Famous last words:
how hard could it really be? Was that original AMT ’63 Nova wagon really so mangled on its way to the Boss Nova dragster version? It’s just a hole in a roof to fill and some rear fender arches to restore to stock, right? When Round 2 took a notion to bringing back the original factory-stock wagon, wouldn’t it be the same sort of routine, maayyybe slightly retooled backdating we’ve seen from Round 2 over and over?
NOPE. So much restoration would be involved, the kit might as well be new from the ground up - and that’s exactly what happened. Once again, Round 2 has provided something far more interesting than a straight AMT reissue: all-new tooling in the same spirit as the original Craftsman Series kit.
There’s more nostalgia than ground broken in the kit’s design, hewing so closely to the original as to present in the same pale beige-colored plastic; but what’s there is an idealized realization of that 60-year-old concept. Plastic front axle pins now hold the wheels instead of a visible axle to pierce the engine insert plate. The headlights get clear lenses instead of chrome engraving in this release, and there are both rear- and side-view mirrors to provide for a more complete appearance. The reproduction is otherwise faithful straight down to the squirrel and emergency phone(!)
The true sleeper part in the box is the body shell. Sure, the straight-down rocker panels give it an unassuming, slightly slab-sided flavor, and the thick-ish A-pillars are carried right over from the original. But the more you work the body over, the more impressive it gets. No matter how you pore the shell over, you might be hard-pressed to detect mold parting lines. Not even a tattletale color coat brought out anything significant in the review sample.
There’s mild ghosting on the hood from the braces molded underneath, gone under the first sanded coat of primer - but nary any kind of sink mark to be found anywhere else on the body. Curbside though it is, the hood is separate and the engine bay aprons are directly molded to the body with nearly the same resolution that it took Trumpeter 8 separate pieces to accomplish. For processing quality, there’s something very like 60 years of progress here.
The same goes for the engineering. Because the tooling is new from the ground up, Round 2 liberated this kit from the tolerance stack issues you sometimes get from mixing newly-tooled parts with older ones. The window parts are a drop-in fit; the interior tub settles against them just as it’s supposed to.
The chassis follows thereafter on an accurate foursquare stance and a positive firm fit at the core support pins, with an option to drop the ride height if you like. Almost every piece has an offset mount to the sprue to mitigate visible parting traces. The model’s 40 parts get along so famously, it’s actually a great candidate for a first-time glue kit builder. To this we can add a page from the Revell playbook, a decal sheet including not only several cute small business logo options and license plates, but body scripts as an alternative to the finely engraved ones on the body shell.
Also noteworthy: the engine bay and motor mounts on the chassis plate are so complete as to guarantee an upcoming version with an engine (and a racing trailer, maybe?)
What AMT has produced here is not only a beginning glue kit with parts fit more agreeable than you’ll find in most snappers, but also a kit portending a very interesting approach and some fascinating implications for future Round 2/AMT offerings. In the meantime, if the subject suits, this kit comes highly recommended as a fun little diversion with potential rewards well beyond what you might expect for the effort.