Quality of AMT/ERTl kits

Modeling Subjects Aircraft
1

Seen them advertised quite often on E-Bay - both from collectors and through online shops. But never having bought one, I wondered what the quality was (generally) like?

Many thanks all …

2

Fair to poor.

Regards, Rick

3

It’s all what you make of it. If you’re expecting to slap something together and have it look amazing, don’t. But, as with any other model, the amount of time and effort you put in will affect the finished product. Personally, I don’t think that any one manufacturer is without flaws – there always seems to be a little something that needs correcting on any project I do. I have built the AMT/Ertl 1/35th Humvee and it looks great. I have their 1/48th A-10 in the box ready to get started on. It looks decent enough, but not the best as far as panel lines or molded detail goes.

4

the one i assembled had raised panel lines and the details were very “thick”, and the fit was fair i’d say. but, it built up into a decent looking kit. here is a shot of it, a 1/48 Hs123A1 early war German dive bomber.

5

Depends on the kit and as snake mentioned - it’s what you make of it. I built up their B-26 and while it needed more than average work the end result was equal to anything you could have done with a Revell-monogram counterpart. In fact, just to prove my point I built that counterpart at the same time. Here is a side by side comparison if you care to read it … http://www.swannysmodels.com/B26B.html

This is the AMT/ERTL/ESCI kit

And this is the Revell-Monogram offering

6

Hey Guys & Gals;
well AMT/Ertl has their ups & downs, most of the Jet aircraft is of ESCI’s kits re-boxed, and their older kits from the 70’s where lacking is some areas but made a nice kit, but their newer kits like the A-20’s, F7F’s & P-40’s where very nice for the time but AMT dropped the Aircraft & Armour model kit lines and strickly doing auto’s (Road Champions is in the driving seat now) and they sold the aircraft model kit line to AMtech and they took it and are running with it but both of the owners had some bad luck here in the last year being down with medical problems so the line is a little slow right now but they’ll be pumping them out faster then fast, as for the Armour line who knows what going on with them,

7

I have built the P40, F7F and P70 and found them to be OK. I especcially liked the Tigercat which I got from eBay.

Mike M