company owned AMT, and it's definitely an odd model kit, as shown by its name:AMT-top custom o.r.v. Plenty of lower-case letters and acronyms (presumably the “o.r.v.†stands for Off Road Vehicle), a bit on the generic side, and with a hint of mystery as to what exactly this kit is. I guess this is one of those “you have to buy it to find out what it is†kits, since there is very little information to be found, and I've yet to see a built example.
The box art itself is very typical of Lesney-era AMT kits- colorful with bold graphics and an image of the built model on every side, not to mention detailed descriptions and call-outs for the kit's parts and features. I could definitely see myself as an eight year-old in 1980 picking up this kit and exclaiming, “Wow, this thing is cool!â€.
Let's move in to what's inside the box. The parts are molded in two colors, orange for the body shell and hood and light blue for everything else.
The wheels are typical eight-spoke “wagon wheels†with lug nut detail and the tires are nicely done Goodyear Tracker A-Ts with good tread detail and raised sidewall lettering.
The chassis is rather simplified as one would expect from a snap-together kit, with molded in lower engine, exhaust, and fuel tank detail. The separate front and rear suspension pieces each consist of a solid axle, two leaf springs, and a driveshaft, with a bit of steering linkage present on the front piece.
The interior consists of a floor piece with is molded as one with the upper engine compartment, in which we find a small V-8 engine with a single snorkel air cleaner, battery, brake booster and radiator detail molded in. Also included as separate piece for the interior are a dashboard with two round gauges, a three-spoke steering wheel with integral column, and two single-piece bucket seats. There's also a small panel which fits in the trunk area and help support the spare wheel and tire.
The body consists of three pieces- the body shell, the hood, and the clear molded glass. The hood tilts forward and there's a hole in the trunk area (which is molded closed) into which the spare wheel and tire fit. The grille and headlights are molded into the body, and the body has decent but minimal windshield wiper, side marker lamp, and door handle details molded in. The greenhouse area is very high in proportion to the rest of the body, but it does have t-tops (to use the GM term) which were a very desirable feature on 1:1 cars in 1980, so maybe that was seen as a selling point from the designer's perspective. The body doesn't resemble any known 1:1 scale production vehicle, but some of its characteristics might have been gleaned from certain 1:1 vehicles: Corvette-like quad tail lights; Jeep Cherokee-like semi-hexagonal wheel arches; and the nose, which looks a bit like the L-body Dodge Charger/Plymouth Tourismo. Whatever you think it looks like, I think we can all agree it looks like nothing else....which may have been the point.
There are no decals, but instead a sheet of dry transfers is included, presumably to make application easier for the beginning modeler this kit was aimed at. The graphics are bright and wrap all around the body, covering most of the main body areas- hood, sides, and the roof area.
All in all, it's an interesting kit that will likely never be re-issued, but I would still recommend picking one up if you can find one and are into odd and/or unique models.
This kit was produced in 1980, when Lesney Products Company owned AMT, and it's definitely an odd model kit, as shown by its name:AMT-top custom o.r.v. Plenty of lower-case letters and acronyms (presumably the “o.r.v.†stands for Off Road Vehicle), a bit on the generic side, and with a hint of mystery as to what exactly this kit is. I guess this is one of those “you have to buy it to find out what it is†kits, since there is very little information to be found, and I've yet to see a built example.
The box art itself is very typical of Lesney-era AMT kits- colorful with bold graphics and an image of the built model on every side, not to mention detailed descriptions and call-outs for the kit's parts and features. I could definitely see myself as an eight year-old in 1980 picking up this kit and exclaiming, “Wow, this thing is cool!â€.
Let's move in to what's inside the box. The parts are molded in two colors, orange for the body shell and hood and light blue for everything else.
The wheels are typical eight-spoke “wagon wheels†with lug nut detail and the tires are nicely done Goodyear Tracker A-Ts with good tread detail and raised sidewall lettering.
The chassis is rather simplified as one would expect from a snap-together kit, with molded in lower engine, exhaust, and fuel tank detail. The separate front and rear suspension pieces each consist of a solid axle, two leaf springs, and a driveshaft, with a bit of steering linkage present on the front piece.
The interior consists of a floor piece with is molded as one with the upper engine compartment, in which we find a small V-8 engine with a single snorkel air cleaner, battery, brake booster and radiator detail molded in. Also included as separate piece for the interior are a dashboard with two round gauges, a three-spoke steering wheel with integral column, and two single-piece bucket seats. There's also a small panel which fits in the trunk area and help support the spare wheel and tire.
The body consists of three pieces- the body shell, the hood, and the clear molded glass. The hood tilts forward and there's a hole in the trunk area (which is molded closed) into which the spare wheel and tire fit. The grille and headlights are molded into the body, and the body has decent but minimal windshield wiper, side marker lamp, and door handle details molded in. The greenhouse area is very high in proportion to the rest of the body, but it does have t-tops (to use the GM term) which were a very desirable feature on 1:1 cars in 1980, so maybe that was seen as a selling point from the designer's perspective. The body doesn't resemble any known 1:1 scale production vehicle, but some of its characteristics might have been gleaned from certain 1:1 vehicles: Corvette-like quad tail lights; Jeep Cherokee-like semi-hexagonal wheel arches; and the nose, which looks a bit like the L-body Dodge Charger/Plymouth Tourismo. Whatever you think it looks like, I think we can all agree it looks like nothing else....which may have been the point.
There are no decals, but instead a sheet of dry transfers is included, presumably to make application easier for the beginning modeler this kit was aimed at. The graphics are bright and wrap all around the body, covering most of the main body areas- hood, sides, and the roof area.
All in all, it's an interesting kit that will likely never be re-issued, but I would still recommend picking one up if you can find one and are into odd and/or unique models.