[Revell 1971 Boss 351 Mustang]

Just because they are on the scanned subject does not mean that is what is being planned.

[1/25 Revell 1969 Chevelle SS 396]

24 minutes ago, StevenGuthmiller said:

Has anybody tried to fit the rear chrome from the Revell kit to the AMT kit?

Just curious.

 

 

 

 

Steve

The AMT body is an 1/8" narrower at the front and back as I recall. This was verified by the Chevy factory drawings used to develope the Revell kit and by research dimensions that were taken.

[1/25 Revell 1969 Chevelle SS 396]

3 hours ago, Casey said:

Yes, as I stated earlier, it sits too low in relation to the trim panel and bottom edge of the tail light buckets/trim. While it's hard to compare real 1:1 '69 Chevelle rear bumpers due to the fact that they may have been, well, bumped and tweaked over the years (which, looking online at images seems to be common, though not a major misalignment issue). That said, out of the dozen rear angle images of 1:1 '69 Chevelles I viewed online, I did not find any which had the excessive gap as found on the kit part.

I think the presence of the side stripe makes it difficult to judge exactly where the rear quarter panel peak lies, and it seems to be a rather soft, not crisp, peak, too, so I think that is a factor, too. Again, from viewing a dozen images online, the quarter panel peak appears to terminate even with the horizontal divider which separates the upper and lower tail light bezels/lenses. They blue built model I posed earlier (I'm guessing Ron probably knows who built it?) has the white side stripe already applied, making comparisons with the 1:1 '69 Chevelle a challenge. I'll wait to see a member's built model sans side stripe to decide if the quarter panel peak is too high on the Revell body or not.

We all know and realize there's a human element when designs, measurements, and specifications are transferred from a real car or blueprints to a computer, and the end result isn't always 100% accurate. While I don't see any gross errors on this '69 Chevelle like I saw on the Revell '90 Mustang LX notch (yeah, I SAID IT) kit's body, the gap between the rear bumper and the quarter panel caps, tail light bezels, and trim panel does seem too large to me. Fortunately, I think this can be remedied, IF all else is correct, by separating the bumper and the section above it, then mounting the bumper a bit higher.

Here's the screenshot from Chris' review video, showing the gap I mentioned:

 

Both a 1:1 '69 Chevelle and Malibu for comparison:

 

I can hear Harry interjecting that you can't directly compare 1:1 vehicles with their scale counterparts, but we disagree on that one, so I'll continue. I will admit on both cars above, the rear bumper appears a bit misaligned, or it could be due to the higher viewing angle at which the photo was taken. Regardless if the slightly inconsistent gap present on both, the gap between the rear bumper's wrap-around ends and the bottom edge of the quarter panel caps is much smaller on the real cars than on the built up blue model used by Revell.

I also think the tail light bezel-to-quarter panel end cap fit on the 1:1 is an incredibly tricky fit, and perhaps it's not even possible to pull off when things are reduced to 1:25 scale. I guess we'll see as more are built.

You are on the right track here. The rear side marker lights were set to high, the top edge needs to be dropped to where the bottom edge is and the bumper gap needs to be reduced by 50% or to suit your personal preference. I would not expect that Revell would be willing to invest in these types of revisions. These are the types of things that can go wrong during the course of a project that is going under constant revision a world apart with strict financial and time constraits. Fortunately the parts are or should be pretty accurate just placed a little out of position. And yes, the '69 style taillights were almost impossible to engineer to scale due to wall thickness standards. The taillights are accurate and lightyears ahead of previous efforts that have been offered prior to this new kit.

[1/25 Revell 1969 Chevelle SS 396]

Thanks Luc, 

I'm actually not new here at all, I have followed the ramblings on this board since day one. I simply have stayed silent and kept notes on those good points brought up by some of your members and applied them when and where possible in the quest to make every production model as good as it can be within the confines that company management would allow.

[1/25 Revell 1969 Chevelle SS 396]

Just so all of you experts know the body and all related parts, including taillights and bumpers, were made from Chevrolet factory drawings and verified with hundreds of research photos and dimensions. Granted some very minor adjustments can take place going into the 3D modeling stage, but hardley way out of wack like one of your expert Revell haters here suggested.