Model Car Garage - The 1976 Sweathogs Dream Machine By MPC - A Model Car Unboxing Video
Channel: Monster Hobbies Model Car Garage
Date: 08/10/2021

Welcome Back, Kotter is an American sitcom starring Gabe Kaplan as a high school teacher in charge of a racially and ethnically diverse remedial class called the "Sweathogs". Recorded in front of a live studio audience, it originally aired on ABC from September 9, 1975, to May 17, 1979

Today on the Monster Hobbies Model Car Garage, we look at The 1976 Sweathogs Dream Machine By MPC. This is a model car unboxing video you don't want to miss! 

The show enjoyed ratings success during its first two seasons, spawning a host of merchandising tie-ins, including lunchboxes, dolls, trading cards, comic books, novels, and even a board game, advertised as "The 'Up Your Nose With A Rubber Hose' Game" in a commercial with a class full of Sweathog look-alikes featuring Steve Guttenberg as Barbarino and Thomas Carter as Boom Boom Washington. The Sweathogs — or at least an impressionist's version of them — even made a crossover appearance with characters from the Happy Days universe on one track (the disco-themed "Fonzarelli Slide") of a 1976 TV-promoted oldies compilation album.

The MPC 1976 Sweathogs Dream Machine model car kit was originally released in the early 1970's for the movie Superfly and when Welcome Back Kotter became a big hit, it was easy for MPC to add in a set of figures to an already established mold. The awesome side pipes and air horns were removed from the Superfly model, but the Pontiac Grand Prix was still the basis for this model car kit.

The kit is unique in that you get chrome sombrero hub caps, white wall tire inserts, vinyl tires and wheel backs with a plastic pin for the front and a metal pin in the back. 

The engine is a decent Pontiac casting and is built up from the 2 engine block/transmission  pieces, front timing cover, oil pan, cylinder heads, intake and exhaust manifolds, oil filter, fan belts/pulleys, alternator, fan, distributor, carburetor, air cleaner, and upper radiator hose. 

The interior is built up from a bucket, bucket seats with head rests, shifter, steering wheel with column and a dashboard. 

The chassis is a basic pan with the exhaust pipes, mufflers, differential and drive shaft molded as one piece. Wheels slip through plastic blocks with a hole in them. A battery, radiator wall with radiator molded in place, fan shroud and firewall make up the remaining under-hood details. 

The windshield and rear glass are connected by a bridge and head and tail lights are separate. 

The body looks great and includes big chrome headlight rings, a custom grille and bumpers, chrome rear bumper and lake pipes. 

The real stars of this car are the Sweathogs themselves. John Travlota as Vincent "Vinnie" Barbarino looks good as does Ron Palillo as Arnold Dingfelder Horshack, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs as Freddie "Boom Boom" Washington and Robert Hegyes as Juan Luis Pedro Felipo de Huevos Epstein. The poses are nice and give the figures that "Interaction" that makes for a good scene. This is probably the only Welcome Back Kotter model car kit you are ever going to see. 

Although this is a simple model kit, it would be good for youth transitioning from snap together models into glue and paint kits.

If you have built the The MPC 1976 Sweathogs Dream Machine model car kit before, please show us your pictures on our Facebook page here : https://www.facebook.com/Monster-Hobbies-in-High-River-Alberta-Canada-163876670301889

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