Survivor Resto--Original AMT '67 Corvette Coupe

[tedd60]

Wow ... you are a regular SPCA ... for Vettes, Man!!!!

Nice work.

[Snake45]

Beautiful job on the old Vette !  Bill's right , there's something about the MPC bodies that just makes them look better than the rest .  Great color , and the wheels and tires are the perfect upgrade it !  Sure is nice to see restorations of these old builds , it ensures they'll be around for a while longer .

The AMT and MPC bodies are very close in size and overall shape (the hoods are a near-perfect interchange). The detailing on the AMT body is and always has been better, and the door lines on the MPC are almost gone in all the reissues--you have to rescribe them in, very carefully. BOTH the AMT and MPC C2 Vettes are just a little "sharper," sleeker, than they should be. The Revell '67 Coupe (NOT the roadster, though) and their two '63 snappers actually have the most accurate bodies in shape, if you compare them to the real car, but they can look a little bit "fat" to us because we're used to seeing and working with the AMT and MPC bodies for 50 years now.

I'm gonna do and post a complete comparo of all the C2 Vettes here someday, when a fit of industry grabs me.

[Bob Ellis]

Bought this built original AMT ’67 Vette Coupe at the local toy show in December for the princely sum of $8. Thought that was the deal of the century until I got it home and took a GOOD look at it. Sadly, the body emblems had been sanded off, the rotating headlight doors filled, and the rally wheels weren’t the kit’s own correct ‘67s, but appeared to be ’68-ups from some MPC kit. So it couldn’t be restored as stock (at least not stock out-of-the-box).

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 Of course, the paint is a nonstock color, too. It’s a very deep purple/plum (which looks black until you set it next to something that's really black), but was so clean and shiny that I decided to just Snake-slap the thing through my resto shop as a cool modified “Day Two” cruiser. Near as I can tell, the paint is a candy red, or maybe a candy grape, over black primer. Here’s what the overspray looks like on the inside of the body. 

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 The interior had been hand-brushed in red and flat black. I stripped it with Easy-Off, which took off about 95% of it, but not all. If I could have gotten the seats out, I'd have done the interior in white, but they're molded as part of the bucket in all AMT '63-'67 Coupe kits (and the '63-'64 Roadsters, and as far as I know, in all reissues of the '63 Roadster; they were separate parts in original '65-'67 Roadsters). Original Builder had glued in those goofy X-shaped plastic seat belts, which I can't stand (have you EVER seen seat belts arranged like that in Real Life? Me neither). The left one popped out okay but the right one left notable glue damage. So I just rattlecanned the whole gut with semigloss black and did minimal detailing on the dash and steering wheel and called it done. Pardon the "dandruff"--I didn't realize there was so much sanding dust on it when I took these pics (of course I blew/brushed all that out before final assembly).

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Only the AMT 1963 Corvette Convertible and 1967 T.H.E. CAT had rotating headlights The 1967 Hardtop Vette never had them

[Snake45]

Only the AMT 1963 Corvette Convertible and 1967 T.H.E. CAT had rotating headlights The 1967 Hardtop Vette never had them

I'm sorry I wasn't clear. I meant that the "panel lines" for the rotating doors had been filled. Of course the kit parts never moved except on the roadsters you noted.