Although not a mass produced vehicle, the car is well known by car enthusiasts all over the
world. The car got famous, mostly because of the Fast and the Furious film. In the film
the car fulfills the role of Hero-car.
Construction
Although AMT is not the best producer (in my humble opinion) of plastic model kits, they do
make very unique products. This car is one of them!
The plastic is rather cruedly formed. It's very thick and has quite a few seamlines. Also
some parts are rather bend. To fix this is a time consuming and careful job.
Besides the many minus points, there are also some good things about this kit. One,
for instance, is that the kit contains many, many parts including coloured transparent parts.
Interior
The interior looks very good compared to the car in the movie. The interior is build up of
many different parts. The bottom, sides, dashboard, amplifiers and all other details are
to be seperately glued together.
To get the interior right, I watched the movie many times. A special thread was started on a
forum, to retrieve the last bits of information about this car.
(More info here)
The interior was detailed using black flock for the floor and blue flock for the door panels.
The kit came with two types of seats. I used the ones from the movie, which had detailed
seatbelts molded onto them. Trying to keep the costs low, I left the seatbelts as they were.
The rear shelf (also flocked in black) was detailed using NOS bottles and 3 amplifiers.
The amplifiers were covered Bare Metal Foil (BMF) to give the same shiny look as the NOS
bottles.
Also part of the interior, is the engine. The engine is already quite detailed, but it misses
all the wiring and tubing to make it "real". Again I looked at many pictures and added all
those missing parts. Made from scratch, they really filled up the engine compartment.
The numbers indicate just a few of the things I've added to the engine. For instance:
1. Don't know what this is, but much of the wiring starts here!
2. Expansion tank for the radiator.
3. Brake fluid reservoir.
4. Presure and temperature sensors/valves for the radiator.
Exterior
Not to much was done on the exterior. But the hours work needed to get a perfect smooth surface
were plenty! Much flash needed to be removed and critical seems needed lots of putty and
sanding. The front and rear bumper were assembled separatly, which really gave the
impression that I was building a car.
After the body was assembled, the mirrors where glued to is and the body was painted.
Paint and Decals
I first started to paint the interior. Using semigloss black and black flocking, the interior
got it's basic colour. Then blue paint (and flocking) was added to paint the doorpanels and
some of the details of the interior.
When the body was cleaned I applied a nice layer of Testors Gray Primer folowed by lots of
thin layers of Testors Semigloss Orange (#1595).
After the orange paint, all the decals needed to be placed. The large custom art decal on
the sides was a very tricky decal to place. The decal sticked to the body very well, but
it needed at least four preperations of Micro Sol, before it streched nicely over the body.
To make this car ressemble the movie car, I'd created all the decals which should be on the
side skirts.
Conclusion
While this is a very unique kit, it lacks some of the detail and quality of a Fujimi or Tamiya
car. The plastic is sometimes thick and poor fitting. Of course after sanding, all looks as
it should be.
The decals are quite good. The color is bright and the decals are strong, but also a little
thick.
Overall, this car has lot's of accessories, but to make the real movie car, some additional
work has to be done.
I believe this is not the best kit to start modeling, but it is a special addition to ones
collection.
