Post image for KIT REVIEW – 1/25 57 Chevy Bel Air Coupe by AMT

KIT REVIEW – 1/25 57 Chevy Bel Air Coupe by AMT

June 16, 2013

I’ve heard people say that this is one of the best 57 Chevy kits around. I can surely agree on many points! I wonder what you think about that… Anyway, the kit is really good when it comes to details and parts – it has over 150 parts, while some kits barely reach the 100 parts. One downside is that this kit doesn’t come with many options, but some of you have enough stuff on the parts box to kit bash a little, I guess.

57 Chevyrolet Bel Air AMT 1/25 Kit - Parts I

Check out the hood and the trunk lid: this is what I call dedication to detail. The insides are correctly moulded, as they are on the real car. Now, I know this isn’t the most important part of a model kit, but I really like this kind of details.

57 Chevyrolet Bel Air AMT 1/25 Kit - Parts II

The interior panels also include the interior of the trunk – as the kit comes with an opening trunk lid. This kit details the trunk in a way that I can’t say about other kit’s engine bay, for instance. Speaking about the engine bay: the inside fenders are properly moulded too!

57 Chevyrolet Bel Air AMT 1/25 Kit - Parts IV

This picture also shows a nice detail for the engine bay: the firewall looks just like the real thing! Appart from that, the parts are generally well moulded. Note that the radiator comes as two separate parts (the radiator itself and the frame that holds it). This is also cool, if you want to build this car as if it was being repaired or restored – or maybe as junker – with some missing parts and some other laying around the car itself!

57 Chevyrolet Bel Air AMT 1/25 Kit - Parts V

The kit comes with some bare metal foil and even some wire for the ignition! Besides, you get five tires with this kit, one is the spare for the trunk! Appart from that, you also get some decals and clear red lights for the tail lights.

57 Chevyrolet Bel Air AMT 1/25 Kit - Instructions

The instructions are just fine. One cool detail you may be able to see: the instructions explain how the wiring is to be done, so that it matches wiring on the real car. That’s really cool!

Pros

  • Lots of parts! Very well moulded.
  • Opening trunk, with details inside the trunk.
  • The kit makes a very realistic impression (specially the engine bay!)

Cons

  • You don’t get many options from this issue of this kit
  • The instruction use number references for the colors, which is not as handy as just writing the names of the colors directly
  • They show a B-Pillar 57 Chevy on the box art (like the 57 Chevy Black Widow), but you get a 57 Chevy Bel Aire Coupe without the B-Pillar. Now, that’s not a downside for me, but it may be confusing for some of you – specially if you are looking for a 57 Chevy with the B-pillar.

I hope Round2 is thinking to re-issue this kit! I think many of you would like it!

Jim Gibbons June 17, 2013 at 5:30 pm

This is a very nice kit. I’ve been working on and off on one for a while. One issue I had, (it might be just me, but I’ve also built 1/8 Pocher kits,) was having a heck of a time with the motor mounts. It’s a great feature, but aligning them was way too fiddly, and a bit frustrating.

Iggy June 17, 2013 at 8:54 pm

Hey Jim!
Thanks for the update on the motor mounts!
Iggy

Riley Schultz June 18, 2013 at 3:08 am

Round 2 has re-released that kit , here is a link to it: http://www.round2models.com/models/amt/chevy100-belair
Not to be confused with this one, which uses tooling that originates from the 60’s:
http://www.round2models.com/models/amt/57chevy-belair

Iggy June 30, 2013 at 11:31 pm

Hey Riley,
thanks for the hint and the links! That’s good to know!
Iggy

Bill June 21, 2013 at 1:28 pm

I know here in the USA the post model 57 is waaaay more popular than the non-post model so I’ll bet alot of these kits get returned when the buyer sees its a non-post model. I hope the model company corrects this fast as its mis-leading and causes unneeded confusion. On the positive side it does look to be a very well designed kit with many pieces that could be used on a post model 57.

Iggy July 7, 2013 at 9:11 pm

Hey Bill,

you are right. The post model is also known as the “Black Widow” Luckily, Revell has issued this kit too! It is a quite kit too!

Iggy

Anthony August 4, 2013 at 3:11 am

This sounds like a great kit. Is this the one that won Scale Auto Enthusiast’s kit of the year…a while back (maybe 10 years ago….) I seem to remember that that particular kit came with two engines.
On that note. I have written to SAE a few times hoping they would send me a list of their kit of the year winners, but they haven’t. Do you, or your faithful readers know of a site, or place I could find this? I haven’t really kept up with the magazine as of late, but I would love to know what the top 10 kits of the past ten years have been….maybe somebody should blog about that… and let me know if you do.
keep up the good work.
Also, I have a blog about hobbies (which includes some building of model cars), please check it out if you have the chance…I welcome any pointers to making it better.

Iggy September 27, 2013 at 3:13 pm

Hey Anthony,

I can’t tell you much about your question on SAE. Sorry….

I’ve just checked your website! Really cool! Thanks for posting your comment!

Iggy

Previous post:

Next post: