If there’s one word in my car modelling vocabulary that is worth a thousand images, it’s “Van”. When I was growing up, it was the waning days of the Vannin’ craze, and I can remember all kinds of totally awesome, mega-tricked out vans at car shows we’d go to in the spring and summer. Most of us remember those mural-bedecked rolling pleasure palaces as perhaps the most expressive automotive customs ever, even if they weren’t your thing. However, one thing I don’t ever remember seeing was a stock custom van. If you’re asking “What?” then you’re like me when I first heard of the Ford and Dodge factory-made, custom-ready street vans.

As it turns out, AMT even gave us a kit of the 1977 Ford Cruising Van, complete with very loud factory striping! It’s been a long time since it was available, and despite bringing out the custom Econoline “Phantom” van a few years ago, Round 2 has seen fit to resurrect this long-gone piece of model kit history. The new version features some improvements too, like better tires and two kinds of striping!

I love vans, and I love wacky production cars. This is both! It doesn’t get much better than this, despite this things flaws. Check it out at the link below, but if it’s rockin’, don’t come a knockin’!

https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/amt-round-2-1-25-1977-ford-cruising-van-out-of-box/

Great McKenzie, Adam! I thought first that is a review about magenta and I was very glad because I love magenta - I'm so sorry I cannot write this text in magenta but my printer has magenta and I'm going to send you a letter in magenta, even the address and the stamp in magenta Just fooling around.

Nice in-depth review - honestly I'ts very rare to see nowadays modelers doing so well their "homework". AMT / MPC were always disappointing in their research - it is also true that the American car market is very confusing because they have changed the configurations all along without appending the change to the model's designation as the Europeans (usually) do. You actually reinforce my own opinion that Round2Models are selling more decals than models and that's not really charming for me. I would have preferred an "over the trees" model with good instructions and accurate parts than a huge and mostly useless decal sheet.
However, good review and I really appreciate your knowledge in detail.

Cheers!
Gabriel

Well, with the amount of magenta on there, it'd almost have to be a review of that!

Thanks for your compliments on the article. I seem to really get hung up on the details of cars. Planes and tanks, it seems, a.) do a better job of getting it right and b.) don't bother me as much if they're not dead-nuts accurate. However, with cars, I really want to be sure what I'm up against!

It seems that most American car kit makers try to make do with what they have, rather than do things right, and that's always been how it is. Japanese and European kitters of cars, at least, seem to do a better job, but then again, I know a bit less about those subjects!

I can see your point about selling decal sheets rather than models. That is fair for this kit. However, as I mentioned, if I wanted an original, I'd pay a lot more for the same defects and a far inferior (in quality and volume) decal sheet. Since I want to build one of these stock anyway, getting the one with the nice dedcal sheet is preferable.

The other thing is that it would likey be way too expensive for Round 2 to retool it all correclty. I personally feel that the kits aren't any worse off when they're made this time than before. They were always inaccurate; that's not Round 2's fault.

Personally, I'm game for more loser cars from Round 2; The '77 Pacer is due out next quarter, and we all know it'll have issues too. We're lucky to have a chance to get some of these kits because they'd be lost to many of us unwilling to pay the high prices original command.

Do I wish they cleaned up or corrected the moulds? Sure. Do I expect it when open a kit reissued for 40 years ago. No, that's not fair. I guess what it boils down to is this: If I want more loser cars, I have to expect somewhat loser kits. I'm good with that. Not great, but good enough.