I recently bought your kit of the Dukes of Hazzard "General Lee" as a Xmas prezzie for my brother (to be built by me) and i must say what a downright crap kit.
1- My brother informs me that the kit is a 1970 Dodge Charger, "so what i say " well the "General Lee" is a 1969 Dodge Charger. OK they can't be that different and there starts the problems. For starters the 1969 Dodge has a recessed rear window where the 1970 has a flush fitting window. The "General Lee" also doesn't have tie down points on the bonnet or some strange other mouldings you put on the car. Please take note A.M.T that by getting any car that resembles it and moulding it in orange and throwing a rebel flag in the box does not make it accurate. Please research the kits you distribute.
1969 rear window

1970 rear window

2- Flash, i really enjoy spending 4 hours removing and sanding off flash from the whole kit, thank you for that.
3- You state that the kit is a 1/25 scale model but i will have too disagree on that as when i tried to put a 1/24 scale driver in, he didn't fit at all. Yes he might be a bit bigger, but we are talking a couple of Cm at the most, so why did i have to remove his feet and most of the seat to get him in. The roll bar still doesn't fit properly over his head.

Can you please remeasure the kit and correct the scale accordingly.
4- Fit problems. No problems there as nothing fits together, not even the number plate on the back and you class this as a skill level 2. Skill level 2 in what advanced engineering?
5- Front wheels. My God who thought of designing the way they went on, a caveman? You get about 2 Cm to stick in a hole and you expect them to revolve when they don't even stay on the car.
OK rant over, here is the finished thing. My Brother better like it otherwise it will be inserted into him somewhere :-) .


Thanks Andy (++)

I can understand your frustration with the AMT kit. I have had quit a few problems myself, when building them. I belive I have build my last AMT car kit. Darn I have one left in my stash. Well after that one then.

Despite your building problems, your car dio looks fantastic. We rarely see car dio's here on Armorama.
Thanks for sharing this beauty with us.

Not that this excuses the kit, but it is a 20+ year old kit that was originally produced by MPC. AMT/Ertl took over their old molds. When the kit first came out, most kids probably left the car in the original orange plastic (if it was molded in orange, I think MPC always used white plastic) or painted it with those white little Testors paint brushes.

WOW, that's horrible! I agree that AMT doesn't take the pride in craftmanship that they really should. For that matter, that General Lee boxtop has so many things wrong that I can't even start to begin.
As for your finished model, it looks OK except the General is missing it's pushbar/brushguard on the front bumper.

Otherwise, it looks good!
Nice Hazzzard dio!

Cuhail

I'm in the process of looking for it as the carpet monster is its latest victim :-) .



Out of interest Robin did MPC also release this as the "General Lee".

I'll cover that, Sabot!

Andy, if I remember right, the MPC kit was awesome. I did the 1/25 kit and the 1/16 kit (which was awesome as well) and both were much better that anything AMT has issued. Now there is the issue of buying the same molds and re-issueing them, but, the MPC kit was pretty darn good.
I honestly don't think they got the molds from AMT on this one. I really don't.

Cuhail

Nice action dio, Andy. And a well informed, expert report too.

Did the decal of the flag on top come with the kit?

And Did the driver figure aslo come with the kit, if not where from?

Thanks.

Thanks KoSprueOne, i don't no about an expert report though, it would have been a lot more colourful had i written it while building it :-) .
Yes the rebel flag decal came with the kit but for some reason they don't show it on the box, maybe they didn't want to upset the North :-).
The driver was bought separately and is the Fujimi drivers set in 1/24, which has 3 drivers and a standing lady in a 1 piece swimsuit ???????.
Andy (++)

Well it looks like you did a nice job regardless of the issues.

I know bashing AMT / Ertl is sort of a requirement but they do have some very nice kits as well as their dogs.

The 1960 Chevrolet fleetside pickup

The International Paystar

and the D8 Dozer

were all very nice kits that went together without any serious problems. Unfortunately its hard to know which is which when you buy the kits.

I think you did a fantastic job even with all the issues you pointed out

Andy, your Dukes car looks good, did a great job for what you had. The dio is awesome, nice detail. Your brother is going to love it.

Yeah Murph your right, AMT didn't use the old MPC molds. When AMT released their Dukes car they used their old Charger 500 body which had the flat rear window. Monogram released a '69 Charger RT with the correct body style, using that kit would make the Dukes car right. I've even seen aftermarket decals of the Dukes rebel flags in 1/24 and 1/16 scale.
As for what was released, MPC had a 1/24 and 1/16 scale car both in 1981and in 1997 AMT/ERTL did a 1/24, first edtion with the flags on the box and a second edtion w/o the flags on the box.

Thanks for the comments guys. This kit made me go through every emotion going from raging psychopath to extremely happy (that was when i finished it).
Please God don't let my Brother find out there's a 1/16 version :-) .
Andy (++) .
P.S Does anyone know why they emitted the rebel flag from the box on the second edition?????
Thanks Robin, so i was nearly right when i said about upsetting people from the North :-) :-).

Political correctness. Some find the rebel flag to be offensive.