Survivor Rehab: MPC 1966 Corvette

[Snake45]

Not sure what to call this project. Not really a "restoration" because I didn't really restore it to a previous state. Not really a full rebuild, as I didn't strip and repaint it. Much more than one of my typical "glue bomb rescues," though. How about "Survivior Rehab?" Let's see how that works. 

Got this one in an ebay “Corvette junkyard” about 10 years ago, along with some other stuff I really wanted. It sat unloved until about 2015, when I dug it out and took a look at it.

Kind of a hot mess. At first glance, it's a drag gasser, with blown engine, parachute, and push bar, but then why does it have the stock grille and front bumper and factory side pipes? Did the Original builder have a hot street freak in mind? The factory alloy knock-off wheels on the front and the slim pie-crust slicks seem out of place either way.

If the rare '65-'66 big block hood hadn't been cut for the blower, I'd have stripped the thing without a second thought and rebuilt it from the ground up as a stocker. But the more I looked at it, it began to grow on me. Was there anything I could do with it? I broke it down to see what I had to work with.

Just for grins, I tried polishing up the existing paint, which to my amazement shined up magnificently. Well, 90% of it. I think the paint was Pactra purple metalflake, overcoated with their “Diamond Flake” clearcoat with gold flakes in it . (There's some of this on the black parachute, which gave me the clue.) I polished through on a couple of sharp edges, but discovered that Testor has a purple pearl in their line (available at Hobby Lobby) that's very, very close to the original color—good enough for minor touchups.

However, the paint on the left door was very rough. By the time I'd gotten it leveled out and shiny, I'd polished off all the Diamond Flake overcoat and a bit of the color, too, leaving it the door very blotchy looking. I could have airbrushed the whole door with the Testor purple, but it still wouldn't have matched because of the missing Diamond Flake stuff.

So the body went on the Shelf of Doom until I could come up with a solution. I finally decided if I could come up with (or make) some kind of name decal for the thing, it would go a long way toward camouflaging the bad paint on the door. Didn't have anything suitable in my stash.

Meanwhile, I drove on with the chassis and interior. On projects like this, I usually try to use as many original parts as possible, or as many as I can stand. I'd have used the chassis and engine, but all four of those wheels and tires had to go. But this whole chassis is glued up SOLID, including the tires to the wheels. I couldn't even get the tires off without risking breaking the whole fidgety MPC chassis into several discouraging pieces. So I just left it alone and cobbled together an AMT one-piece chassis and new 427 engine from my big box of AMT Sting Ray spare parts. The wheels and tires came from there, too. Worked with the interior as best I could. Not 100% happy with how it looks, but it looks better than it did. Oh well I can always squirt it Krylon Satin Black sometime if the mood strikes me.

Okay, let's see where we are. Starting to come together a little, maybe. Need to make some rocker panels, and come up with SOME way to hide that blotchy left door. (The whole model looks blotchy in these pics due to the flash photography, but it doesn't look too bad in real life, except for the left side.) 

 

 

 

 

 

[Lordmodelbuilder]

Looking much better with what you have done to it.

[dragcarz]

A trip to the purple pond and a quick repaint in the same color probably wouldn’t deminish the integrity of the original build, but I get what your doing. I love that you try and save these. I have purchased several older builds and immediately disassembled them, stripped the paint with the intent of rebuilding them. After following you and Scale Survivors, I realize maybe I should have left them as is. I go a little slower now, I put it on the shelf and let it breathe a little bit, the thought of someone spending a weekend or two of his life creating his model to his likes seems a little more important to me these days than my need for another conquest.

[Snake45]

3 hours ago, dragcarz said:

A trip to the purple pond and a quick repaint in the same color probably wouldn’t deminish the integrity of the original build, but I get what your doing. I love that you try and save these. I have purchased several older builds and immediately disassembled them, stripped the paint with the intent of rebuilding them. After following you and Scale Survivors, I realize maybe I should have left them as is. I go a little slower now, I put it on the shelf and let it breathe a little bit, the thought of someone spending a weekend or two of his life creating his model to his likes seems a little more important to me these days than my need for another conquest.

Thank you! Yes, I could strip this thing and completely rebuild it MUCH better, but why bother? I'd have never painted it that purple to start with. But I've found that it's fun to see if I can make something semi-presentable out of the raw material. I try to stay as close to the OB's vision as I can stand, but there are sometimes things I can't live with, such as the original wheels and tires on this one. 

I think the first one of these I did was a Maverick Pro Stock I did two or three years ago. The OB had really captured the feel of the era well, the model just needed some love and some Snake-Fu. And I discovered that I really enjoy this kind of work. My goal on these jobs is not perfection, just improvement. If I can make it look like something I might have built in 1968, I'm happy. If I can make it look like something I built in 1969, I'm ecstatic. 

[dragcarz]

Well said Snake..and to quote a famous modeler..... Model On!

[Snake45]

21 hours ago, dragcarz said:

Well said Snake..and to quote a famous modeler..... Model On!

[Snake45]

Made the rocker panels from sheet styrene and covered them with the dull side of kitchen foil and Micro Metal Foil Adhesive. Found some almost PERFECT decals in the latest reissue of the AMT '63 kit. 

So it's done (for now) and we're off to Under Glass. See you there soon! 

 

[Ace-Garageguy]

Nice job taking one from semi-nasty to presentable model, while retaining most of the original work and feel.

I've done a couple kinda similarly, just a general clean up and changing wheels/tires. I think the long-dead builder (his family was selling off his collection) would appreciate that somebody thought enough of his work to preserve it mostly intact.