Black cars always take well
to chrome detailing and of course this great new Ertl product
is no exception. This car has great lines and just enough chrome
trim to really take well to the detailing. It is so nice to work
with a car out of a fresh mold. The edges of the body are always
more smooth and crisp on a new-mold car. All this car has received
at the moment is a round of chrome trim and a few painted details.
I'll have to do a little chassis detailing research before I get
into that.
The paint and stripe application
on these cars is almost flawless. I've always liked the look of
a black car with a red interior. Even though the AMX doesn't have
a rear seat, there does seem to be a fair amount of room back
there. Not much head room though! The tail pipe tips got a little
flat black paint and the chrome is pretty obvious. If I could
change two things, I'd have Ertl add clear red plastic tail lights
and molded in front fender side marker lights so they could be
properly chromed.
The
wheels got a little paint to the lug nuts and the side pipes got
some flat black to the background which helps the ribs to show
up like they should. The door handles got some satin foil so they
would look like the brushed metal look the door handles on the
1:1s have. Unfortunately that doesn't show up well in the picture.
It is a subtle detail, but does improve the look of the door handles.
The fit and finish on these models is superb.
Very
nice detail under the hood. Of course this is the LE so it may
have more details than the REs will have. Regardless, it is well
done with nice doses of color on the air cleaner, battery and
master cylinder. I especially like the safety warnings on the
shock tower and by the battery. I haven't added any details here
so there is still some room for work to be done but not a whole
lot. Ertl is getting real good at making my job easy! (I really
prefer to do chrome detailing, not the painted stuff.)
Ertl
can just continue adding trunks to their cars as far as I'm concerned.
This car has a nice space saver spare with a rapid fill air bottle
and a nicely painted trunk mat. There are even instructions for
inflation of the spare on the underside of the trunk lid which
you can really read if you try! You can also see here the effects
of blacking out the tail pipe tips. Not much left for me to do
here but maybe throw in a 1:18 scale set of golf clubs!
Once
again, Ertl doesn't leave that much for a detailer to do. I could
paint a few knobs and such, but the steering wheel, shifter and
door panels are all nicely done. I really like the detail they've
put into the C-pillar AMX badge. It would have looked pretty boring
as a tampo or decal. It is an actual molded piece that has been
chromed and painted body color on the background section. Excellent.
And to think this thing retails for under $35!