Hot Rod V8's continued....another MEL discovered in kit form!

For those of you who have Scale Auto Back Issues, go search out your June, 2007 issue for Part 3 of our "Hot Rod V8's" story.  On page 24, you'll see the story of Ford's "MEL" V8, certainly the most obscure of the engine families I showed in this three part series. 

As reported in that issue, the three known MEL's in 1/25th scale kit form are the AMT '25T kit, the AMT '62-'65 Lincoln Continental annual kits, and the AMT '66-'69 Lincoln Continental annual kits (even though the MEL was replaced by the 385 series 460 V8 midway through the 1968 model year on the 1.1 scale car).

Or at least that's what we knew at the time.  

Well, it turns out that there is a fourth 1/25th scale source for that engine.  It's Aurora's little-known '22 Model T double kit, engineered in 1962 and released, only once, in 1963.  The engine in the hot rod model (there's two complete T's in the kit box) wears Corvette lettering on its valve covers, but when examined more closely, the engine is a near dead-duplicate of the MEL found in the first issue (and in last year's Round 2 reissue) of AMT '25 T Double kit.  The Aurora MEL has mostly the same parts breakdown as the AMT kit (e.g. a single part with integral cylinder heads and intake manifold). It has the characteristic MEL and Chevy W-Block engine block/cylinder head 10 degree inclination and even includes an optional Laptham blower setup (just like the AMT kit). What's really amusing is that the magneto and magneto cap (again, duplicated right off the AMT kit) are labeled as an "oil breather tube" and "oil breather cap".   There are differences - the Laptham supercharger in the Aurora kit is simplified vs. the AMT kit, and the Aurora kit has a second front cover/frame for the supercharged version that is super-cool (in an old school frame of mind).   

This Aurora '22 T Double kit has long eluded me (I did capture the companion Aurora '34 Ford Double Kit around 1979 or so, and showed the built-up versions in one of my early Street Rodder Modeler's Corner columns); I secured it not too long ago but only inspected in detail recently. 

So now I'm wondering...should I go ahead and build the engine....or leave this rare kit semi-intact (it's not in perfect shape, but pretty good for a 48 year old artifact)?  Hmmmm.  Think I'll build it!  

Anyway, mystery solved and yet another example of just when you think you know everything there is to know about model car kits, you find out just the opposite! 

TIM

 

 

Source: http://cs.scaleautomag.com/SCACS/forums/thread/947013.aspx

JeanDenis Deletraz Patrick Depailler Pedro Diniz Duke Dinsmore Frank Dochnal