Jo-Han 1969 SC/Rambler

American Motors always did things differently than the "Big Three". Though known as a maker of frumpy Grandpa cars, when AMC decided to let their hair down and collaborate with a performance maven like George Hurst, fun things could happen. Insane, in-your-face things, but that just ramped up the fun factor.

The SC/Rambler was essentially an American Motors Rambler (known prior to 1969 as the Rambler American) hardtop with a 390 cubic inch V8 (proudly called out on the hood) force-fed with a giant scoop and a wild red, white, and blue motif for both the exterior and interior.

Let's have a look at the classic Jo-Han kit.

More than a few Jo-Han kits suffered from poor molding- you can see the flash and thin fender edes pretty clearly here. This kit has the engine bay molded in place- much of this detail is cursory, and the firewall is marred by holes for mounting the interior tub. Based on an earlier American, the kit body lacks the marker lights used on the 1969 model.

The interior tub isn't as shallow as many Jo-Han tubs, but the trade-off here is faint detail engraving, and at the risk of pointing out the elephant in the room, it is a convertible tub! Look at the "doglegs" on either side of the noticeably-narrow rear seat....

The chassis.... well, it actually looks worse in the pic than it does in person. The front suspension is molded in place, with no engine crossmember at all. On the other hand, the rear suspension and exhaust are both separate components. The floor for the opening trunk is also molded separately.

Here we have the inner wheels (one broke loose), front seats, exhaust manifolds, and trunk lid. The trun lid pivots on the two pins visible protruding from the sides- not a true-to-life hinge setup, but it does work fairly well.

The rear axle is four pieces, but pretty much everything else is simplified. The axle holes in the engine block sides aren't too bad on this version, the last moldings of this kit had holes that could almost clear a piece of 3/16" brake line! Detail is a bit sparse, but livable.

The hood scoop, heads, fuel tank, radiator, air cleaner and exhaust system are shown here. Note the heads feature decent combustion chamber detail... useless on the completed engine, but such a detail could be useful for diorama fodder.

Here we have the two plastic axles, hood, front splash apron, and trunk floor. The loose parts include the dash, lower hood scoop panel, oil filter and steering wheel/column.

The chrome is nicely done, though the headlights are molded in with the grille and engraved detail is faint. A decent set of Magnum 500-styled wheels are present as well. The carb and alternator are best stripped of chrome and painted.

A one-piece glass unit does the job for the greenhouse, while the tail lamps are done in transparent red.

The tires aren't great, and old Jo-Han tires are known to sometimes split when the wheels are inserted.

Jo-Han decals were rarely great, and this sheet falls short of even the lowest standards. This is supposed to be the "A-Trim" graphics scheme.

Much like their kits, Jo-Han instruction sheets were usually simple and to-the-point. This kit's sheet is no exception, despite this kit's having a few more parts than your typical Jo-Han model of the era.

Now, if you can find a set for sale, one big way to improve this kit would be to use the old Fred Cady decal sheet, shown here....

Not only does this sheet include better-printed and more comprehensive markings, it also provides the option of building the model with the "B Trim" graphics, with red and blue stripes along the rockers instead of the wide red bands along the flanks. Please remember these decals are NOT included in the Jo-Han kit, they're just here to illustrate how much better they are than the kit-supplied graphics.

All in all, this is not a great kit. Detail is a bit lacking in eras, and it has a bizarre mix of conflicting design ideas... such as the simplified front suspension against the multi-piece rear suspension and opening trunk. Molding quality is also well under industry standards. But all that being said, the kit still builds up pretty well, and with a little elbow grease you actually an build a nice SC/Rambler out of it... or use it as the base to pretty much any '67-'69 Rambler American variant your little heart desires.