The first Corvette made it's debut in New York City's Waldorf Historia Hotel at the 1953 Motorama, a traveling showcase of the days' automotive industry's newest styles. The '53 Corvette was designed by GM legendary designer, Harley Earl. For it's debut, the Corvette was made available in only a single color, white. Also, it had only a red interior with a black folding top. I did not know this until reading up the 1953 Corvette. And much to the chagrin of hot rodding enthusiasts, it also came with a V6! There were only 300 of these produced, as they were assembled in a single plant in Flint, Michigan.

As far as the building of this kit went, I decided to keep it factory stock in both the color choices, and the wheels and tires, as well as the stock dual exhaust. There were a few added custom options for this particular kit such as a custom grille, front "road lamps" (lights) wide, interior parts, and low profile tires and spoked wheels to customize it if you wanted to. The dash engraving was very nice. To stay on the all original line of thinking, I simply painted the body gloss white right out of the Testors rattle can. The interior was given the color of a cherry red with semi flat clear sprayed over it.

I was disappointed as well with the rear tail lights having to be painted red rather than having clear red lenses included in the box. I painted them a gloss red, but the look provided by lenses was not achieved as far as I am concerned. The chrome offerings in the kit were a nice highlight though, with the very well molded stock grille and the fender pieces both front and back. Also, the chrome casing for the front windshield was beautiful and attached seamlessly to the body. The instructions had you put together this before doing the installation of the chassis to the body. It seemed backwards to me at the time but now I see where the problems began to arise. The car went together well until at that point. I tried to fit the completed interior tub up against the back trunk lid area. And then I had more trouble with the separate fender wells for the engine compartment. I did a lot of extra fit trimming there just to get it to all fit together. I was at that moment very disappointed in this kit and it's execution of assembling it without a hitch. I'd never had so much trouble putting a car together in my life.

The decals where crisp and very clean. They included just a couple of stripes as well as three states license plates to choose from. A basic assortment of decals, but nice.

All I can say in summation is, I hope that others that buy this model kit can build and rebuild bothersome areas better than I could. The fit was not on par for what I've seen from AMT-ROUND 2 in the past. And especially with all the new tooling technology they have available to them now. Great idea, the 1953 Corvette. Hopefully they will look at the problems in it, correct them, then provide a beautiful rendering later. But please understand, I appreciate the opportunity to build all these different kits that they are bringing out.

Thanks to both IPMS and the fine people at AMT-ROUND 2 for the chance to look at, assemble, and review your products. This is one of the handful of kits out there that I was disappointed with when the ability to assemble it became an issue.