Jo-Han Heavenly Hearse

I have a bit of an unpleasant truth to air out here.

Yes, Jo-Han kits are loved by modelers of a certain generation. Yes, they are highly sought after. And yes... many of them aren't worth the hype. There. I said it.

Oh, sure. The full detail Chrysler Turbine is a tour-de-force, even by today's standards. The '30's Cadillac V16 kits, and the Gold Cup series in general, were and are great kits. But like any other kit manufacturer, the majority of Motown's own Jo-Han was more or less "blah". Subject matter notwithstanding, many of their more standard kits suffer from shallow interior buckets, "coaster" chassis plates, glass seemingly thick enough to withstand the blast of a .357 Magnum, laughably simplified engine detail (in the cases where there is engine detail at all), and other maladies are all pretty common traits of Jo-Han kits. The '60 Plymouth Wagon kit doesn't even have an engine compartment! Pop the hood and there are the bare naked tires, for Pete's sake. Even the laziest AMT offerings of the era seemed like masterpieces by comparison.

But sometimes, as with the aforementioned Gold Cup kits, Jo-Han kits were really something special. Even though the 1966 Miller-Meteor hearse actually was a Gold Cup kit, it was a little less detailed and a little more simplified than most other kits in that series, it's still one of Jo-Han's better efforts.

By the way, if you want to have a gawk at the ambulance version of the tooling, say no more. I did an in-box review of that version in May of 2016. If you care to read it, feel free to copy and paste the following link:

http://chuckmost.wixsite.com/madhouse-miniatures/single-post/2016/05/03/Johan-Fire-Rescue-Ambulance

First let's take a look at that box art. Isn't it funkadelic? Or groovy? Or whatever outdated slang applies in this particular instance?

Now...

This swath of color on the box is supposed to show what color plastic was used to mold the kit. So are we about to be greeted by a shade of lovely lavender?

NOPE!!!

The chassis somewhat splits the difference between a fully detailed kit and a simplified promo-based chassis.

To the left we have the surf-specific stuff... two surfboards, the diving tank halves, and an oversized Hemi-Dart style hood scoop. The rear door components, curtains, and rear door bulkhead fill out the remainder.

The hood and dash share a sprue with several chassis and underhood doodads.

The engine looks nice enough when built, but the conjoined intake manifold and cylinder heads are still a tad off-putting at first glance.

The chrome plating has held up pretty well on my example, and there are lots of chrome goodies in this kit, including a halfway decent set of Hurst-type mags.

The glass doesn't appear as "milky" as the clear parts in my ambulance kit, but it's still slightly cloudy.

The no-name tires, riddled with flash and an uneven parting seam. For the best possible results, these tires should be flushed down the nearest toilet and replaced with literally anything else.

The destruction sheet is typical Jo-Han. Clear, to the point, and free of any useless garbage like a paint chart or a brief history of the 1:1 subject. (That last part is a little something I like to call sarcasm.) And if you need a case for your Taurus SHO, at one point Jo-Han could have helped you out with that.

Though tacky, at least the graphics are registered sharply. Often Jo-Han decal graphics have something of a "drunk goggles" thing going for them... just a blurry mess. Not so in this case!

Look past the box art and you still have a pretty good kit of a Cadillac Hearse, which can be built stock if that's more your thing. I'm not sure how accurate my observations are, but you should be able to save a few bucks getting this version over a stock-only, black plastic hearse. Those things go for some insane money! And if you want to go out, you can get items like caskets and a gurney from a few aftermarket suppliers. Yeah... a hearse is kind of a morbid subject for many, but how many do you see represented as scale models? If nothing else, this kit scores a solid 10 in the "unique" category. And with the surf accessories and crazy graphics, it cranks the knob to 11 with regards to the "weird" category. I'm not even a fan of Cadillacs but I do adore this kit.