Lesney Matchbox #21a Long Distance Coach Restoration

Thanks fellers!

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming for this thread... Lesney restorations! I picked this one up on my last trip to England, 2 years ago! Hard to believe it's been that long. I need to use my free airline benefits and get my butt back over there!
Anyways, I stripped the paint some time ago, but never got around to painting it for some reason. But it's finally done! It's amazing, but the paint is a 97 cent spray can from walmart, and it matches the original paint pretty well!!

Interesting kiddie paint job it had before:

Now I usually like to leave some homage to the kiddie paint jobs, but I decided to bring this one back to its original form! Though I did leave the baseplate untouched, as I like to do. Other than polishing the axle ends of course. It came out pretty well I think!

Matchbox VW Transporter 50th Anniversary Wheel Swap

Hey everybody. This isn't quite a proper custom, just a little wheel swap. I bought a lot of premium series HW and MBXs a year or so ago that were mint, but just missing wheels. I've been slowly adding wheels as I obtain appropriate ones. This morning I did a nice VW Transporter.

Matchbox Routemaster Bus 60th Anniversary Series CHASE MODEL

So one of my "Holy Grails" of diecast collecting arrived in the mail today. I was never able to find one of these back in 2013 when this series was out, and have wanted one every since. And today is the day!! It's a stunning model, love the "spectraflame" look of the paint and the greatly detailed tampos. If you don't have this one in your collection, do yourself a favor and spent the $20 or so and grab one.

Lesney #34a-Volkswagen Transporter Van

This one has actually been finished for quite a while, but has been waiting on decals. I've given up on the prospect of finding any, so it's finished for now. I ordered a set from my usual supplier, but turns out he didn't have them anymore, so I'm out of luck.
This was another car that had been treated to a repaint prior to me getting it. A rather creative repaint...

Electricity Services? Haha I love it!!!

Here it is after a little TLC..

What do you think? Any comments would be appreciated!

And if you know of a place to get decals for it... Do let me know!

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 #5d-Routemaster Bus Restoration

This one has been kicking around on the workbench for quite a while. I have very bad luck with double decker buses it seems like, as much as I love them, and this one suffered a few setbacks. The paintwork didn't come out very nice the first time, I ended up having to redo it twice! But it's finished now, and looks pretty decent. Here's what I started with:

I decided to replicate a very rare version of this bus. I made it into a promotional handout for Pegram Shopfitters Ltd., which was an incredibly rare model in its day. According to the Vintage British Diecast site, authentic versions of the Pegram buses are worth more than 500 pounds! So I'm happy to have one on my shelf, fake or not. A big thanks to Rick's Toybox for suppling the decals. They do great work, though these might could use with a bit of trimming down to size. Onto the pictures:

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Lesney #66c GM Scenicruiser Greyhound Bus: Wrap-Up

I decided to take advantage of this beautiful day to do some painting. I actually managed to finish ALL my projects! Woohoo! Here's the first one, the Scenicruiser bus... It wasn't without its flaws though. I managed to break the plastic suspension unit, and couldn't come up with any ideas to fix it, so I left the back wheels "unsprung" Other than that, I think it came out rather well. Decals are from Rick's Toybox.

Original Project Post

Before:

After:

And here is is with one of my father's toys from his childhood..