Toyota 2000GT--Return of Son of Vintage Kit

Having rushed through a '63 Corvette build, and with the feeling I have built too many GM cars lately, it was time to do something different....



I have always thought the Toyota 2000GT, along with early Jag XKE's, are some the coolest sports cars of all time. Jag kits are everywhere, but what about the 2000GT? There have been various 2000 GT kits over the years, but the MPC's 1:25 kit--the only 1:25 scale 2000 GT I know of--intrigued me--so I purchased one on Ebay for $65.

 Good news and bad news--yes, it's a cool kit--the convertible from "You Only Live Twice" (there was no "real" 2000GT convertible--this was a custom for the movie, I have read). The bad news: it needs a ton of cleanup.



See those big ugly plugs on the wheel well? These "ejector pin marks" are left over the mold process. Did the 1:1 cars have these? No, I don't think they did! So I have to sand and file and fill all of these--and they are everywhere!


OK I figure ejector pins have to show up here and there, but did MPC have to put one right in the middle of the floor mat? On a convertible? I am going to have to sand the entire thing away, put in some sort of scale carpeting, the use a foil copy process (using a mat from another kit as the master) to recreate the floor mats.


The body has sink marks--where the plastic sagged after it was cast. Most older kits have these, and I have come to expect them. Here's a large one on the rear deck. Superglue and careful sanding takes care of these.



And mold lines--another artifact from the casting process--yep, see those on every kit I've touched. More careful sanding to clean this up. And: the top and bottom molds for this kit must have been slightly offset--lots to do here to fix that!



MPC mastered the kit so you'd mount the chassis under the partially completed body, then glue the front and rear lower body panels into place. Problem: that leaves a huge seam that doesn't exist on the 1:1 car. The resulting rear seam is butt-ugly. The lower body panel has to be glued into place first, and sanded smooth, but then the chassis won't fit...



My solution is to cut up the chassis! After paint, I will pop the rear section into the finished body then glue in the rest of the chassis. Will it work? Maybe!