1976 Chevy Van Custom WIP (Finished)

[StanGlover]

Here’s my latest project: The recent release of Revell’s custom Chevy van! 
I started off by stripping the chrome from the front fascia/grille, scribing the door gaps, gluing together all of the subassemblies and prepping them for primer. This build is going to be box stock with minimal engine and chassis detailing. Partly because there’s not much detail in these areas to begin with, but mostly because these 70s vans are all about the body, paint, and interior. So that’s where I’m going to focus my attention. 

I glued the hood shut to simplify the painting process and since you can’t really see the engine anyway. After stripping the chrome from the grille, I glued that in place along with the front air dam. I added some scrap sprue behind the air dam, in the corners to help reinforce the front end. Since the roof is removable, I glued the rear doors shut. The body is very flimsy if you don’t do this, plus it will help with my planned two tone paint job. 
 
The body will be painted Testors’ Purple-licious with Tamiya TS-30 Silver Leaf as the secondary tone. My plan is to do the “Stardust Express” graphics, so the top half will be purple and the bottom will be silver. I think I’ll do the fender flares in purple too to accentuate them. The interior is going to be various shades of gray, with the quilted vinyl wall panels and seats in metallic purple. Plus tons of brown wood grain. The bed spread will be orange to tie in with the orange in the graphics. 
 
The elephant in the room: this kit has two piece rubber tires. Everyone on this forum has been complaining about these since the kit was announced. In my experience, they’re not *that* bad ?. I used Gorilla brand super glue and they seem to be holding together. There’s definitely a raised ridge at the seam, so I’ll try sanding them down. They definitely won’t win you an award, but they’re *fine* for a shelf model. I don’t have anything else that fits and I’m not interested in paying for aftermarket tires so they will have to do. 
Here’s everything in primer so far. I’m using Tamiya’s pink primer under the purple. It’s my first time using it so we'll see how it looks! Once everything cures, I’ll tape off the portions of the interior that will remain gray primer and hit the body and wall panels in pink. The body is definitely going to need some further work to blend the air dam, and the mold separation lines at the fenders and rear corners are pretty bad. 

Thanks for following along! Feel free to share any tips, suggestions or ideas!

Edited March 7, 2022 by StanGlover
Updated title to “finished”

[Rusty92]

Looks great so far! I really want this van kit. I will be following along. 

[Alexander Foster]

Very interesting can't wait to see where it's headed 

[Leica007]

I can donate a set of tires to your build.  I've got Goodyear Eagle ZR40 or Goodyear VR50.  I checked them against my AMT Chevy Vantasty kit tires and they are very close to size, the ZR40 are a lower/wider profile than the VR50.  Also have mural and graphic (in purple shades) from Dirty Donny, if you would be interested. 

[StanGlover]

7 hours ago, Leica007 said:

I can donate a set of tires to your build.  I've got Goodyear Eagle ZR40 or Goodyear VR50.  I checked them against my AMT Chevy Vantasty kit tires and they are very close to size, the ZR40 are a lower/wider profile than the VR50.  Also have mural and graphic (in purple shades) from Dirty Donny, if you would be interested. 

Thanks for the offer! I’ll see how the kit’s tires look once I work with them, I’ll let you know. 

[StanGlover]

I got the body puttied and sanded! There were pretty bad seams and mold misalignment down the tops of the fenders and the rear corners. I forgot to take a picture of those areas before I started working though. But I think I got it looking pretty good. 

I’m hoping to get another coat of gray primer down this weekend. Then, another round of sanding. 
 

This was my first time using Tamiya sanding sponges. I wish I had tried them sooner! So much easier to handle, plus they conform to curves nicely. 

[Bills72sj]

I grew up in the vanning 70's. Following.

[StanGlover]

Here’s a taste of how the interior will look. I taped off the gray areas that will remain primer gray, then painted the tufted vinyl panels in pink primer, followed by the Purple-licious. You can’t really tell in the picture but there is some pink reflecting through that looks awesome in person. The carpeted areas will be painted a darker gray later. The tuft buttons and handles and speaker trim are Molotow. 
The body got another coat of primer, and some more sanding at the mold seams. Next up, pink primer and some light sanding. 
I sanded the tire seams and treads down. This left the treads looking chalky, so I simply colored them in with a black sharpie. I think they look fine for a shelf model now so I’ll go ahead and use them. I would normally give the chrome wheels a black wash, but since this is a custom I want them to be extra shiny. The flash was really bad on the wheels but they cleaned up ok. The flash seams don’t show once the tires are mounted so they didn’t need any Molotow touch ups. 

[StanGlover]

Should I spray the sanded through areas in gray primer first, or will the pink primer cover it all well enough?

[Leica007]

If your sanded edges are really feathered the pink primer should cover and the purple lacquer will cover well. Check the pink to make sure the shading matches the area over the adjoining grey and that the edges don't show any ridges/chips. Be sure your primed surface is a smooth as you can get it, metallic lacquers polish well but sanding is rough on it. Use finer grits (2000,4000,6000)with wet lite pressure  if you do have to sand the purple.  Your build helped me decide my next project, the Chev Vantasy kit.

