Remember when AMT Model Car Kit was $1.50

Man - Today , I just saw model car kit for $20.00. When I was a kid I paid $1.50 for an AMT Model to assemble.

These are not for young kids anymore --what does a kid do today to develope a taste for cars like we did back in the day????

 

Hell I remember buying the little red wagon for 1.09 1967 or 20 bucks would buy you a bitchin slot car.lol

 

You can still buy the average kit for $10-$12, but I see some guys trying to get way more for them. Why, I don't know, when you can walk 50 feet away at the same swap meet and buy that kit for half the price at another vendor. If it's an older or OOP kit though the price can go outta site in a hurry.

 

I remember those days too. It's really sad. Most kids today just don't want to take the time to mess with models. My daughters(11 & 14) like to build them so I guess there is hope but you're right, they can be expensive. Even snap kits can go for 15 to 20 bucks. The price of armor and aircraft kits is really out of sight. Some kits go from 20.00 to 100.00 and up.
Buying models on line can be cheaper most of them time.

 

I think I was paying about $2.99 for them when I was a kid in the mid 70`s.


Man oh man I have some great memories.

 

Times change and so do generations and the way they think. I'm 15 and I still buy model kits for when I stumped out side in the shop, so I think were still buying them at a higher cost?
The quality has probably gone up as well.

 

I bought every version of the 1940 Ford AMT made...all for 1.00 to 1.50...but that money was hard to come by..I turned in coke bottles for deposit money and would mow a yard for 1.00 just to get a new model. Now I sound like my dad talking about how cheap stuff used to be and how little I got paid...

 

For about five dollars I used to get the kit,paint and enough glue to put it together .

 

I used to get them for $1.29 at payless as well as the little glass jars of testors paint for .19 cents...man that was awhile ago.

 

I remember when an AMT kit was $1.50 because that was my monthly allowance. One kit a month. Gasoline was 25 cents, so a model kit cost the same as six gallons of gas.
Now, gas is $2.75 a gallon around here; six times that is $16.50, so I guess, relatively-speaking, the price of models is about the same!

 

I was a big fan of the double kits where you get two for two bucks.....

 

Had a large paper route in the 60's which paid $4.00 a week. I was paid on Tuesday afternoon and usually had two new models Tuesday night. Always loved the AMT Trophy Series.

 

My dad used to build them with me when I was a kid. I have many that i built 20 years ago still sitting on shelves that made it through moves etc. I stil have some that are half put together in their original boxes. I actually got out the model paints last fall and had to throw away half of them cause they were dry.

 

Actually the price difference isn't too different. A gallon of gas then was about 32.9 cents, now $3.00 for a factor of 9.12. A $1.50 model kit then x 9.12 = $13.68 now. AMT kits then with extra custom/racing parts were $2.00 then, x 9.12 = $18.24 now so they would be cheaper than now, like you say, but not horribly. In terms of returned bottles, it was better back in the '60s: then you would get about 1 or 2 cents a bottle, now about 5 cents in California -- you would need to get about 10 cents a bottle now to be equal.

Still, when you figure the cost of enjoyment per hour, the current price is still a bargain.

 

Ahhh the kid in us. I can remember going to masons and looking through shelves about 10 feet long and 6 feet high full of model kits. I would only be allowed to buy one at the time they were $2.99 so i would hide the other ones i wanted in the back of the shelves or on the bottom in the back for my next trip with mom...

 

When Revells Rat Fink first appeared on the shelves it was 75 cents.

 

Any of you guys remember yor first model kit?? We had just moved to the U.S. from Australia in March of '71. On my 11th b'day, my uncle got me hooked on model cars and bought me this one.... The box also had a Garlits T-shirt iron-on inside which I thought was cool. Wish I could find another one just like it that's still sealed..

 

Shit, I remember when I bought an Edlebrock manifold with 3 chrome 97's on it for my flathead and paid $30.00 and gas was 22 cents a gallon. If only...

 

.......... we had a time machine.

