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?

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:

#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...

Maisto 1956 Buick Century "Un-Customized"

Good evening folks. As a bit of a Buick enthusiast, I couldn't pass up this new Maisto model when I saw it on the shelves the other day. For only $2.50, it's a very high quality model, and I like it a lot! But "resto-mods" really don't do much for me on classic American iron generally. I much prefer the stock original, un-molested look. This old Century was just begging to be brought back to stock.

All I really did was remove the wheels and grind some holes in the base so the new wheels would fit and give it the proper ride height. Oh, and added a couple coats of gloss clear to take away the "satin" look of the paint. It sits with a bit of a lean to one side, but overall I'm very pleased with how it turned out. 

Matchbox Ferrari 456 Custom

Happy Sunday folks! It's a beautiful day here in Tennessee, and I thought I'd share this car with you. It was a childhood toy of mine that I always liked, the Ferrari 456. Easily my favorite modern Ferrari, its got a great design, a glorious engine, and just adds up to be what I consider a "proper" Ferrari to be. 12 cylinders riding up front, with a classy, elegant design, a real GT car. This particular release of the casting though, is none of those things! Purple bodywork, ugly wheels, bright green interior, no thanks.

I'm a big fan of the new 5 spoke wheel design from Matchbox, and thought they would suit this car nicely.

Here's what I came up with. You may know I'm not a fan of red Ferraris at all, and try to stray away from that color whenever possible. I saw one in a lovely shade of pale gold the other day, and that's the color I'd have in a real one, no doubt! What do you think? 

Just need to find some tiny Ferrari logo decals to really set it off!

Lesney #75b-Ferrari Berlinetta Restoration #3

So as you might have noticed, I'm a big fan of this casting. In fact, it's my favorite diecast car period! It's just such a well done and beautiful casting, you can't help but love it. So when I discovered one lurking in the junkyard, I knew it was time to add another one to the collection. Maybe a copy of a very rare variation that I doubt I will ever be able to afford?

It needed some help being loaded on the trailer..

It's trailer hitch was broken off, but luckily this yard is well stocked, and another one was found!

The tired old Ferrari arrived back to the workshop, and the disassembly process began. 

The donor car that provided its interior was completely beyond rescue, but donated one of its parts to a car that will live on. It was pretty gross!

But nothing an old toothbrush with some soap and water can't fix!

Now what is left of the old paint gets removed.

The junkyard was also kind enough to provide some original tires for the project! Here it is wearing its new shoes and ready for paint. 

All primed and ready to go. (The paint booth charges by the hour, so its better to get multiple cars in at once! More on the Mustang in a later post...)

I try to keep my Lesney restorations as true to original as I can. This includes doing it like they did back in the day, with a yellow base coat before the red goes on. (It looks pretty good like that! I might have to do a yellow one someday.)

After a final coat of red paint, some silver trim detailing, and reassembly, here it is!

Here it is with the rest of the family. (I really like this casting... :) )