My
customer wanted to do up a 57 Corvette to as closely simulate
as possible the one his dad had years ago. The one dad had was
black with customized black coves, a red interior and a non-fuel
injected engine. Well, what was available from Burago wasn't exactly
what we needed so we set out to make it. We started with a black
Burago Corvette with a white/gray interior.
Swapping
in the interior from a silver car with a red interior was pretty
easy, but Burago had left a ton of details out and it didn't have
a carbuerated engine. What could we do? Detail and modify! The
chassis/interior bucket was painted black underneath and red on
the carpets. But what about that engine? That wasn't so straightforward,
but we did solve the problem.
The
non-fuel injected engines had a flat, short air cleaner. Burago
made the engine chrome, the exhaust chrome, the valve covers chrome
and other items way off base on color so we first got the colors
right by painting the engine, transmission, drive shaft, suspension,
exhaust, valve covers, intake manifold and made sure to retain
the starter, oil filter, plug wire shield assembly. Of course
we still needed an air cleaner to replace the FI dog house. Well,
I made up a fair air cleaner lid, chromed it, trimmed off the
excess FI equipment and glued the lid to the FI dog house.
In
my research of the early Corvette red interiors I found that the
carpet was a darker shade of red than the vinyl used on the doors,
seats and dash. This was fairly well simulated with the darker
red paint I used on the carpets. The same treatment was carried
through in the trunk.
Chevy
upholstered the underside of the trunk lid so I painted it the
bright red of the seats while the floor got the darker red of
the carpets. Of course the exterior got the full chrome treatment
to the cove trim, leading edges of the top-of-fender scoops and
the body color seat divider. I see here the steering wheel needs
to be painted red so back to the bench I go!
Here you can see the benefits of painting the chassis, engine
and exhaust parts. Well, this is just another case of our ability
to make diecast more of what we like and how well even an inexpensive
RE car can be made to look 100% better than it was in the box.
Enjoy Jared!