This car made it's debut in 1961, and was regarded by it's designer, GM's Bill Mitchell as his favorite piece of work. Some of the styling elements made it into production on the 1963-1967 Corvette Sting Ray, but the Mako-Shark itself was a one off.
The fabulous two-tone paint work is meant to mimic the appearance of the real life Mako Shark from which this car gets it's name. Apparently Bill Mitchell caught a Mako Shark while on a fishing trip and was so taken by the colouring of the shark that he decided to incorporate the look on his latest concept car. His staff became so fed up continually repainting the car to match the sharks complex colouring and after several attempts, rumour has it they broke into Bill Mitchell's office and repainted the fish to match the car! The boss didn't notice the changed fish, so when he next saw the car he was delighted and thought they had exactly matched the colouring, at last!
UT Models released this model of the Mako Shark and as with all other UT releases it is now out of production (UT was taken over by the parent company of AUTOart and essentially closed down). It was one of their last releases and hence one of their best. The extraordinary paint job is well replicated, as is the interior with a heavily "wooded" dashboard. The engine looks good as do the wheels and tires.
One unusual feature is the flip up turn signal indicators on the trunk lid. The indicators are flush with the bodywork but when the turn signal is activated a mirrored panel flips up to display the relevant signal to anyone driving behind. The mechanism for this is represented by some chromed piping on the underside of the trunk lid (the signals are not operable on this model).
A good model overall and it earns a rating 70% from me. Another version of this car was made by a small company called Motormax. It was not as good a model as this one, but an interesting feature that came with it was the hardtop for this car, which was a clear "glass" bubble! Not much good on a hot sunny day I would think! AUTOart have now (2004) re-released this model as part of their range and I believe the main improvement made to the model is a more detailed engine bay.
70%