 

I remember Dad building the Revell "Highway Pioneers" and putting them on the window sill in the livingroom. I still have them boxed away. First kit I built myself was an AMT '32 Ford Roadster, an early one with the non working rumble seat. Kit bashing and starting builds and never finishing them lead me to doing the same with real cars. Yes, I still have all the old kits. Oh, the one question I'd like answered is WHY did they build 1/24 and 1/25 scale kits? Life would have been grand if you could have swapped more kit parts.

 

I picked up a unopened Laramie Stage Ghost a few years ago and put it on Ebay. I almost crapped when I got $405 US for it. With exchange to Canadian I got around $600.

Ah, the good old days....

 

I had a knucklehead chopper with a glow in the dark skeleton riding it and it wasn't 1/24 scale it was much bigger, about 14" long. I would hold it under the light and then set it back up on the shelf and stare at it from bed. I wish i still had it, and not assembled $$$$.

 

I remember paying about $3 for a kit. I would buy them at K-mart or our local general store called Mills Mart. I started out with Pactra paints and later Testor because I couldn't find Pactra anymore.
I remember kits being 3n1, having alot of custom parts, way more than what you get today. I remember building the Revelle 55,56,57 Chevys and they had opening hood, doors, and trunk. I built a 56 Corvette which the body was in pieces and had to be glued together.
I remember buying a couple of kits from kmart of a 55 Nomad and a 57 Chevy in I think 1/8 scale back in the mid 70s and paying $12 a kit. Paid about $8 for a large scale trike kit.

 

I run you a close second on that one. I got a meager allowance when I was 12 or so and picked up extra spending money when the neighbors flagged me down and had chores for me to do that I actually got paid for.
I picked a lot of berries in the summer for spending money too. But most of it went 1.50 at a time at the variety store or the drug store on Bainbridge Island Wa.

I did buy a pair of those AMT or something 53 Chev pickup kits a few years ago and need to dig them out and get the razor knife out and do a bit of mixing and matching to see how my plans might work before I do it in metal in the next few months.

 

I was at a swap meet this weekend,while looking at some model car kits i said to my kid "you never really got into these much" his reply was that they cost to much money, then i showed him how on the old kits you could check the price down on the corner of the box, oh yeah right next to MADE IN USA.

 

I just went out to the garage and pulled out an original box which had
contained an a m t 59 Buick 2 door hardtop 3-in-1 kit I bought new.
Price on the box is $1.39. I think the first amt kits came out in 1958,
as I once had a 58 Edsel kit.

Also have a box for a 48 Ford coupe from I M C (Industro-Motive Corp),
with a price of $2.00. That kit in 1/25th scale included a 427 CI engine,
steerable wheels, Hurst mag wheels, racing slicks, custom grille, Hurst
floor shift, and a "mod decal sheet". Both doors opened and the back
of the front seat was hinged. JoHan also made some kits back in the
late 50s - early 60s.

Used to take pieces of cloth and make seat covers and tonneau
covers. Corduroy rather resembled roll and pleat.

Ahhh, the good ol days.

 

hell I just bought the dodge van ZINGER on ebay in the box,and cant believe I paid what I did,but I love old dodge vans.along with any model kit made before 1978

 

I can remember paying something like $1.49 for a '58 Edsel convertible kit (my first) when they just came out.

I've got the original carton from a Revell Highway Pioneers Jag XK120 that I bought in the early 1960s (still have the model, too) where the price had been crossed out ($.59) and $.79 was put in with a pen. Such was inflation back then...

47Plym, I also remember my brother using corduroy to make tuck'n'roll upholstery on his model creations.

I guess these days, if you want to buy an original issue model kit you pay the price.

 

Here's a little treat for you guys........ Enjoy! www.toys-n-cars.com/vintage_kits_-1.htm ... Also check out page 2.

 

Some of these old kits are making a come back.. Check out: www.modelroundup.com for the latest from AMT, Revell, Monogram and others.