AMT 1970 Corvette ZR1 - LT1

 And now for another Corvette.

This is AMT's 1970 Corvette LT-1/ZR-1.

 

I always liked the look of these 3rd Generation Corvettes with the Stingray body style launched in 1968.

This one features the very rare LT-1 350 cubic inch engine. With a super high 11:1 compression ratio, a giant 4-barrel carburetor and solid lifter cam, this rare engine was listed at 370 Horsepower in  the Corvette. 

General motors numbers show that only 53 of these high performance street cars were built between 1970 and 1972.

I like the color on the box art, and had a can of Testor's Extreme Lacquer in Fiery Orange, and thought that would look great.

I like these lacquers as they spray out very fine but with great coverage, and they dry quite quickly.

With very little follow up and a couple of coats of clear they look great at scale.

This was the 3rd car I completed during the "lockdown" and had to make a custom plate for it. Using an image I found online of a Michigan 1970 license plate and a little photoshop - here is what we have.

It's hard to tell at this scale, or even on the full size car just how potent that little small block is.

The only giveaway would be a couple of small details, and the big sticker on the air-cleaner, to separate it from the base engine.

At 370 Horsepower, this is more than 20% increase over the rating of the "base" Corvette 350 engine.

A quick view underneath. I did a little light weathering and painted a few small details to make it look less "flat" and "toy-like".

If you looks close, you can see the Goodyear lettering on the tires, the same as was on the box art. I chose to use the opposite side facing out, with the "redline" sidewall. I felt this looked a little more period...

Now I need to find my Virus 1, and Virus 2 builds... as long as I am going backwards for a little bit.

Dodge Challenger SRT-8

 One more from the "back a while ago" pile.

This is a Revell Dodge Challenger SRT-8.

Can't remember the specific year, but one of the modern, retro-style ones.

 I had two cans of partial paint left over, and thought they might go well together.

So the top is a metallic lighter blue color (I believe it was a Model Master Laquer) and the other is a darker reddish-maroon color (I believe this was an automotive laquer I had laying around).

I was quite pleased with the outcome of just a simple two color paint scheme.

The wheels were swapped out with the wheels and tires from a Dodge Sidewinder kit that never quite got finished, and has been cannibalized for parts on a couple different builds.

They were painted with "smoke" transparent grey so they weren't so bright chrome looking.

A quick and easy build of what was essentially a "snap together" kit.

Mustang-GT Super Boss Funny Car

So I had planned to do a full write up on this kit, and took pictures along the way, but just never got it down in the computer....

Had some great looking box art, and figured it could be a relatively quick build, that would look good on the display shelf.

Decided I liked the orange paint, and would just build it basically like it appeared in the art.

Here's the chassis coming together and some of the various pieces as they all get ready to come together. Love the long tube intake on the engine. Took a good bit of work to get them to all line up right, and be firmly attached to the intake.

And as I typically do, I managed to finish it all up before I remembered to get the camera out again.
This one has actually been finished for a couple of months now, but just decided to do a small update on what I am working on.

Looks good to me, and has that "too tall" stance typical of a gasser/funny car suspension set up.
I didn't use all the decals, and didn't quite follow the box art, but definitely looks angry, and ready to go racing.

And the one thing I have never seen in a model kit before, was a model of the packaging that it all came in. Only took about 10 minutes to cut it all out and folded up.

I guess by definition, it is a scale model...

Quick tip - clear plastic pieces

Just about finished up with my next project, and thought I would share this quick tip...
I think it is pretty well known, but I still see lots of pictures of models that haven't done this....

The little clear plastic pieces that go over headlights on modern cars, often look "plastic-ey" and fake to my eye. Part of this reason is the scale thickness. For the strength required to be de-molded in the manufacturing process, as well as handling during assembly, they need to be very thick for the relative scale. While I don't have a micrometer to measure, they look to my eye to be a couple of inches thick in scale.

Which is fine if you are modeling a presidential limo, or other "bulletproof" car, it doesn't look right to me.

So what I like to do is trace the inside very edge of the plastic with a black Sharpie marker. This helps to hide the refraction at the edge of the piece, and make it appear thinner.

As seen here, you don't get a "glowing" edge where it shows off the thickness.

It also has the added feature of appearing as the gasket around the headlight lens cover on most modern cars.

Seen here on the front of my almost finished Corvette ZR-1.

(oh man, I should have dusted that off before the picture).
But hopefully you can see the difference.

Oh, and remember how I mentioned the thickness of the clear plastic? Well, that clear plastic is also much more brittle than the regular styrene that the rest of the kit is molded in, so be careful.

You can also use the Sharpie on the inside of the windshield to create the black surround. In this kit Revell provided a nice line molded all the way around to guide where I needed to color. Other manufacturers go as far as providing actual pre-cut masks to help you with the painting of this surround.

Up next, the finished ZR-1, with a slightly damaged windshield!