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!

Hot Wheels Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X Custom Repaint

Still on a Japanese car kick! I was tired of seeing all these crazy paint jobs, so I'm taking some more popular Japanese HW castings and making them a bit more stock looking. I'm particularly pleased with how this Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X turned out!

Hot Wheels Renault Sport RS01 Custom Repaint

This Renault Sport RS01 is a super cool casting, that I fell in love with as soon as I saw it. The real thing is a car that Renault created specially for a new racing series it has developed, called the Renaultsport Trophy series. They originally developed the car to replace the Megane Trophy in the GT3 class, but it was too fast!!

It's an all carbon-fiber monocoque chassis, with a modified 3.8 liter twin-turbo V6 borrowed from the Nissan GT-R putting out over 500 horsepower! And the thing only weighs around 1,100 kilograms... Wow!!!

The version I made is something of a "test car", and it looks very menacing in flat black!

The real thing:

And the two versions to come from Hot Wheels so far:

Hot Wheels Acura Integra Type R Custom Re-Color

I've been on a Japanese car kick for the last couple days, I don't really know why haha. This is the first of several I've got in the works this week. Nothing too fancy, just a quick re-color, but I think it came out looking rather sharp!

Matchbox Saab Sonett III Restoration

Decided to make myself a copy of a rare variation! This Saab Sonett is a cool little casting, and as everybody knows, I do love my Swedish cars! Wasn't in bad condition really, but I got in a project car lot so I decided to go for it!

Before

After:

Matchbox Jaguar F Type Coupe Custom

Just a little repaint of a new release to share today. The F Type is my favorite car currently on sale, and I love the version that Matchbox came out with! They really nailed it. I decided to just do a quick repaint to match the one I got to drive at the Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance last year. What an experience that was!!

Here's the one I got to drive... What an experience!!

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

Lesney #18e Field Car Restoration

Field Car!! This is a fun little casting that I always enjoy. I found this one on eBay missing its roof and spare wheel, but had all 4 tires still in place. It donated the wheels and tires to another cause, but I thought I could give it a second lease on life!

It turned out as something I could definitely envision Lesney making back in the day.

There's only one other Field Car in my collection at this time, a transitional that I restored a couple of years ago: