The Sad and Sordid tale of Monogram's Land Rover

Disclaimer- the following story contains some hard facts, a few unsubstantiated rumors, and a heaping helping of pure speculation...

Behold, Monogram's White Elephant. Good old #2279... which first saw the light of day in 1981 for its first, and final, run. While it is true that quite a few kits were issued once and never came back, the story behind the Monogram Land Rover is particularly hopeless. This kit, through no fault of its own, has gained quite a negative reputation. Really... had this kit legitimately been cursed, it likely wouldn't have fared much worse than it ultimately did.

The worst thing about this whole tale is the fact that the kit actually isn't bad at all. It was a simplified kit, in keeping with Monogram custom of the time, but it was accurately executed and looked good when built. The blocky Goodyear Tracker A/T tires (shared with other 1:24 Monogram 4x4 kits), weird wheel hubs, and trippy decal graphics were about the only knocks against it. Astoundingly enough, this was the only example of a full-detail short wheelbase (88") Land Rover ever done as a 1:24 plastic kit, and the only one with a complete engine and opening hood. And it should go without saying that the subject it represents is an iconic vehicle. So it actually had quite bit going for it.

But sadly, it also had plenty stacked against it.

For one thing, 1981 was not a good year to be in the model kit business. This was a period of time when many manufacturers were struggling just to break even, and the early '80's were particularly bad. It was an age of cost cutting- the Land Rover was one of many early '80's vintage kits which never came with chrome plated parts. Even though the manufacturers were trying to keep costs in check, the industry very nearly collapsed due to overproduction and slow sales. Consider the fact that a Land Rover would never sell in big numbers like a muscle car subject to begin with, and the story gets even more bleak.

It also had quite a bit of unwarranted negativity working against it. A small, but very vocal, group of people took exception to Monogram's dedication to develop the kit. They felt that the Land Rover was a waste of time and resources that could have been spent creating something else. There seemed to be a disconnect between Monogram management and their customer base- the model buying public, as it would turn out, was not as enthused about the Land Rover kit as the decision-makers at Monogram.

The other thing to consider- in 1981 adult modelers were the minority, and a Land Rover likely would not have appealed to your average eight-to-twelve year old American kid. I know quite a few adult modelers who were put off by the box art and decal graphics upon seeing the kit for the first time when it was new. Such things certainly would not have helped matters. The bottom line was this- the Monogram Land Rover, despite being just as good as (or better than) any of Monogram's other 4x4 kits of the period, tanked in the marketplace.

Today the kits can fetch some pretty good money... when you can find one for sale. Rumors persist that Monogram didn't even recoup their development costs. There is some speculation that the tooling was scrapped, perhaps only a couple of years after the ill-fated kit's debut. Monogram was no stranger to this practice, having scrapped quite a bit of the old Aurora tooling a few years prior to the arrival of the Land Rover kit. The late '70's-vintage ESCI 109" curbside kit has been reissued numerous times since 1981. It actually outlived ESCI and has been reissued by Italeri a few times as well, most recently in 2007. The military version was reissued four years later. While a nice kit, it's a curbside and depicts the long-wheelbase model. Meanwhile... the Monogram kit is nowhere to be seen. So who knows? Maybe the kit really is gone for good. Or it's undeserved bum rap is so pervasive that nobody at Revell (stewards of the Monogram brand) wants anything to do with it.

Long story short... I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for this one to come back. That being said, how great would it be if it did?

Here's a look at the kit itself...

I've already shown you the boxtop art, here's the cover page of the instruction sheet. As you can see, pretty standard fare for a Monogram kit of the era.

Here are the raw styrene parts. There are no chrome plated parts in the kits, which was a trend in the early '80's when the scale model kit industry was struggling. No matter- there isn't much chrome on a real Land Rover, so it's absence in this case is an advantage.

No once piece glass unit on this old girl... it even has separate clear headlight lenses, in an era when many kit manufacturers stuck to the old practice of molding them to their bezels.

Those decals. Yeah, pretty tacky, right? Imagine this kit with a modern Revell decal sheet with stock detailing graphics and gauge faces!

Tires are the familiar Goodyear Tracker All Terrains, used in almost all of the Monogram 4x4 kits from the late '70's onward. They are still used today, but the sidewall lettering has been removed. Copyright laws, you know?

This isn't the best quality pic, but here's the one I built about five years back. I modified the kit to have an open top, and made a rear-mounted carrier for the spare tire/wheel, so it wasn't sitting on the hood... I never understood why anybody settled on that being a good place to stow the spare.