1986 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS Aerocoupe – Revell

Click here to go to the 1987 Monte Carlo SS article, this one’s about the 1986. Or well, it’s a 1987 one but with the 1986’s decals cause this kit had ’em fall apart on me. But I have done a new article on the kit with the proper decals and ’87 parts instead of the mish-mash I have here.

God how long I’ve been looking for this kit, and I finally found one. Well, I found two. One brand new in the box that got eBay sniped away from me and a second one being a scrapper kit that was missing the front valance and the rear bumper, but had everything else.

Little did I know that the ’87 Monte Carlo actually had a restyled bumper, but… alas, I bought a ’86 Monte Carlo SS kit on the cheap and quickly found out just how valuable that purchase was. The decal sheet, the front and back bumpers as well as some interior pieces ended up going into this Frankenstein build. But still, despite that, I’m happy to have build it. And uh, have just about the entire ’86 Monte Carlo kit left over to sit incomplete for the rest of time.

The eagle eyed auto enthusiasts may spot the two discrepancies right away. One, what the hell is wrong with the stripes? Two, what the absolute hell is the matter with the stripes?! Now, I tried to make this as close as I could to the ’87 Monte Carlo with the wrong bumpers, until I ran into the issue that I run into more often with older Revell kits, the decals being absolute ass. Though this time, it was much, much worse.

I attempted to put the stripes on and well, they fell apart quicker than I could salvage them.

To the point that I should say “disintegrated” instead of “fell apart“, a few photos show the SS logos that survived, barely. Hell the SS logo on the right side fell apart during the night after the build in the drying process, so I scraped off the remnants of the stripes and put on the ’86 stripes instead. Which also have a nasty bad thing about them, they got this hideous white line from being printed badly! Well damn.

Ah well, I carried on. At this point there was no turning back, it was riddled with the left overs of destroyed decal so I had to cover them with the other stripes or I’d have left it all black, which I have to admit didn’t even look half bad. But alas, this kit just wouldn’t swing that way, the fact that it was a pre-opened kit and had sat around in a musty attic since 1998 obviously did a number on the parts, body and especially the decal sheet.

I mean, the kit itself is fantastic. Taken straight from Monogram’s late eighties Monte Carlo mold, they changed up the rear, added a new bumper and a pair of tail lights, a giant decal sheet and that glorious Aerocoupe window. They also included some Goodyear Radial GT tire letters, that’s a extra you don’t even get today! I had a bit of an awkward fit cause the interior bucket was warped badly so I had to use the ’86 one which obviously wasn’t made to hold that aerocoupe window so it all sat a bit weird, but I suppose with the ’87 bucket it would’ve fit like charm.

I went a bit overboard detailing the car and wired up the whole car, A/C and everything cause it just felt like it was worth it. That being said though, you’d think from a business point of view, considering the variation of a ’87 Monte Carlo is nothing more than new tail lights, new rear bumper, bit more back window shelving and a fancier window for a 5MPH increase on the track, it wouldn’t warrant such a fancy approach from Revell, but they did and went the extra mile with the giant decal sheet that offers all the stripes for the color combo’s available; black, red and gold.

In the end, despite it being a bit of a frankenstein build, it looks nice next to the other Monte Carlo. Especially since I’ve learned a hell of a lot since I started building kits, and didn’t mess up the front as badly as I did back then.