The Chevrolet Nova was everywhere in the late 1960s. Your grandma may have had a 4-door sedan for getting the groceries, your parents may have had a station wagon as the family car or a 2-door for your dad’s daily commute, and the high school down the street may have had one with a raised rear suspension and Keystone Classics. They could be had with everything from a basic in-line 6-cylinder to a powerful V-8. As a result, many people of a certain age have fond memories of these vehicles, and kit manufacturers have done a fine job providing us modelers with numerous kits of this subject. One of the latest is this 1/32 scale offering from Atlantis Models of a 1969 SS 350. The 350 V-8 was the largest engine you could get on the Nova that year, and it was rated at 300hp.

Atlantis’ kit is a relatively simple build, with only 43 parts. Despite that, it has a full engine, a separate exhaust system, and individual (though simplified) front and rear suspensions. The kit is molded in red plastic, and includes a tree of chromed parts, clear plastic for the windows and headlights, and one-piece vinyl tires. A small decal sheet contains several license plates, “NOVA” block lettering, and pinstripes. The block letters and pinstripes are provided in both black and white to work with a variety of body colors. Customization options are limited to an optional hood scoop and suspension blocks to raise the back end of the car.

The instructions are a single sheet of clear black-and-white line drawings that do a good job of showing how everything fits together. They also include painting suggestions, which are especially welcome in a simpler kit like this that relies on paint detailing to get a more realistic end product.

The engine is a 7-piece assembly, with many items like the headers, oil filter, starter, and distributor molded into the engine block. The oil pan and lower portion of the transmission housing are molded into the chassis, so I suppose you could call it an 8-piece assembly. The air cleaner is chrome, which is correct for a change: the top cover of the air cleaner is chrome on the real car. A separate upper radiator hose is also provided.

The chassis has lots of molded-in detail, but as mentioned before, the exhaust system and front and rear suspensions are separate pieces. There are no springs or shock absorbers, and the front steering is not pose-able. But this amount of detail on a kit of this scale is a rarity in my experience.

The interior is a basic tub, with the side panels, center console, and rear seats molded in place. The dashboard is separate and has some nice engraving on it, and the steering wheel and steering column are separate pieces. The front bucket seats have hollow backs, which may be a problem if you intend to build this kit with a light-colored interior. The gear shift lever is found on the chrome tree.

The body is a one-piece affair that appears to do a good job of capturing the lines of the original vehicle. All the chrome trim is molded in, including the side strakes found only in the SS models. Even the drip rails are there! The front fender wells and under-hood details are all molded in as well. The separate hood also comes with the distinctive Nova SS hood vents molded in.

The front bumper and grill are provided as a single piece on the chrome tree, as are the rear bumper and valence. Separate clear headlight lenses are provided, but the rear taillights are molded into the rear valence, so some detail painting will be required to make them look right.

The tires have Goodyear engraving on them, and with a steady hand the lettering can be picked out in white. The only wheel options are a set of chromed Chevy rally wheels. They have a surprising amount of detail molded into them that can be brought out with a bit of painting.

My build of this kit began with choosing the body color. The red plastic meant a good primer coat would be required to prevent the red color from bleeding through. But before I did that, I scribed the various panel lines on the body a little deeper so they wouldn’t get lost under the layers of paint and primer. This was of special concern with the hood louvers, which were very finely cut. I actually re-scribed them after priming; since I was going to use Bare-Metal Foil on them, there was no danger of the color bleeding through. There was a small amount of flash around some of the wheel wells, and a slight overhang (probably a mold line) where the front fenders transitioned from horizontal to vertical. Once that was all cleaned up, the painting began. I originally started with Krylon primer and a flat Krylon blue followed by a clearcoat, but the clearcoat crazed after application. So that paint was stripped off and I started again, this time with Tamiya gray primer and a brand-new can of Tamiya chrome yellow for the final color. I mean, this was the 1960’s, and bright yellow was a very popular color at the time! This turned out much better, and while it is not one of my best painting jobs, it is passable. My main mistake was in putting one extra coat of yellow on the hood and not on the body; the color difference is very noticeable.

While working on the body, all the other red plastic parts also received a coat of primer followed by whatever final colors they needed to be. I chose a black interior because literally every reference vehicle I found on the internet had a black interior; this had the added advantage making the hollow front seatbacks invisible once the build was complete. The engine got a coat of Chevy Engine Red, while the exhaust system was painted silver. The chassis was done in semi-gloss black, while the suspension parts were done in gloss black to provide a little contrast. The gas tank was also detailed in silver.

The front grill and rear valance were painted flat black, and a black wash was used on the outer edges of the front grille to fill the recessed areas while leaving the horizontal bars chrome. The taillights were painted clear red, and the backup lights received a coat of silver, as did the front turn signals. The “SS” insignias on the front and rear were left in chrome, although they are white on the real car.

The wheels received a black wash to bring out the details on the center hubs and to fill in the recesses that would have been open on the real car. The inner parts of the wheels should also have been painted silver rather than chrome, but I didn’t trust my hands to be steady enough to get in there without getting paint on the sides of the wheels as well.

Once the paint on the body was sufficiently cured, the real detail work began. Before painting, I had covered some of the more detailed scripts and the side strakes with bare metal foil, and now I used a 2400-grit polishing cloth to remove the paint from the raised scripts and let the foil show through. The rest of the chrome trim, including the window trim, drip rails, and side marker lights, was detailed using a combination of Molotow chrome pens and bare metal foil. The marker lights also received a touch of either clear amber or clear red as needed. The engine compartment and most of the inside of the body was painted flat black, with additional detailing as needed. The hood louvers were foiled and then given a black wash to get the proper chrome-and-black effect.

The interior got some matte aluminum foil on the door trim panels and on the Nova badge on the dashboard. The window cranks, the steering wheel center, and the center console trim was picked out with a Molotow pen. The shifter was also detailed as needed.

The assembly was very straightforward. Most of the holes for the various locating pins had to be drilled out very slightly, probably due to paint buildup. My biggest concern was making sure that the wheels went all the way onto their spindles, as test fitting showed that the tires just barely fit under the wheel wells when properly attached. But when all was said and done, everything fit together quite nicely.

The tires required the most cleanup, as they had a fair amount of flash on them. Oddly, the worst flash was on the sidewall between the lettering and the edge of the tire. This was tricky to remove without causing unsightly gouges in the sidewall.

As a final touch, I added the black pinstripe decals to the body sides. On the decal sheet, they had a nice curve that just perfectly matched the little kick-up on the body sides under the rear windows. The decals came free of the paper beautifully and went onto the body with no problems, but because they were so delicate they seemed to straighten out and that lovely little kick got lost. I also cut out two of the license plates and, leaving them on the paper backing, glued them to the front and rear bumpers. Experience has taught me that this gives a more realistic look to the license plates than applying them as decals.

There is only one real problem with the kit: it is not a 1969 Nova. Based on the taillights and the front side marker lights, this is actually a 1970 Nova. The 1969 Nova had backup lights inboard of the taillights rather than in the center of the taillights, and the front side marker lights had the “350” designation in line with the lights rather than as a separate script above them. While these are small differences, they are important. Car manufacturers would make small changes like this to differentiate model years, and enthusiasts know what to look for when identifying them on the street.

Despite this model year discrepancy, I would rate this kit very highly. It has a lot of detail for a small-scale kit with a low parts count, and it goes together very well. The molding quality is high, and the finished product looks great. It was a fun little build. My sincere thanks to Atlantis for bringing this kit back and giving me the opportunity to build it.