Lindberg 1:24 scale 1995 Chrysler Atlantic Concept Car

One of my favorite concept cars of the 1990's I never saw at a show nor in a magazine, but instead I found this on the cover of those Exoticar folders that they used to sell for back to school time.  It's a beautiful masterpiece that still looks good today.  Well, a few months ago I got the opportunity to assemble another Lindberg model kit after the 1997 Dodge Dakota one that I did earlier last year for a low price of only $7.99 and to see how the results came out.

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The Chrysler Atlantic was shown at the 1995 Detroit auto show and was an instant classic.  The styling was sketch on a napkin by Bob Lutz and uses styling influences from the Bugatti Atlantique and the Talbot Largo.  The car is on display at the Chrysler Museum and makes occasional appearances at auto shows.  Lindberg did a nice job with the details of the car, but does have some downsides like no opening hood or engine to detail, and compared to the Dakota lacks much in any progress to enhance the details because, quite frankly, it looks just as good as it is.  Lindberg pre-paints the car with the color in the mold so the color ranges from dark brown to the dark bronze color of the actual concept car.  Those large chrome wheels are 20 inchers, so smooth that you can see your own reflection, and has Chrysler badges that were tricky to put on and trying to press the wheels into the axles with a soft-headed hammer proved tricky to try and not scratch the rims.

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The front has large, round fenders that stick out past the front grille and end with a comet tail at the rear doors.  Also note the round side vents that are functional.  To enhance the look the hood is V-shaped, which tips at the chrome grille with twin honeycomb nostrils and a centerline that runs all the way towards the back, even making its indent in the front and rear windows!  The round headlights join the inner round high-beam lamps in which I added the silver to the inner housing, and I added silver to the signal lights on the front fenders.  The lower part of the bumper has more grille slots like the side vents, and I really don't like how the front bumper is separate from the body as the separation line is still noticeable when assembled together.  The doors have a large window area that drops really low and is connected to mirrors that seem to float higher than the windows.

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As you get toward the back the rear window starts to leave its comet tail mark on the trunklid aided by the chrome Chrysler wing badge.  The rear fenders, more smoothly integrated than the front, start to flare out and connect around the rounded tail section where the center brake light bar resides; the brake light bar is clear and not painted red so I used a red Sharpie and made the bar red to make it stand out.  Also I added reverse lamps where the plate area is (the plate area comes with the Atlantic name but I decided to not add that on), and placing the labels on the ends of the Bumper for Chrysler on the left and Atlantic on the right was tricky as well (note the makeshift R that I had to use at the end of the Chrysler name that fell off during adhesion.)  Final touch is those dual exhaust tips that really make the soft rear end stand out.  Speaking of not standing out those Atlantic badges in yellow on the pillar behind the door really do not stand out in the dark color of this car.

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The interior is really not exciting and much to detail since the actual car's interior is the same way.  The dashboard flows in a twin-cockpit design with the lower part lifting up just before touching the console.  Gauges are not detailed so a blacked-out look works and it sits behind a 4-spoke corporate steering wheel. The center stack has the radio and HVAC controls with silver added for the display screen.  The inner door panels are so small from the lowered side windows that there is not much to detail.  The center console has smooth lines with shifter for the Chrysler exclusive Autostick selector that is similar to today's manual gear selectors on automatics.  The seats are flat and stylish with the Chrysler logo, and the rear seats are a bit small to be useable.  The base underneath shows the unibody layout with ribbed floors and the dual exhaust leading to an interesting engine: It is basically an inline-8 that uses two 2.0L DOHC I-4's from the Dodge/Plymouth Neon.  The output of this 4.0L mill is 350 hp. and is connected to a rear-mounted 4-speed automatic, likely from the LH platform, with autostick control.  As usual I added details to the exhaust, the suspension control arms, the transmission area, and either the fuel tank or the trunk floor at the rear.

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The model kit's assembly was pretty good, though there was one area that I though was ridiculous for an easy skill level 2 kit: gluing the side doors on.  This was a skill-level one kit that should've had the doors already molded into the body, and to make manners worse the curvature of the bodylines and the doors made gluing them on (while trying to not make a mess of the glue on the visible side of the door itself) tricky.  But after hours of settling with cement glue and a rubber band holding the doors together the task was done without fuss.  It was an easy model kit that was rather boring considering the lack of additional details that you could add to the car, but the result is a nicely-done replica of one of the best Chrysler show cars of the 1990's.