Built by: Eric Grey in Palo Alto, California

Revell recently reissued the 1998 release of the mid-engine Chevrolet Aerovette, a concept car pegged to be a possible replacement for the Stingray Corvette in the mid-70's. For a good summary of its history, click here.

Well it never made it to production. Too bad. Its a beautiful car and they only made two. I wasn't too thrilled with the Aerovette's presentation as a model.

The Revell 1998 release showed the "actual car" on the box cover but the car sits in an unflattering camouflaged GM compound. Designers also created a rather boring color scheme. Practically every piece is either silver, aluminum, steel, ghost gray, or black. Nevertheless, the finished model is really nice.

The kit was well designed by Revell except that it would have been nice to have actual working gull-wing doors. By the way, I used an airplane technique to finish this one. If you have never used metalizers try them sometime. This is what I did:

• Prepped the plastic with sanding and
  polishing
• Applied "non-buffing metalizer" (there's a
  variety of colors)
• Applied metalizer sealant
• Applied a gloss lacquer coat (decals would go after this coat) then a finishing coat of gloss, semi-gloss, or flat.

I used graphite pencil to fill in panel lines after the sealant coat and rubbed it down a bit.

With a futuristic design, the Aerovette still holds up over time. But alas, like the Dodge Charger III, it just wasn't meant to be. (Note to self--buy the reissue and cut open the doors and put some modern wheels and a sharp pearl finish on it)