Taxi !!! (an update...)

In a previous entry on the "Slot car madness" section I presented you my project of turning a Revell's Mercedes 300 SE from the Argentinian Rally into a Portuguese taxi!

A long time has passed and progress on this project has been slow so far. So, here's a short update on how things went so far, something light to resume publishing on this blog...

The original bodywork paint was stripped with ethyl alcohol... I thought it would be an easy task, only to be wrong! The paintwork from Revell is very resistant to the alcohol I used, had a tough time stripping it and could only manage to sand paper it in several bursts, after long alcohol baths (2 or 3 days, sometimes...). Details like the race numbers and letters were quite easy to remove, at least.

I then applied grey primer from Tamiya and already painted the black sections. Here's the looks on it by now:

As you can see I covered the roof section before applying the black paint, otherwise I would have a tough time painting it green over glossy black. The plate in the rooftop was applied as a model, it's not final yet... will need some extra trimming and side lights, in order to look like this:

The choice of green will be tough... it's really a unusual tone, but guess that with some nice Emerald green from Citadel paint and some mixing of white, I may get this. Taxi badges have been ordered to a decal specialist (Pedro), and will surely bring up the looks on the final model. Then I will have to make a "civilian looking" interior for the model... and I also wish to set the driver with the arm over the sidewindow!

I really need to push on this one... it's a "non-racing" project, so it looses a bit on priority.

Stay tuned for more...

Slot Car Madness - The Revell Mercedes... Taxi!

After some absent time (my writing is being directed to somewhere else...), time to present you another ongoing project on Slot Car Madness. This is not a true Slot Car Madness project in itself, it's more of a "painting madness" project.

I recently purchased a Revell Mercedes 300 SE, rally version, a model I was looking for some time. Not that I want to race it... it's an idea that poped into my head soon as I saw this model on the shops.

This is a nice looking "car-bomber". The robust and powerful looks show exactly what this car was: a Mercedes. Revell did a nice work with this model, it's full of nice details. But I won't bet on the track capacities of this huge trucker... I'll show you why:

The tires are so narrow! If they are up to scale, I wonder how did these guys manage to race this 2-ton car with such a small patch of rubber underneath. One good thing that Revell did: place the motor right before the rear axle, instead of their usual choice for cars of this size (ahead).

Some more nice looking details:

Shame that the idea I told you about requires that I strip this car's paintwork. I kinda like this one, but the other choice was the grey Monte Carlo winner model - and there's no way I'm going to change the paintwork on a Monte Carlo winner !!!

This is what I want this car to look like afterwards:

Well, wish me luck... see you next time!