Long ago, in my early years of working at a local hobby shop, a friend of my brother’s stopped in and asked what model my brother would like as a birthday gift. We settled on this Vette. My brother had built a few models when he was young but he never had a chance to build this kit. It ended up in my stash and sat there for nearly twenty years. A few years ago, I mocked the kit with a set of Pegasus wheels and found the motivation to start the build.

My original thought was to paint the kit a code correct dark green from Scale finishes. I also pulled the trigger on a Model Car Garage photo-etch set. Very quickly, I finished the work on the engine and started prepping other parts. Then it stalled.

I found a picture online of this Vette painted in black with black ralley wheels. I tried finding Chevy ralley wheels without center caps but didn’t have any luck. I decided to stick with the Pegasus wheels and black for the color.

In the nearly 25 years that I’ve been airbrushing my models, I’ve always avoided black. I was intimidated by the fact that any mistakes will be really obvious. It was time to give it a try! I sprayed it with decanted Tamiya gloss black and used decanted Tamiya clear.

Once the body was painted, I moved on to finishing the interior with flocking, and photoetch parts. I really enjoyed modifying the steering wheel with photo etch spokes. For the chassis and suspension, I noticed that I needed to respray for a few different reasons. Once that was complete, I was able to finish the engine and chassis assembly.

As intimated as I was by the black paint, the detail work was eve more so. I realized that the gills in the front fenders had to be chrome. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to try Molotow chrome or bare metal foil for work. In the end, I used both. It was a huge pain but it turned out really well. I had to strip and re-chrome all of the kit’s chrome parts. The chrome was transparent in some places or the parts had obvious mold lines and flashing. I stripped them, sanded all of the imperfections and finished them with gloss black and alcald chrome. Once that was done, it was time to move onto the photo etch. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy they were to use. I bought wax tipped sticks to hold the pieces and then used Tamiya acrylic gloss clear as the adhesive. I took the time to paint the flag emblems and I’m thrilled by the results.

Almost 25 years after the initial purchase, the Vette is complete and I couldn’t be happier!

Completed: April 2018