58 Corvette Roadster – Review

The 58 Corvette Roadster. This post is a review of the Revell kit of the 58 Corvette Roadster. This model is in the scale 1:25. It has a skill level of 4.

It already has been a while since I built and finished the kit and I was thinking for a long time about writing this. Writing a review is all new to me and I just will tell you about what my thoughts were and how I experienced the kit.

My Younger Years

In my younger years, Revell was always the brand that I choose. There were many others, like Italeri, Heller, Airfix, and Matchbox. Some of those still exists.

But Revell was the one with a big assortment. They also were nice and good to build. Things were fitting well.

Heller and Airfix were not really my brands. The parts did not fit well or it was a lot of work to get them right. Also, their assortment was not so extensive. Italeri was okay at that time. But maybe a little bit too simple for my liking.

Building Instructions

After restarting the hobby after many years, the first thing I noticed was that the building instructions had changed a lot. Before it was all black and white. Now there are more colors. I think it is also to attract the younger generation or the first-timers. The first impression was, not too bad.

Also for the paint you (will) be using, it is all in colors. So it is easier and quicker to see, what color you could use. The colors that they use, are suggested colors. Of course, if you would like to use different colors, you are free to do so. They just give you some suggestions, so you could start building.

As you maybe have noticed, I used most of the suggested colors, but also use my own ideas. On the box art, the car has a blue color. Also for the interior, they suggested a blue color. I found a nice image that had a red interior. A white body with a red interior, I think is better. But again, it is all up to you how you want it to look.

What I did not like, was that they also suggested several mixed colors. This meant that you could not use a ready-made color but that you had to mix them. This is nice for people that use an airbrush, so they could mix the colors. But for people who use ready-made colors, it is not so handy. Or you mix too little or too much. This would be a waste of paint.

I don’t have an airbrush and for now, I don’t want to have one. I am just an amateur and I am doing this for joy and fun.

The building steps are easy to follow. There was only one time when I had some problems placing the exhausts. It just did not want to fit like in the pictures. I found out, that they had made a mistake. Two part numbers were switched. Even when everything looks clear, you still need to be careful and dry-fit the parts before you glue them.

The Parts

The parts or maybe the sprues. Most of it is the same color. For this kit, all the sprues were white. Of course, the was also a chrome sprue and a clear sprue. But most of the parts were white. So to bring some color to the kit, you had to paint them.

In my younger years, you had different colors sprue. Like black, grey, red, and maybe green. When you have different part colors, it will save time in painting the kit. The base is already in the right color, so when you paint it, it doesn’t shine through. Now, because everything was white, sometimes you had to paint the parts two times before the white was gone.

Maybe they did this to make the production more cost-effective. But for people who just started the hobby, I think it is not so nice.

The nice thing was, that the tail lights were made in clear red. This was very nice. Because it is not always easy to paint clear plastic in clear red.

In the past, the skill level was an indication of how difficult the kit would be. The higher the number, the more challenging it was. Now the skill level is used to indicate the number of parts. The higher the number, the more parts the kit would have. On the other hand, you also could say, the more parts you have, to more details you have, the more difficult it could be. I think it is up to you how you interpret it.

The interior

In the past, the interior was something like a tub. The sides, back seats, and floor were all one part. You had to place the dashboard and seats yourself. Sometimes, the floor and back seats were one part, and you still had to place the side panels. At least you knew it would fit right. For this kit, you had s separate floor, door panels, dashboard, and seats. In general, this would not be a big problem. In this case, you had to be sure, that you would glue the door panels under the right angle.

This is because later on in the building, you had to place the car body over the interior. And this is where the problem started for me. It did not fit right. The body would not fit well over the interior. The interior was sticking out of the body. It was higher than the body. It was a little bit of modifying and trying and pushing, to get things in place. In other words, the fitment was not that great. To be honest, also when building the engine, later on, I found out that some things were not fitting right.

When dry-fitting the trunk to the body and seeing how the interior would fit in it, it did not go that well. After dry fitting the trunk, I wanted to remove it so I could glue some small parts for the hinges, but I was not able to remove the trunk anymore. It got stuck behind some interior parts and I could not remove it. No matter what I tried. Maybe a mistake in the building steps? I don’t know. But luckily it was not a major problem and if you don’t know it, you won’t notice it.

In General

I think, in general, it is a nice kit to build. But the fitment is not that great. Maybe for the more experienced builder, it would not be a problem. But for someone who just started, it could be a turn-off.

Right now, I also have my second thoughts about the brand Revell. It was very high on my list, but I think I have to move one step lower. This is just my thought after building one “new” model from them. The older models will be better, but they will not be in the shops. You could find them second-hand.

I had built one more Revell kit after this model and you could read more about it later.

My idea is to maybe write more kit reviews. Just to give you some idea of what I thought of the model. Before this model, I had built also the Alfa Romeo 8C Roadster. I will try to see if I also could give my thoughts on that model.

If you would like to read more of my reviews, then in the category section, just select “Review” and all my reviews will be shown.

If you liked this review or if you have any comments, you can leave a comment below this post. Thank you.