It looks like when it went through the plating process it wasn't completely chromed, I have a 72 olds kit with a similar issue, I guess I have bad luck with chrome
The 77's should have different t tops then the 78, in 77 they where made by hurst, in 78 gm went in house for the t tops
I really like this kit, it does show it's Diecast roots in places but all in all it's pretty good
I got mine couple weeks ago, the body in my kit is no warped at all. This kit is a completely different tooling from the regular R8 kit that was released 3-4 years ago. that kit had a V8, this ones got the V10.