Friday, October 31, 2014

Hot Wheels Nissan Titan Pickup Truck Custom

Well readers, it's getting to be winter time around here, and that means not too many more days for painting outside.. I don't have the facilities to paint indoors, so my customs will be going into "winter mode" soon, aka wheel swaps, minor detailing, etc etc. I've got a bunch of cars disassembled and stripped just in case I get a warm day, but for now... this is about it haha.

This Nissan has been rummaging around in my parts box for years and years. To give you an idea, this version was the 2006 First Editions release, and I bought it on the shelf.. It's been in my parts box for that long haha.

So being that it's cold outside, and I actually like the paint job it has, all I did was a simple wheel swap and some detailing. What do you think?






Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Hot Wheels BMW E30 M3 Updated!

You might remember this post from a few months back, a delectable E30 M3 finished in a nice metallic black...
E30 M3 Custom

Unfortunately, the paint finished had started to peel, I guess I didn't prime it correctly or something. Being out of that metallic black, I decided to continue the white BMW theme I've been enjoying lately. What do you think?





Monday, October 27, 2014

Matchbox Jaguar XK120SE Custom

Good evening folks. This is going to be a short and sweet post tonight. I've got my flight instructor checkride on Wednesday, and I'm studying very hard for it. But I thought I'd take a break and show you a lovely old Jag I finished recently. The XK120 is easily one of my top 5 favorite cars of all time, and Matchbox has done a wonderful job replicating it into small scale. It really feels much more expensive than a $1 car. I've recently come across a big stash of the first release red ones, so expect some more customs to be coming!!







Saturday, October 25, 2014

Hot Wheels Lotus Esprit S1 Custom

Well this awesome new Lotus has only been out a couple of months, but I just found one and decided to give it the LA custom treatment!! All Lotus cars look good in the old F1 black and gold livery, and this one is no different.. What do you think?





Friday, October 24, 2014

Lesney #46c-Mercedes 300SE Restoration #2

Good evening everyone. I've got another nice Mercedes to share with you all tonight. I really like this casting, it's modeled after an amazing car to begin with, and the Lesney designers really did a nice job capturing it, in my opinion. It's a fun one to collect as they aren't all that rare and tend to go for pretty reasonable money, as far as Regular Wheels go.
This project actually took two donor cars, a regular wheels model and a transitional one. The transitional was pretty beat, missing the trunklid and had a severly distorted roof. But the chassis was nice and axles were straight, so it donated that. It ended up being a bit of a strange model, with the regular wheels body and transitional chassis!




You'll be seeing the gold body again in a future post :)



Interesting tidbit... Though the transitional did away with opening doors, the chassis still retained the guides for them.





Well I absolutely love how the color came out! Gold base with the maroon top coat. 
What do you think??







Hot Wheels Range Rover Classic Custom

Hello readers! Here is a recently finished Hot Wheels Range Rover Classic. What a great casting. You can't help but love these old Rovers, as questionable as their build quality may have been.
The Range Rover started the luxury SUV movement back in the 1970s and is arguably still the master of the craft.
For this model, a childhood favorite of mine donated itself, and working with it reminded me of what a cool casting this is. It's a shame they haven't used it anymore.

The original truck


Black split 10 spoke wheels were donated from the creatively named "Police SUV" by Matchbox







She really cleans up nicely! 



With a mint Getty promo Rover from my collection



Range Rover vs. Jeep Grand Wagoneer... Which would you rather have?





Thursday, October 23, 2014

Hot Wheels Mercedes 380 SEL Custom

Good evening folks! Got a great one to share tonight, one of my all time favorite castings, right up there with the Lesney Ferrari Berlinetta. It's the old Hot Wheels Mercedes 380 SEL. I've been collecting this one for years, and have about 30 variants now. You'd think that since it was Final Run'd 15 years ago that you'd be able to find all the variations easily, but I'm always finding new ones that I didn't know about!
As far as customs, I've bought a couple on ebay over the years, but have never made one of my own, until now.

I found a big stash of cars in my parents basement not long ago, and included in that box was a big pile of extra 380s. I've accumulated probably 50 of them total, and only 30 being distinct variations! So I've got plenty to customize haha.

This custom started life as a fairly common, white 1980s release, complete with those oh so 80s Ultra Hot wheels. One thing was certain, those had to go!


I wanted to go for a factory look, and a lot of these cars were two tone. Mercedes loved the two tone look back then, and I have to say, it does look pretty sharp. So to keep it easy, I left the top part of the body white, and painted the lower portion light grey, just like how you could've ordered your new W126 back in the 80s. A simple swap of the new Matchbox disc wheel, and some detail painting, and job done. 





Next job might be to do a black one with the charcoal grey lower portion. That always looked nice. Do you have any ideas? I'd love to hear from you in the comments section.



Bonus pic:



Saturday, October 18, 2014

#14d-Iso Grifo Restoration

Hi guys! Sorry for the length of time in between posts again, just so busy these days! But never fear, I'm back, this time with a sweet classic Italian supercar! This is one of my favorite Lesney castings, right up there with the Ferrari Berlinetta and E Type. It's just such a sexy car, and as usual, the boffins at Lesney did a fantastic job of re-creating it in small scale.

Now, I neglected to take a lot of before photos, but I have 2 spare Grifos in various states of disrepair, and I had to buy a couple more online to get a complete set of doors, as well as serviceable windows. Here they all are in a group..





And now a big pile of parts..
Notice how each chassis is different! Regular Wheel verision, early transitional, and later Superfast! What a selection!


Here's what I ended up with. Decided to go with the early transitional chassis, and left the chrome on the wheels alone. This is the first time I've used this paint, which is a satin nickel.. Turned out to be a bit more gold than I thought, but I like it. Bit of gloss clear and here we are! 







And a comparison shot with its cousins...