Lesney #48c - Dodge Dumper Truck Restoration

Well I'm not gone yet!! I'm hitting the road saturday, so I'm going to try and get one more done before then. Here's a Dodge dump truck I just finished up.

After:

I didn't plan to make this one as a copy of the Scammel Slowplow, but I guess it worked out that way haha.

Lesney #01e Mercedes Truck Restoration

This is the second one of these that I've done, but the idea was given to me by a friend on the forum, of making transitional colors on regular wheel models. Sort of a "one-of-none" type of thing. Here's the tired old truck as I got it.

And did my best to recreate the gold color of the early transitional version. I don't have an actual gold one to compare to, but how did I do? I sprayed on a base coat of bright gold, and dusted a bit of darker bronze over it. The overall effect is very nice. Didn't bake this one, because I learned a couple days ago that the bronze paint does NOT like to be baked on haha. I painted a HW La Troca in that color and baked it, the gloss disappeared and it bubbled up like crazy. 

Matchbox Dodge Dakota Pickup Truck Restoration

Hello folks. Here's a Dodge Dakota I finished recently. It is one of the cars I have a lot of memories with as a child, but I decided to freshen it up a bit. Here's what it used to look like.

And here it is now. Nothing too crazy, just got rid of the remainder of the light bar in the bed, swapped the wheels for a more modern set, and rechromed the bumpers and chassis. I stuck with the original shade of red and detailed it a bit. I think the final product looks most excellent!

Matchbox Toyota Tacoma Custom

How about this one?? I was glad to finally find an extra one of these to open up and play with! Very disappointed that the surfboards can't really be removed from the car without some serious body mods, which are far above my skill level. So they'll have to stay till now.
I've always admired that lovely green that Toyota sells these days, Spruce Mica. It's a stunning color if you've never seen one in person. This was as close as I could get...

Matchbox Chevy Transport Bus Custom

I've had an infatuation with this casting since I was a little kid, I'm not sure why. Not the casting that you would expect to get an 8 year old boy's blood pumping, but my automotive tastes have always strayed a bit from the norm. I've been trying to collect all the variations of this casting over the past year or so.. there's a lot of them! But I decided to add a custom to the mix.

I had one extra beat up beige bus, one of the ones I had as a kid. I have since replaced it with a mint loose one, so I decided to hack it up for a custom. In the past few years, the boys in orange have transitioned this casting from metal to plastic, which SUCKS! But it did give me an idea. The original was metal body/plastic chassis, and the updated version is plastic body/metal chassis... See where I'm going with this? A full blown, proper metal on metal custom version of this old bus. It took a bit of grinding to get the metal chassis to sit right with the body, but the end results really speak for themselves... This came out to be a really top notch custom that weighs about as much as the real thing! I love it! It'll be taking a front row seat in my collection for sure.

Lesney #32c-Leyland Petrol Tanker Restoration

Keeping with the Leyland theme, here's the second one. Arguably the most desirable of the Leyland cab bunch, the ARAL tanker. No way could my college budget stretch to afford a real one, unless I got REALLY lucky, so I decided to make my own. Starting with this tired BP tanker...

It turned into this! I'm very pleased with how well it came out. I've never seen a real ARAL tanker in person, but from photos on VBD, this one looks pretty accurate. More than close enough to sit on the shelf with the other 32c's and make me smile!

Just need to do a transitional one now, and I believe I'll have all the variations of this casting.

Lesney #51c-AEC 8 Wheel Tipper Restoration

Got two new'uns today. They've been finished forever honestly, but I only recently got around to ordering decals, and those decals arrived today! So here's the first one, a #51c Tipper. Was pretty nasty starting out...

Construction vehicles like this are fun, because they tend to be pretty gross from years in the sandbox, but clean up real nice!