Glue Bomb Resurrection/Rebuild: Revell EMPI Imp

[Snake45]

“We have done the impossible, and that makes us mighty.”

--Sgt. Malcom “Mal” Reynolds, Independent Army (“Browncoats”)

 

Now I know exactly what Captain Tightpants meant. Almost 30 years ago, at a club meeting, I bought a baggie filled with pieces of what had once been a poorly built Revell EMPI Imp. I think I paid an entire US Dollar for it. Maybe it was two. Whatever, it was a semi-rare kit worth saving to me, so it followed me home.

It disappeared into the Snakepit for decades. A bit over a year ago, I was finally hit by the urge to see what could be done with the wretched mess. It took me about a week to figure out the chassis pieces, and what went where, when, and carefully glue everything back together. Oh, and I couldn't find a set of instructions for the thing, which might have been a big help. I figgered it all out. During the chassis reconstruction process, I stripped the body, which came out pretty well. When I got it back up on its wheels, I felt like I could probably put a dinosaur skeleton back together from a basket of bones. You can revel in my anguish and triumph in the Workbench thread here:

After finishing the chassis, I lost interest again and the thing served another year on the Shelf of Doom. I decided to drag it, kicking and screaming, across the finish line for Round 6 of the now-notorious Bring Out Your Dead Group Completion Build. First job was paint. To me, the iconic Imp was the bright metalflake blue one on the cover of Hot Rod about 1970, so metalflake blue was always the plan. I had a giant can of Krylon Shimmer Blue that looked like it would be perfect. But first, I primed the back seat area of the flake-red molded body with black, then gray, then flat white, then shot a couple coats of Testor White Lightning for a metalflake/pearl upholstery look. The seats were carefully masked off, the body got an overall coat of light gray primer, and then two coats of the Krylon Shimmer blue. This went on easily and smoothly, but wasn't as bright, as shiny, or as “flaky” as I was going for. (More on this later.) I polished it out with Wright's Silver Cream, which helped a little. Forgot to mention that before the first coat of primer, I foiled the hood EMPI Imp emblem with household foil, then masked it off with Elmer's Glue for the foil-under-paint technique, which DID work out pretty well. When I unmasked the back seats, I thought they looked too thin, so I sprayed some white vinyl tape with the White Lightning, cut thin strips, and laid them along the edges of the seats to widen them a little. Not perfect, but they look better now.

The final big hurdle was an engine. The original engine was not only glue-bombed in its own right, but one carburetor and the entire exhaust system were missing. I could try to scratchbuild these and restore the rest of the engine, or I could “borrow” the parts from an AMT Manx or TeeVee buggy, or just take the whole engine from the latter. Instead, I went with an AMT Parts Pack Corvair. This was from an early '90s Blueprinter Exclusive issue, unplated and molded in a dark metallic gray that I thought was kind of attractive. I glued the fidgety thing together and highlighted just enough areas on it with Silver Sharpie and Molotow to give the impression of proper busy-ness at the rear end of the car.

That done it should have all been downhill from there, although final detailing and assembly took me most of a full day (4 or 5 hours). The windshield frame was the extra (unused) Manx unit from a TeeVee kit; the TeeVee kit doesn't include the Manx windshield, so I superglued it to some clear plastic from an M2 diecast package and trimmed the excess with a sharp Xacto. This went amazingly well (for a change) and probably didn't take 10 minutes start to finish, including finding the M2 box. The TeeVee kit also gave up its headlights and VW taillights. The front bucket seats also got squirted with the White Lightning Pearl. Looking at the finished pics, I think I mounted the windshield with a little too much rake angle. No big deal, it's only on with Tacky Glue and I can remove it and try again any time the mood strikes me.

So I GOTTER DONE for Round 6 of the BOYD build, which makes me very happy. It ain't perfect, but it's DONE and I'm pretty proud of it. By the way, here's a pic of the finished model with the cap of the Krylon Shimmer Blue, which was what I was expecting and hoping for. As you can see, the paint looks a good bit different. It looks more like '69 Ford Acapulco Blue, or maybe a slightly light '64 Guardsman blue, except just a bit too flaky/sparkly to be a factory color, but not nearly as “bass boat” flaky as I wanted for this job. Oh well, it is what it is. Thanks for looking, and as always, comments welcome.

Edited April 3, 2020 by Snake45

[Scott8950]

nice job snake, what happened with the falcon?

Edited April 2, 2020 by Scott8950

[Snake45]

9 minutes ago, Scott8950 said:

nice job snake, what happened with the falcon?

That might be coming up soon, maybe. 

[christian-w]

Beautiful! It doesn't look like a restoration. It Looks like a very good built up out of a new kit.

[Gramps46]

I just now came across your build and the buggy and writeup are impressive.  I especially like your choice of the Corvair engine.  Congratulations on getting it done.

[afx]

Great lil' buggy!

[David G.]

Beautifully done Snake!

Well worth the effort.

David G.

[espo]

Great looking rebuild. I always liked the overdone Bass Boat style Metal Flake Gelcoat they used on the 1:1's. The white seats look good against the blue body. 

[ChrisR]

Great save!

[Vince Nemanic]

Nice job! A question about the front suspension. Did you just butt glue the trailing arms together, or sis you pin them or elsewise reinforce them? zi never had any luck gluing parts with such small contact area. Any tricks would be appreciated. 

[Snake45]

54 minutes ago, Vince Nemanic said:

Nice job! A question about the front suspension. Did you just butt glue the trailing arms together, or sis you pin them or elsewise reinforce them? zi never had any luck gluing parts with such small contact area. Any tricks would be appreciated. 

