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AMT/ERTL plastic construction equipment?
QUESTION:I recently saw that AMT/Ertl has two model kits available of construction
and farm vehicles -- a John Deere tractor and a backhoe (also Deere, I
think). In 1/24 scale, it seemed.
I was encouraged, as I've always loved these kind of trucks. I hoped that
they have now released other vehicles like excavators or loaders, but their
poor quality website doesn't mention theese kits at all -- just their
smaller diecast toys.
Anyone know if they produce other styrene kits of construction equipment?
ANSWER: I was just at a large farm-toy dealer a few weeks ago, and they had some
very new IH Farm equipment in stock, from Ertl.
I really think that the only reason the John Deere stuff got reissued was that
they were able to "pitch" the idea to John Deere, who encourages their dealers
to maintain a "boutique" of toy and promotional items carrying the John Deere
name and colors.
JD dealer boutiques got the AMT JD tractor kits last year, about 2 months
before they were released to hobby shops and other retailers.
Otherwise, without a buy from Deere & company, I doubt that we would have seen
these kits return at all, considering that there were still unsold JD tractor
kits in original, Ertl Blueprinter boxes as late as 1988 in many stores around
the agricultural part of the country. Although there is a huge collector hobby
for farm toys, most of those collectors aren't into model kits, and if they
were, 1/25 scale is the wrong one for them, as farm toys seem to be
standardized around 1/64, 1/32, and 1/16 scales.
I managed to locate two copies of AMT's D8H Caterpillar and I built
one. There are still a few out there apparently. I was reasonably
impressed with the kit, over 350 parts in total (160 were track links),
which is not bad for the early 1970's. It turned out to be quite
realistic when you added wiring and a good paint job.
This is the only kit of a crawler that I know of. I really wish
someone would issue a kit of a scraper, such as a Caterpillar 637 or a
Terex TS-24.....
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