index
  
Uptown Automotive Hobby Shop
The Biggest Little New and Used Car Showroom in Central New York
   
 

Deceit Is In The Eye Of The Beholder

I have long maintained that box art can either make or break the sale of a model kit. Some of us have walked away and not purchased a kit because of the box art; others of us have purchased a kit and been disappointed upon opening the box. Misrepresentations, in my opinion, are inexcusable. There is enough reference material available that it should be no problem to provide an accurate depiction of the vehicle that the model within the box represents.

The most recent model box I take issue with is the 2020 Atlantis (model company) re-release of the former Revell 1/48 scale 1955 Chevrolet 2 ton stake truck. Were I unaware of happenings within the model industry, and had I seen the model on a store shelf, I may have immediately been drawn to it, and considered purchasing the kit. At first glance, not only a new company, but possibly a new kit? Why might one have thought that? Because the illustration on the cover misrepresents the model within the box! Depicted on the cover is a'55 Chevy LCF (low cab forward) truck which, as the name implies, has its cab moved forward, in order to accommodate a longer, thus larger capacity, cargo bed on the same length chassis.

However, the model kit is actually the same conventional cab Chevy model that Revell produced in 1955, and a few more times since then. Note the illustrations of the trucks in the accompanying photos. The green (Revell) illustration shows the cab with the door lines parallel to each other, opening behind the fenders, and the engine hood is lower and longer than the blue (Atlantis) illustration. The Atlantis cab doors are arched at the front edge to (give the erroneous appearance of) opening around the rear of the fender, and an LCF would (correctly) appear to have a taller hood, because it is shorter than a Conventional truck's hood; but the model is not an LCF.

Again, if one were not aware that the Revell kit has been reissued by Atlantis, the misleading box art may cause one to presume that it is a new model kit, representing a truck which had not previously been available in scale form...until or unless one looked at the accurate depiction on the side of the box.

Interestingly, the new Atlantis model employs the same kit number as the original Revell kit: # H-1401. In spite of its misleading box cover illustration, '50s era "technology", and multi piece body, it's a nice kit, and a good representation of the '55 Chevrolet conventional 6409, two ton stake truck.


 

-Jim Amado, February 2021


page updated 12/22/2023