But the original shape and proportion are still excellent.

The gray plastic issues from the late 80's early 90's are probably the roughest, and that plastic is hard to work with compared to early styrenes.

By contrast, my current issue '63 was generally pretty good from a body standpoint. To all the comments, yes those molded in taillights are a PITA, but I have a small pile of three-element round taillights and one of them HAS to be from the '63. Naturally, R2 opened the gates for the convertible boot in the recent release. I'm guessing that was minutes after I overpaid for the same part from the Kit Butcher.

FWIW, '63 Impalas were well circulated when new, and there are a good amount of originals out there as builders or restorables plus the Craftsman, from whence the current tool came. So if one surfaces, the parts kit is affordable and easy.

I landed a nice convertible in a box of builtups a few years ago, it stripped clean. The original builder never got to the interior, tho, other than to include the articulating buckets from the Bonneville (!) kit of the same year that really look nice. Kinda sorta flirting with the idea of using the tonneau from the Buick Wildcat and scaring up a set of kidney bean Halibrands from the original kit to do a Mitchell-esqe show car... guess we'll see!