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1976 Corvette Spirit of Le Mans - Archive


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John Greenwood was a very talented driver, designer, fabricator, and promoter.  For the 1976 Le Mans race he took a wrecked Corvette convertible and turned it into the Spirit of Le Mans.  The French spectators absolutely loved the bellowing monster. 

The kit was a USAirfix 1/24 scale release.  Sadly I used a clear coat on it which has yellowed with time so I am using archived photos (archive= when digits were fingers).  I was also hampered by the lack of good color reference photos so the rear winglets I added are too tall and the bottom swoosh should be blue.

154733357_Corvette_Greenwood_1976_76_002.jpg.7eb8d729045628b457d47de0dd339f4c.jpg

986979733_Corvette_Greenwood_1976_76_003.jpg.3d91e6640d7a953b6f3ce74145c32ebd.jpg

1175787591_Corvette_Greenwood_1976_76_001.jpg.89510e632a92d956702b63f4bcebd574.jpg

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Thanks to all for your comments.  I checked and I used a USAirfix reboxing of an EAIDAI/GRIP kit.  But do not know where the decals came from back then.  I also noted that Profil24 now makes a resin kit and Le Mans Decals has offered the decals.  

Edited by Gramps46
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1 hour ago, afx said:

Decals for the '76 LeMans car came in the Eidaigrip kit.

 

Agree with you JC but am wondering how I got them without having the EIDAI kit.  This would have been back in the '80s and Norm Verber and Motoi had contracts in Japan so one of them may have fixed me up.

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This has to be the ultimate front engine V8 monster, Gary ! The grumble and roar of the engine was surely ground-shaking.

Nice build of a seldom seen kit. Us race car modelers have always the problem of good reference material - this is hard to come by even today - most pics on the internet are color photos of the restored cars which often differ from back then (old photos are in most cases black and white only). 

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Gary...thank you so much for posting this.  I have this kit (the original Eidai Grip) that I got at a show a year or so ago.  It is nice to know decals are available in case my ancient ones fail. The photography rocks too. I also discovered in my box a 1/64 minature of this car done by Hot Wheels  (not in the same livery...of course)    Don't know how that got in there. Might try and repaint it but decals will be a problem.

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49 minutes ago, afx said:

JC...yah...its motorized. A very simple kit with few parts.  Body looks pretty good though.  Mine is in minty condition, even the decals and the box.  Its gonna get built though.  No shelf queens in this collection. 

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On 11/29/2021 at 8:17 AM, Gramps46 said:

John Greenwood was a very talented driver, designer, fabricator, and promoter.  For the 1976 Le Mans race he took a wrecked Corvette convertible and turned it into the Spirit of Le Mans.  The French spectators absolutely loved the bellowing monster. 

The kit was a USAirfix 1/24 scale release.  Sadly I used a clear coat on it which has yellowed with time so I am using archived photos (archive= when digits were fingers).  I was also hampered by the lack of good color reference photos so the rear winglets I added are too tall and the bottom swoosh should be blue.

154733357_Corvette_Greenwood_1976_76_002.jpg.7eb8d729045628b457d47de0dd339f4c.jpg

986979733_Corvette_Greenwood_1976_76_003.jpg.3d91e6640d7a953b6f3ce74145c32ebd.jpg

1175787591_Corvette_Greenwood_1976_76_001.jpg.89510e632a92d956702b63f4bcebd574.jpg

Can I help a brother out?  Also, did those wheels come in the kit?  Trying to source something that passes for Stirling mags is very hard.  I've only seen one set that came with a Studio 27 or MFH kit and I didn't have $150-200 for one of them.

0eB0sPn.jpg

Edited by The Junkman
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