It was even worse than it looks in the Before pic. As I worked on it, the one that's still intact in the picture broke, too, and I think the already broken one broke again in another place. I butt-jointed the pieces by holding them together and hitting the joint with a drop of FAST-drying, hot liquid cement and pressing together, and then later, when dry, I seem to recall reinforcing the joins with a "weld" of either superglue or Loctite Super Glue Gel (wonderful stuff!).  

And then I handled them very carefully from then on. 

[Hmann68]

Might be your best work yet, from what I see! Really clean and sharp job, looks as if you pulled it right out of the box and built it ???

[PatW]

Yes another really neat beach buggy! I did a resto job on one of these a few years ago.

[alan barton]

Gotta bit of a soft spot for buggies, no idea why but I guess I thought they were cool when I was a kid.  This thing rocks - love the colour,love the trim, the Corvair gives it some muscle and I think it's really cool that you used the natural metallic plastic of the AMT parts back engine.

But if you stand up that windshield I will never talk to you again!

Cheers

Alan

[Oldcarfan27]

Great resto!

I was going to suggest you use the original Revell 68 VW beetle for the missing chassis parts and damaged engine, but I see you handled it all fine.

Looks awesome!!

[donb]

That came out awesome Snake. Outstanding restoration. Like that color too. 

[Bucky]

Wow, Snake! That Imp came out gorgeous!!

[PappyD340]

Excellent save, looks great!

[dragcarz]

Looks great Snake

[Snake45]

On 4/2/2020 at 6:05 AM, christian-w said:

Beautiful! It doesn't look like a restoration. It Looks like a very good built up out of a new kit.

Thanks for the kind words! 

On 4/2/2020 at 6:18 AM, Gramps46 said:

I just now came across your build and the buggy and writeup are impressive.  I especially like your choice of the Corvair engine.  Congratulations on getting it done.

Thanks Gary. High praise coming from you. 

 

On 4/2/2020 at 6:57 AM, afx said:

Great lil' buggy!

I bought it at a MAMA meeting in the early 90s, so you might have seen it then. Heck, you might have sold it to me! 

On 4/2/2020 at 7:33 AM, David G. said:

Beautifully done Snake!

Well worth the effort.

David G.

Thanks! And yes it WAS an effort. 

On 4/2/2020 at 10:59 AM, espo said:

Great looking rebuild. I always liked the overdone Bass Boat style Metal Flake Gelcoat they used on the 1:1's. The white seats look good against the blue body. 

Thanks! At some points during construction, the white rear seats against the flaky dark blue body reminded me for some reason of dark blue Cobras. 

On 4/2/2020 at 11:22 AM, ChrisR said:

Great save!

Thanks! 

On 4/2/2020 at 9:44 PM, Hmann68 said:

Might be your best work yet, from what I see! Really clean and sharp job, looks as if you pulled it right out of the box and built it ???

Thanks! That's a high compliment! 

On 4/3/2020 at 5:11 AM, PatW said:

Yes another really neat beach buggy! I did a resto job on one of these a few years ago.

And I know how much you love the beach stuff, so this comment is especially meaningful. Thanks! 

On 4/3/2020 at 7:55 AM, alan barton said:

Gotta bit of a soft spot for buggies, no idea why but I guess I thought they were cool when I was a kid.  This thing rocks - love the colour,love the trim, the Corvair gives it some muscle and I think it's really cool that you used the natural metallic plastic of the AMT parts back engine.

But if you stand up that windshield I will never talk to you again!

Cheers

Alan

I'm not gonna stand it up vertical, but I might remount it so it matches the angle of the sides of the hood. 

Actually, been thinking about putting a Manx hard top on it. It mates up surprisingly close at the rear (around the back seats). If I do, its front edge will govern where the windshield ends up. 

On 4/3/2020 at 4:03 PM, Oldcarfan27 said:

Great resto!

I was going to suggest you use the original Revell 68 VW beetle for the missing chassis parts and damaged engine, but I see you handled it all fine.

Looks awesome!!

Thanks old friend. I used as much of the original as I could, but had to outsource a few things. 

On 4/3/2020 at 11:48 PM, donb said:

That came out awesome Snake. Outstanding restoration. Like that color too. 

Thanks! 

On 4/4/2020 at 12:09 AM, Bucky said:

Wow, Snake! That Imp came out gorgeous!!

 

On 4/4/2020 at 8:10 AM, PappyD340 said:

Excellent save, looks great!

 

On 4/4/2020 at 7:06 PM, dragcarz said:

Looks great Snake

Thanks, Thanks, and Thanks! 

[cobraman]

Buggy came out great ! The paint is perfect for a buggy.

[1959scudetto]

Very nice restoration of an ultimate fun car - great color combination!

[slusher]

Great little buggy Snake!  You turned that around too great looking model!

[dimaxion]

Snake , I don't go here often as you know . What a beautiful Replica . Totally Boffo ! (gives away my age ..  lol ) Kudos on the rescue .. Thanx 

[Snake45]

On 4/14/2020 at 1:02 PM, cobraman said:

Buggy came out great ! The paint is perfect for a buggy.

 

On 4/14/2020 at 1:16 PM, 1959scudetto said:

Very nice restoration of an ultimate fun car - great color combination!

 

On 4/15/2020 at 8:25 AM, slusher said:

Great little buggy Snake!  You turned that around too great looking model!

 

On 4/16/2020 at 1:05 PM, dimaxion said:

Snake , I don't go here often as you know . What a beautiful Replica . Totally Boffo ! (gives away my age ..  lol ) Kudos on the rescue .. Thanx 

Thanks for all the kinds words! Model on, everyone!