Lesney #33c-Lamborghini Miura Restoration & Step by Step Guide!

Hello my friends It's been a while. Life of a college senior can be a crazy one, but I'm back with a fantastic restoration for you. Instead of just sharing the exact same pics as I do on my Facebook page and my thread on HobbyTalk, I've decided to do a bit of a step-by-step guide on this blog page.
I've wanted to do a Lesney Miura for a long time, and I finally got one from a friend on a Facebook trade group. Here's how it was when I got it:

The only real un-correctable flaw with this one was the big crack in the rear window..

But that's easily correctable when you have a big "junkyard" full of parts cars! Like this transitional Miura with a busted front window.. but the rear is mint!

Nothing a little cutting and replacing can't fix.

Another issue this one had, is the driver's door wasn't fitting quite correctly. I decided to grab a door from the transitional donor car and see if it fit any better.. Looks like a real beater now, huh?

Here's all the parts together:

Another issue, as you may have noticed, is the lack of tires that plagues so many regular wheel era Lesneys... In addition to that, one of the hubs was quite damaged. I like to leave the wheels all original on my restoration if I can, but this was just too bad to ignore. 

No problem though, onto the junkyard!!

All the problems fixed, now onto the painting process:

I forgot to take a picture of it baking in the toaster oven, but you get the idea...

Anyways, here it is now all finished!

Luckily I was able to drill it properly so it just snapped back into place. 

What do you think? Drop me a line with some comments. 

Hot Wheels Phantastique Custom

This has always been one of my favorite castings. It's tragically under-used in today's lineup, and I think that's a shame. It's so cool, reminds me of those lovely Figoni et Falaschi designs of the 1930s. With this custom, I thought it would look cool as a murdered out black beast.

BMW E21 320i Coupe Alpinweiss Series Custom

Here's two more for the Alpinweiss BMW Series. I'm really on a roll with these, and enjoying making them a lot.
Here is an E21 320i. Some cheap little no name brand, I wish I'd taken some before pics. But it cleaned up really nice! Sharpie work didn't come out too good, you'd think I have the shakes or something 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. 

Hot Wheels Ferrari 308 GTS Custom

Next up is a kinda rough Hot Wheels Ferrari 308 I picked up in a big lot a while back. It wasn't all that bad, but I already had a mint one for display, so I figured I'd do something with it.

Now, I have a strong dislike for bright red Ferraris. Other than vintage 250s and the like, obviously, I think that owning a Ferrari in Rosso Corsa displays a severe lack of creativity. So I always set out to find colors that Ferraris look good in that ISN'T red yellow or black haha. And I came up with this..

Matchbox BMW E46 328i Coupe Alpinweiss Custom

Here's another one for my developing BMW Alpinweiss custom series. These are a lot of fun to make! I'm pretty sure Matchbox made a white one of these, but it's packed away somewhere so I figured why not make my own. Nothing too special but it did come out nicely.

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!