The body, nose cone, rear wing, bonnet and chassis where cleaned of flash, which was quite copious.
The body and nose cone where joined together, glued, filled and filed. The fit was quite poor and a lot of filler was used, and a lot of filing was needed to form a neat join. This may be a mistake on my part as the fit on the real thing was notoriously poor, but we are modelers and we try to build as neatly as possible even when it is not entirely appropriate.
The fitting of the rear wing was done by eye and a none event, going on like a dream, a little cleaning of the joins was needed but nothing more than a quick scrape with a scalpel.
A few sink holes where present here and there on the body but where dealt with by a quick drop of Humbrol filler, a quick filing and Wet'n'Dry. The fender scoops went on next being lined up by eye using a picture off the web for reference as the pictures in the instructions are unclear as to position, and there are no marks on the kit to aid location.
One of the things I do like about amt kits is the fact that they include options for alternative parts to alter the look of the model, something other manufacturers could learn from. I would have liked to use the Bonnet (hood) scoop. It stood rather high for my taste, interfering with the view from the drivers seat in a way that would have been impractical for the road car I am building. Attempts to reprofile it so that it curved downwards to the rear and sat lower on the bonnet where not really to my satisfaction, so it has been promoted to the spares box. The wings (fenders) have lugs to the fore to stop the bonnet falling through which are totally useless and where cut off. Checking the pictures on the web there is an air dam (?) between the rear of the cone and the front of the radiator that is missing from the kit. this was put right with a piece of plastic card. The bonnet still sat low, so a couple tiny squares of plastic provided a support that caused the bonnet to sit just right.
The body and chassis have now been given a coat of Matt Black as a base coat. Normally I use Citadel Chaos Black as a Base coat, but while in Poundland recently I came across their spray paint and thought at a quid, why not try it. It is a bit thin, but with careful use has given an excellent result. The wing was masked up and the body sprayed in Rover Pearlescent Purple. The decals provided for the flash on the rear are not in a colour that I want to use.
The wheels are from the spares box, possibly from an MPC Chevy Nova bought and cast aside 35 years ago, and better match the wheels in period photographs of the racing machines. A test build revealed that the rear wheels stick out too far and foul the wheel well, as would the competition option from the kit. The solution was to shorten the spacer boss on the inside of the wheel, drill deeper into the back plate, and shorten the metal axle. Result, they now sit inside the wheel well in a much more pleasing fashion.
The rear axle also had the exhaust pipe as part of the same molding and looked pretty naff. The exhaust pipe has been removed and will be remodeled to look more like the period competition pipes that exit to the side of the car.
