AMT/ERTL 1/25
’06 Chevrolet Camaro
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Introduction
The 2006 Chevrolet Camaro has been a long time coming for Chevrolet
and Camaro fans. An American icon when it comes to automobiles, the Camaro
was in production from 1967 to 2002. This production run included four
generations and excited muscle car fanatics for 35 years. As with many
Camaro fans, I was disappointed to learn that in 2002, Chevy would stop
production on the famous coupe. It was as if they had given up the battle
that existed between the Ford Mustang and Chevy Camaro for years. Then
it all changed on January 6, 2006, when Chevrolet released the 2006 Camaro
Concept at the North American International Auto Show. It won “Best
in Show” and pictures of the car went viral. Camaro fans worldwide
rejoiced in the car’s return.
On August 10, 2006, Rick Waggoner, CEO of General Motors, announced
that Chevrolet would begin production of the new Camaro at the end of
2008 for sale in the first quarter of 2009. After a delay or two and what
seems like eternity, the fifth generation Camaro will go on sale in the
Spring of 2009. The car will be available in three trim levels: LS, LT,
and SS. The LS and LT will have a 300hp V6 while the SS (Super Sport)
will have the 422hp V8 engine that powers the Corvette.
Being a Camaro-lover, I was stoked to see the new design of the Camaro.
The original concept that debuted at the 2006 Auto Show was based on the
very popular Camaro of the late 1960s. Reviving the styling cues of the
classic pony cars has been popular with automakers. Ford has designed
the current Mustang around its ancestor and Dodge has recently redone
the Challenger, a very popular muscle car in the early 1970s.
The Kit
When I saw the pictures of the new concept Camaro, I was very excited.
The look of the car was fantastic. I loved the gray color with the aluminum
wheels and the black grille in front gave it a very aggressive look. Since
it was unlikely that I would buy a brand new $40,000 car when it was released,
the next best thing for me is to buy the model of the car. I kept tabs
on the car and any upcoming releases. Sure enough, www.MegaHobby.com
gave me the first glimpse of a kit that was produced by AMT/ERTL. The
picture on the box of the kit was the same as the car at the Auto Show
and I patiently awaited its release. I purchased the kit along with some
other goodies for other projects I had in mind. Unfortunately, the kit
sat on the shelf for a while as I was working on a current project and
taking a computer class, which took up a lot of my time.
As I was getting ready to get started on the kit, Transformers was released.
One of the main characters of the film is Bumblebee. In the cartoon, he
was a Beetle, but he looked so much better as the new Camaro in the film.
I was torn for a while, but made the decision to build the AMT/ERTL kit
as the car in the movie.
The kit comes with polystyrene body and skeleton of parts. The wheels,
mirrors, wipers, and exhaust accents all came on the chrome skeleton.
Overall, the kit was fun to build. The kit is constructed so that the
wheels will turn slightly giving it a nice look when on display and for
taking pictures. AMT/ERTL isn’t regarded as one of the better model
kit makers, but this kit had some good quality designing in it. The only
problem I had was the fit of the hood. It is slightly warped and as a
result, it bows in the center. So, the hood doesn’t quite fit the
way it should. This could have been fixed by gluing the hood down in place,
but then you couldn’t display the engine. You might be able to see
it in some of my pictures where the hood is raised slightly higher than
it should be.
The paint job on this car was another challenge for me. I don’t
have much experience in masking or painting stripes. Not only that, but
there were no templates that existed for this kit to make it look like
Bumblebee. So, I had to go about this all on sight and visual observations.
By the time I started this kit, the movie was already on DVD, and already
in my collection. This gave me the excuse to watch the movie a few more
times while I built it. I also looked online for some pictures. I first
sprayed with a Tamiya Primer and then added a base coat of Tamiya Chrome
Yellow. It’s a pretty close match to the car in the movie, so I
was happy with it. After studying some pictures and watching the action
shots of the movie, I began masking. Like I said, I don’t have much
experience masking, having done it only once before. I painted the stripes
with TS-14, which is a gloss finish. When removing the masking, I found
a few leaks, which didn’t give very fine lines. So, I tried some
reverse masking where I taped over the stripes and sprayed the yellow
back over the car. The result was pretty good, so I stuck with it.
The wheels and windshield wipers were chrome plated from AMT/ERTL. This
was a problem because I wasn’t confident the model would look so
good with chrome wheels. So, I stripped these parts with bleach and then
gave them a coat of primer and painted them with Tamiya’s TS-17
Aluminum, an aerosol lacquer. This completed the look I was going for.
Conclusion
This kit was a fun kit to assemble. The car looks very sharp no matter
what color or version you make of it. The car has great lines and AMT
did a great job reproducing this kit to scale. I am determined to buy
and build this kit again in the gray/aluminum color in which it was originally
displayed. I applaud AMT/ERTL for making this kit as fast as they did
and appreciate the design cues that go along with it. I look forward to
building this kit again.
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