AMT '53 Corvette for my Mom

Hey everyone, just a quick build for my Mom while she's in town. I have until just after the 4th of July to get if finished and in her hands before she heads back to the Midwest. A little back story, I was browsing eBay as I often do and spotted a mint and sealed AMT Corvette Evolution 5 pack for an unreasonably low price. I'm not too much of a Corvette fan, but for the price I couldn't say no. While I was visiting, my mother and I got into a discussion about the Corvette kits and she tells me her older sister had a '53 when she was younger. I asked her if she would want a little version for her shelf at home and she lit up. So... Here we go!

The aforementioned kits.


I decided to stray outside of the factory paint realm and go with a metallic pink exterior with a black tri-tone interior.

Paint color


The first day was basically spend clipping, cutting, trimming, and sanding a large portion of the parts including the body. This kit has an extreme amount of injection mold marks on visible panels. And the seams are the body were terrible.

This is where day #1 ended.


Day #2 was spent getting all of the engine components together, primed, painted and assembled.

Started by drilling all of the spark plug holes on the head.


Then I took the distributor cap, cut off all of the terminals, drilled out the center and wired it up as close 1:1 I could get it.




And then the paint began!




And then assembly and detail!

I used this stock photo as reference for ignition wiring.


And here it is.



All I have for now, thanks for looking!