And manufacturers would compete to get their accessories included with new kit subjects.

The idea that a manufacturer could sway the 12-16 year old market was powerful; Pontiac was in the forefront of this, thanks to the machinations of Jim Wangers.

The posters of great catalog shots were available for roughly the cost of the stamps to mail them; the GTO kits bore the "Tiger" merchandising and my '66 has a buck slip detailing how to Royal Bobcat a 1:1.

However, once the OE's realized their intellectual property (and exhorbitant margin) was being stolen by offshore industries making 1:1 fenders, hoods, fascias they got serious as a heart attack about protecting it. Insurance companies aided and abetted this - there was no price break for them at the time (but now have price matching programs, but that's out of scope here.)

I had a front row seat at GM Parts - the loss of sales to offshore producers was in the billions per year. Early lawsuits were tossed, as the defense could point to any number of items from toys and wearables to aftermarket parts that had no apparent license agreements. "How come you want us to pay when these cats don't?"

Then the dam was broken, everyone wanted compensation for anything that whiffed of a likeness. And, about that time, the OEs realized that licensing could be a profit center within itself. That put the brakes on a lot of small stuff - they OEs want their money up front before the first unit is sold.

Some kit industry veterans moved to the business - I recall a LHS owner saying that John O'Neill (Now with Equity Management International (EMI) had come through the shop to buy an armload of kits "to see who is current on their paperwork."