2013 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 – Revell

One of the two ’13 Camaro ZL1 kits that Revell’s put out in the last few years, this one is the newer bare bones all plastic version so don’t confuse this with the pre-painted metal body variety that was released back in 2013. Now those who were disappointed with that one, you’ll find some solace with this kit as it’s largely the same but a fair bit more challenging to build so it’s a lot more fun to put together plus you can paint the body to be whatever color you desire it to be.

For instance, nothing’s pre-painted and it comes with a full sheet of interior and exterior decals. That being said though, it’s nowhere near close to being as challenging or detailed as for instance it’s older brother the 2010 Camaro SS kit from Revell that had a lot more parts and was arguably more detailed, this one not including spare parts, tires and the windows comes down to 42 parts in total.

The whole kit kind of feels like an afterthought to make up for the easiness of the other Camaro ZL1 kit, for instance it’s a “Skill 4” which I honestly can’t tell what the hell it means, a lot of the Skill 3 kits from Revell have between 120 and 150 parts, required some really skilled paintwork and had decal sheets the size of A4 letters, this one’s… well, it seems to sit between 1 and 2. The engine block is around 5 parts in total and for some baffling reason despite it using most the molds from the 2010 Camaro, it’s lacking parts for the suspension, sway bars, mirror lenses and the rearview mirror. It’s not missing parts, they were never even included.

It luckily is a 2-in-1 kit, despite the afterthought feel, coming with the factory stock hood
and ZL1 rims. Where that comes back though is in the tuner hood and the absolutely laughable massive dish like rims that are featured in their full glory on the box are considered the other one of the two options, thats where the variables end. The decal choices are quite big but again, that “screw it” attitude comes back again with the decals; only the ZL1 decal for the grille’s of the right size, the other 3(on the hood and tail) are far too small. Others are on the sheet but never mentioned in the instructions so you’ll figure out long after you can easily place them.

I mean, the bottom line is that you can still make a very good looking Camaro here. Hell I actually really, really like the end result. The decals are plenty, the mold and plastic quality are as high as they’ve ever been and I’m really glad they’ve done a proper plastic and upped difficulty version of the ZL1. However, the build was just disappointing and the optional hood and rims are frankly absolutely hideous(one of the pictures has the stock and the dish rims side by side), just kind of left me with the thought of “what could’ve been”.