"Keep on truckin"

[StanGlover]

A quick update: I got the doghouse, bed and front seats sprayed, so now I can start detail painting and assembling the interior. The carpet will be painted a darker gray, and the console, tv and dash will be painted to look like wood.

The body got its first coat of pink primer. Once it cures it will get finish sanding, followed by a second coat and then the body color. 
It’s no Porsche 917 racer but at this stage, this beast reminds me of the Pink Pig ?

[gray07]

looking great, vans are going crazy again, ive got a custom 75 dodge in my yard, so i will be following this build.

[Leica007]

Your prep and primer looks good to go.

 

[StanGlover]

I got my base color down and it came out awesome! This is just the purple paint, no clear coat or polish yet. My original plan was to do a silver and purple two tone, but now I’m not so sure… that’s when I’ll ruin it ? Thoughts? Keep it solid purple or add the silver?Either way it still will be getting the “Stardust Express” graphics and the thin belt line stripe. 

The chassis is done, all in black primer with “pimento” Krylon on the engine block. I’m not going to bother detailing the engine since you can’t see anything anyway. I’ve done my wood trim base coat for the interior items in “light brown” Tamiya acrylic, they will get brown and black dry brushing to simulate wood. 

[Zen]

Solid purple I think with the decals!

[Mike C.]

Paint looks nice! ?

[StanGlover]

Interior is basically complete! I still need to paint the rear upper wall wood paneling inside the body shell, but otherwise it’s done. I used Tamiya flat acrylics for the wood, light brown as a base, with brown and black dry brushed on. I then coated it with two coats of Pledge floor gloss. This was my first time faux painting wood grain, and I tried to match the kit’s wood trim decals for the dash gauge surround and the mini fridge door. It came out ok, but next time I’ll try thinning out the brown as a wash instead of dry brushing it. 
 

Chassis is finished, not much to write home about here. All in black primer, with Krylon pimento orange and kit chrome on the engine. The floor plate was pretty warped when I started. I ran hot water over it and was able to bend it mostly straight. I got it the rest of the way when I glued the floor to the frame, using masking tape to hold it together while the glue cured. 

The body is also decal’d and cleared with Wet Look clear. I decided to keep the body solid purple and use the “Stardust Express” theme. I was going to use the thin belt stripe, but it was kinda bland without the two tone paint, so I rearranged the thick “z” stripes as you see here. They fit pretty good this way, almost like they were supposed to go this way. 
 

Next I need to polish out a few dust blemishes from the body and detail the body trim. Then she’ll be ready for final assembly!

[Leica007]

You're knocking it out of the park. The paint and your mods' on the decal are great. I like the faux wood, good first try, I thought you made the engine cover tray, which I had forgotten about as a basic element in vans (hope you don't mind if I borrow the idea). You are inspiring me to think outside the box on my project and to do my first WIP post. Really sharp, great ideas and execution.

[4mula1fan]

Looking fantastic! You're making me want my 72 Chevy van again!

[StanGlover]

25 minutes ago, Leica007 said:

You're knocking it out of the park. The paint and your mods' on the decal are great. I like the faux wood, good first try, I thought you made the engine cover tray, which I had forgotten about as a basic element in vans (hope you don't mind if I borrow the idea). You are inspiring me to think outside the box on my project and to do my first WIP post. Really sharp, great ideas and execution.

Thanks for the kind words!! The engine cover tray with the cup holders actually comes with this kit! It should be easy to scratch build though if yours doesn’t have one. Definitely give a WIP post a try, I’ll check it out for sure!

[slusher]

Real nice use of paint color choices and real clean work.  Going to be a beautiful van when finished….

[StanGlover]

Interior walls are done! I used the same faux wood treatment as the TV and console. There’s wood grain detail molded into the walls which is a nice touch.

If you noticed, I added a scrap tab of sprue at the bottom of the rear doors where they meet the roll pan, way back at the beginning. This is needed to give the bottom middle corners of the doors something to stop against, and to strengthen the rear of the body. I had to trim the corner of the right door card to fit though, no big deal. The chassis still fits into the body nicely so no issues there.

Of course I couldn’t resist test fitting the chassis and getting a look at the whole interior. I’m very pleased with the results, I wish I had an exact 1:1 copy! This is such a cool kit!

I was concerned about how the floor and interior panels would fit together at final assembly, with the wall panels attached to the body and the floor on the chassis. But it fits together very nicely.

 

[StanGlover]

This bad boy is finally done! More pictures are posted Under Glass. I love how this one turned out. This kit has its quirks, but overall it goes together very well and I had a blast designing and building it!

[gray07]

awesome job, love it

[NOBLNG]

Wow, you did some fantastic work on this. It looks beautiful!?