Scale-Master Posted June 9, 2015 Posted June 9, 2015 This started as an MPC Street Fever Vette. A very good friend gave it to me; it was complete, unpainted and (poorly) partially assembled. It came apart with only minor damage (all repairable) to a few parts. The opening for the grill is probably the worst damage to the body, but not a real problem. The rear panel has some glue smears, but a minor issue as well. I decided to go curbside. After I cleaned up the body and cut out the scoop in the hood I reinforced a few spots inside the body and cemented the hood on. Next it was just a case of trueing the body, (typical 70s tooling), scribing in the panel lines to be more uniform and sanding off molded in details like the Corvette scripts. I plan to go with some type of metal-flake paint job. I have a few bottles of original Testors Metal Flake colors that seem appropriate.
Brett Barrow Posted June 9, 2015 Posted June 9, 2015 Please use the Vector wheels! They look so right on these crazy vettes.
nkempf99 Posted June 9, 2015 Posted June 9, 2015 I've never heard them called mako sharks before. Are all of these era vettes called that?
Scale-Master Posted June 9, 2015 Author Posted June 9, 2015 This kit was originally tooled to make the Mako Shark II from 1965. There were only two Mako Shark II real cars, and only one of them was a driver. But there were a lot of customs inspired by them when people customized '68 and later Corvettes. I set up the stance and ride height with wire axles and brass tubing. I intend to use the kit’s tires, but not the turbine style rims. They are not in the best shape. I also want it to sit a lot lower than the way the kit builds. I had to hog out the rear chassis and inner wheel wells to make room for the tires. I had these resin wheels I cast laying around and they have bosses for wire axles molded to them. I probably will not use these wheels, at least not without some added machined rims to make them deeper. Right now I’m leaning towards Daisy’s.
DumpyDan Posted June 10, 2015 Posted June 10, 2015 Very cool, like this look. I remember this kit from way back
Pat Minarick Posted June 10, 2015 Posted June 10, 2015 I like it, I have one of those ,complete and unbuilt,and a bag with four of them all in pieces.I plan on building one of them sometime.
am73grand Posted June 10, 2015 Posted June 10, 2015 Nice work so far. I love the looks of these cars!
slusher Posted June 10, 2015 Posted June 10, 2015 Very cool looking Vette, looking forward to the build..
robertw Posted June 10, 2015 Posted June 10, 2015 Looking good. Good idea to redo the suspension as built out of the box it sits way to high especially on the front end.
Scale-Master Posted June 11, 2015 Author Posted June 11, 2015 This is the simplified/salvaged chassis. Just enough suspension pieces hanging down to give the look of something being there from the top.
Snake45 Posted June 11, 2015 Posted June 11, 2015 You're making me want to restore the one I built as a kid. I'm not going to strip and repaint it, because it has the remnants of an AMT Candy Oriental Blue paint job on it I'd like to keep for nostalgia reasons. But I would like to clean the poor thing up and get it back together in some fashion. The chassis is long gone to The Great Parts Box In The Sky but I think I can plop it on a simple 1-piece AMT '63 Vette chassis, which I think I have a few of laying around. Thanks for the inspiration!
Snake45 Posted June 11, 2015 Posted June 11, 2015 Is this the old Mako Shark? Yes. They altered the molds a little in the '80s to make it "custom Corvette" so it can no longer be made into a "stock" Mako Shark II out of the box. I've bought two glue bomb original Sharks off eBay, and have a NIB "custom Vette" issue. I'm pretty sure I have everything I need to cobble together one "stock" original Shark, plus one custom Shark-ish custom out of the leftovers.
Snake45 Posted June 12, 2015 Posted June 12, 2015 This is the simplified/salvaged chassis. Just enough suspension pieces hanging down to give the look of something being there from the top. For those who were asking about automatic transmissions in kits the other day, there goes one now!
Scale-Master Posted June 12, 2015 Author Posted June 12, 2015 Yeah, but it's a pretty weak interpretation of a Turbo 400 by today's standards.
Deathgoblin Posted June 13, 2015 Posted June 13, 2015 I have the remains of one of these. I'm curious to see how it builds up.
Lordmodelbuilder Posted June 17, 2015 Posted June 17, 2015 Very interesting build. I was just digging thru a big box of stuff I got at a model show from years ago and think I might have a similar MPC kit. I will be following your build and might just rebuild mine.
Scale-Master Posted September 2, 2015 Author Posted September 2, 2015 I cast a bunch of wheels in a couple styles and offsets for a friend and I decided on the Daisy’s from those for this project. They were cast modularly (each of these are two pieces in the photo) and these would normally make 15 x 8s, but I will add another rim section to the back and make them 15 x 10s.
slusher Posted September 2, 2015 Posted September 2, 2015 Nice wheels. Forgot all about this project....
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