1996 Dodge Viper GTS (AMT)

[bigbluesd]

This kit has been sitting in my stash for a while, I am going to be building it mostly OOB (at least that was the intent when I started). I had a can of Testor's Lime Ice paint that has been sitting in the bottom of my spray booth for a while that I will be using, bought it on sale and this seems like a good car to use it on. Stripes will be black and will be painted on rather than decalled. This WIP thread will be in a slightly different format than what most of you guys do on here, just to try something new. I will include new updates at the top of the thread and move older content down as I go.

INITIAL UPDATE 12/10/2014

I am not normally one to worry too much about precise adherence to accuracy but there were a few things about this kit that bugged me. To start though, here are the colors I'll be using:

The first thing that bugged me was that this kit must have been based off of a prototype as Dodge got rid of the side exhaust for this year's Viper. The kit is strange as it does include the rear exhaust tips (and directs you to install them) but the housing for the side pipes is still present on the body along with a cover for the exhaust port. The production car has a bulge along the side skirt where the side pipes used to be (as the exhaust still runs through this area).

To fix this I trimmed down the protruding edges of the side pipes and puttied over them with Tamiya putty. I'll sand it smooth and although it won't be a perfect representation (the wheelbase on this kit is shorter than the actual car anyways, making the area in front of the door shorter) I think it will be close enough for rock and roll.

The other thing that really bugged me was that there was a mold line running between the back window and trunk edge that was clearly not representative of a panel line. I did find one elevated photo of the trunk area that showed panel lines running between the trunk edge and the rear edge of the doors (there are surprisingly few photos of this area of a Viper on the internet by the way!). To create the absent panel line I used some copper wire to get the contour right and then traced the curve to Evergreen to use as a template. I cut out the template and superglued it to the car in order to cut the new panel line with my hobby knife.

Still a little cleanup to do but looks much better!

Edited December 10, 2014 by bigbluesd

[bigbluesd]

Reserved for future content

Edited December 10, 2014 by bigbluesd

[bigbluesd]

Reserved for future content