Golden Hawk

Tim Hofstetter
This was a miserable model. It was full of heavy flash and mold mismatches. Fit was poor and detail was muddy throughout. The kit couldn't figure out what it is, really... some parts were clearly M38A1, some were Willys (Pre-1972) CJ5, some were post-1971. The roll bar was a pure fantasy, so I made my own accurized roll bar, besides replacing the Hurricane engine with a post-1971 AMC V8 and adding a snowplow and a front crossmember. The plastic appears to be polyethylene or polypropylene or ABS; it was super-flexible and wanted very badly to remain unpainted. Even Vallejo primer didn't want to stick to it. Fortunately, it accepted Tamiya cement well.

One sprue was even clearly marked "ERTL". 😎

This would make a good practice kit for a beginner or for someone who hasn't built anything for fifty years, just to get the crud out of your knuckles. It might also make a good heavily rusted junkyard diorama piece.

Round 2 doesn't seem to have much pride in their MPC line. I believe I'm going to generally avoid any newer MPC-branded models in the future.