Well, it seems that the people in Chevette Nation, and in fact a number of Monza and Pacer fans, too, want to see how the Chevette that won the Loser Cruiser Soundoff is doing!
I only started the Chevette a few days ago, but I’ve been making good progress. I always find cars take forever to build, since the gigaton of Future on them takes forever to dry. Thus, I decided I’d START with the body this time, and work on the rest of the car as it dries. Of course, that meant deciding on a colour and trim level, and mixing said colour.
Here’s what’s important about the Chevette to date:
1.) This kit is, for all intents and purposes, equipped like a Scooter, the most base of all Chevettes. Thus, Bear Bait will give up its custom pretentions to become the ultimate street loser, and be finished as a 1979 Chevette Scooter.
2.) I remember some Scooters from way back in the day. I always remember them in either bluish grey or creamy beige. Since beige is a legit colour for 1979, this Scooter will be Beige
3.) The engine compartment of this kit is not moulded into the body shell, so I have to paint it on the chassis. Also, the firewall glues to the interior bucket (very odd), and it has to be body colour too. I found that the radiator shells are black.
So, here’s what’s going on so far as painting goes. You can see all the body colour parts are doen in their beige, but they all need to be heavily Futured and then let dry, before I can polish anything.
Next step is to glue the tires together, get the interior started and build up the mighty mill that will propel the Scooter from 0 to “are-we-there-yet” in as little time as it takes to cure hemorrhoids.
Click on the pics below for a larger view.
Here’s the body, resplendent in Loser Beige.
Hood, underpan and engine bay, all beige and ready to rock! Well, pebble at least.
Interior is in primer, and the firewall is beiged. So much room, so little engine!
The Sprue Lagoon 
I approve this build.
The unknowable comment “so much room , so little Engine is way off . May I suggest the truth . The design is so poor to replace the starter you have two choices . Remove either the Master Cylinder or the Intake Manifold to access the3 starter . Unless you want to pull out the whole thing for starter replacement . GM’s careful planning for the real world once again . Grooming Customers for Japan Inc. IMHO . Thanx ..
It was mostly meant as a joke, John. What I meant was that looking at the engine bay in that state (i.e. empty) makes it look like there’s a lot of room, but in reality the powerplant that goes in it is so woefully small (1.6L I4) that it seems comical.
I mean, people have stuffed way bigger engines in their Chevettes than the 1.6, so there’s got to be SOME room in there, right?
There were, and continue to be, a lot of cars where the engine bay is unfortunately not designed to allow for easy maintenance. The more plumbing you have in a car and the smaller market demands make it, the more problems you’ll have, right?
I think most smaller cars, especially from that generation, are guilty of that.