You have it backwards, Revell released their line of 1/40th armor that was designed by Adams. When Revell decided to stop producing ground military model kits, Adams took the kits he designed and started his own company Snap Adams.
When his company went under, Life-Like took over the molds and Revell got some back as well.
Peerless Max was a different animal. They did 1/35 scale kits that eventually became part of the Testors/Italeri armor kits.
Yeah, the hard plastic army men were very lame, but they are around 60+ years old.
Nice, I only bought the US tank kits as a kid; the M109, MBT70 and the M46 Patton. Later, I got the Long Tom and much later found a bagged kit of the Panther. The only Monogram reissue of the old Aurora line I have is the one that includes the Monogram Fw-190 and the M4A3E8 Sherman tank. They also released the Panther with the P-51 Mustang too.
As a kid, I remember being confused that the MBT70 came with US and German markings. I remember thinking it must be a captured US tank!
When I was a kid, Aurora’s monster, super heroes and prehistoric scenes kits were all the rage. Most of their armor kits were clearance items and their aircraft kits were being made in psychodelic colors.
The Type 97 kit was one of the better kits of the Aurora lineup. Some of the shapes aren’t quite right, but it gives the right impression. The figures are trash, though. It could be a long wait, if ever, before you see another option in plastic. They’re cheap enough, so why not?
Thanks. I like the occasional nostalgia build, or in this case, a kit I had heard about but didn’t get to build when I was starting out modeling. When I was beginning, Aurora had been out of business for a few years already, and at the time, Monogram only reissued a small number of their molds they had acquired. And often, only once. So I had to wait around forty years to finally build one of these!