Matchbox Lesney Morris J2 Pickup Restoration

I'm back working on the cars I enjoy the most today! Bringing back old British bangers from the scrapyard. Today's project is a #60 Morris J2 Pickup. I'd love to see one of these in real life, it's such an interesting little truck.

Anyways onto my little Lesney one. Before:

And after:

Lesney #53c Ford Zodiac Repaint

I tried a new color on this old Zodiac, I think it works pretty well! Could definitely see this being a color offered back in the day.

Lesney Matchbox #46c Mercedes 300SE Chassis Swap

This is kind of an odd one that I've had sitting on a dusty corner of the work bench for quite some time now. I came across a strange listing for a mint condition green 300SE body and windows, minus the interior and chassis! Only 99 cents, so I bought it. The plan was to turn it into what you see here, a one of none transitional!
Only problem was, the gold super fast version isn't always the easiest model to find, and my parts supply didn't include a good condition chassis.. So I have waited almost a year to find a good donor car on eBay, and I finally got one! So here it is:

Matchbox Lesney #50a - Commer Pickup Truck Restoration

I'm back on the vintage Lesney train again, this time with a very cool old Commer pickup. I've been after one of these for a while, and received two into the collection recently! A bi RAOK on one of the diecast forums included one, and now this fresh restoration project.

I thought it was the silver plastic wheel version, but no its actually metal wheels that were painted over!

I tried my best to match the original tan this one came in, knowing that there were several variations on the shade. Not having a real one to compare to, I have no idea how close this tan is. But I like it regardless!

Lesney #53c Ford Zodiac Chassis Swap Custom

Hello hello! It has been far too wet and humid to paint here recently, so I decided to do a little chassis swap on a pair of Ford Zodiacs. I took two pretty common models, and created two pretty rare ones! They definitely look good enough to sit on the shelf and fill a hole in my collection on the cheap!

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 Lesney #33b - Ford Zephyr Restoration

Finally got this metallic blue Zephyr done! Took a bit longer than expected haha. It started out as just a regular old model, just a little bit past being display-worthy (in my opinion).

First setback happened while I was stripping off the old paint... I accidentally dropped the window glass in the paint stripper, and melted most of the front windscreen!!! I grabbed it as fast as I could, but the damage was done. The project had to wait until I found another donor car with good glass and at a decent price!! One was finally located on eBay, and I carried on...

Until, this happened...

Turns out, I had tried a new sort of primer, which didn't agree with the top coat. It took 3 ruined paint jobs on various models to figure that out...

So I tried it with NO primer, as the chaps at Lesney did back in the day... I think the results speak for themselves! Enjoy, thanks for looking.

Link to my other Zephyr restoration: 

33b Ford Zephyr