I remember going to a local theatre years ago to see the spy spoof “ Outta Sight” .In that show was the coolest spy vehicle, at least that’s what I thought, so when AMT released the ZZR I had to have it. I don’t remember what I ever did with the model, but I knew I would like to have one again.I looked for a ZZR and found that the value of the model was climbing a bit too high, not only that they seem to be quite rare, so when I saw a built up one on E-bay I went for it. Finally I had one again, but it was a bit of a glue bomb, and it was missing parts. After stripping the ZZR I went about restoring all the parts and pieces. A friend of mine dug through his parts box and found some of the pieces that were missing ; the flowers , a couple of exhaust headers, grill ornaments, and rear trunk door were welcome finds.

I replaced the not so nice Hilborn Injector scoops with nicer Monogram ones from a Hurst Hairy Olds, and then decided to detail the engines with ignition wires , fuel lines and throttle linkage to replicate the real ZZR’s engines.

The body needed a fair bit of sanding , filling and replacement of body material much like restoring a real car . The fenders were not too bad, so they just needed a cleanup and a new coat of paint. Testors Purple metal flake was used to replicate the ZZR color. I added brass machine gun tips and metal gun tubes as the original tips were broken off and missing. Gold metal flake, a custom blend, was used to copy the original ZZR paint, and the black stripping/seam inserts were added to replicate the real car. To duplicate the black striping took most of the time in restoration as they were very time consuming, but in the end I was pleased with the result.

Pretty much all of the chrome was not good ,so I had to strip the chrome and then painted all of it with Alclad Chrome over gloss black.

I changed the rear tires to a more realistic looking tire, and would have done the fronts as well, but there are an odd size and didn’t find a suitable replacement, so they stayed. As far as scratch building the horns and the front grill shell were the two pieces that had to be done. The horn set was missing, and the grill was just not good enough to repair.

Now that it is finished I am glad to have this rare kit back on display in my cabinet. Every time I look at it takes me back to my younger days . Although tit s not a great detailed kit it does have the correct proportions and can be made to look like a very decent model

Thanks to my good friend Moe Putney for taking the great pictures .