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Tamiya Mini Cooper S


GeeBee

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Some time ago I was contacted through one of my websites about the Revell Mini Cooper I had built, sadly I couldn't sell it there and then, as it still had to be photographed for the article that will be in the Tamiya magazine very soon, he wanted it to give his Dad for a Birthday present, but his Dad's car is a Cooper S, and after pointing out a few differences after he sent he a photo of his Dad's car, he then asked if I could build one for him, I decided to use a Tamiya kit as that has the proper Cooper S parts in the kit,

The body was airbrushed in the, then very unpopular colour of Fiesta Yellow, with an Old English white roof, then wet sanded and polished, the wheels were drilled out before being painted in the same colour as the roof, his Dad's car has a Motolita wood rimmed steering wheel so I used the wheel out of the original Tamiya Mini Cooper kit and drilled out the spokes in the wheel.

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Funny but the I've come to like the colour. I've just purchase the same kit and it is quite the little gem. You've done a wonderful job so far :)

It seems to be a very collectable colour these days, along with Surf Blue these two colours were so unpopular on the Cooper's back in the 60's they deleted both colours in 1965 and replaced Suft Blue with the much darker Island blue, but never did a Cooper in yellow again until the MK3, but Bronze yellow was a much deeper yellow .....

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It seems to be a very collectable colour these days, along with Surf Blue these two colours were so unpopular on the Cooper's back in the 60's they deleted both colours in 1965 and replaced Suft Blue with the much darker Island blue, but never did a Cooper in yellow again until the MK3, but Bronze yellow was a much deeper yellow .....

Out of curiosity, did you decant the colour from a Holt's rattlecan? Also I'm assuming that that is the correct colour for the engine block. Is it some shade of BL Green? I do love the Mini as I vividly remember getting a lift from my sister's neighbor when I lived in England for a few months. I don't think I have ever seen the hedges fly past as quickly as they did that day and I briefly thought we were at Goodwood! I think the late Steve McQueen had one and constantly terrorized Porsches and Ferraris with it.

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Out of curiosity, did you decant the colour from a Holt's rattlecan? Also I'm assuming that that is the correct colour for the engine block. Is it some shade of BL Green?

The Fiesta Yellow was mixed for me sometime ago when I built the Revell version, I usually get my paint mixed at Paints4U, £11.99 for 100mls of un-thinned paint, although there was a colour code and mixing ratio's for BMC engine green if you look at 10 A series engines you'll probably not see two that are the same colour, the factories used what they had that came close to BMC green

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  • 3 weeks later...

Sorry for not updating this post until now, although I'm taking photo's of the build, when I'm doing a commission build I need to Project manage the build much better than if I'm building for myself otherwise I tend to get behind on the build, got quite a bit done to it over the last few weeks, and there really isn't that many parts left on the bench to get fixed on.

The interior has been flocked and the seats painted in the two tone that the Mk1 Coopers had, for the powder blue I used artists paint thinned with Testors acrylic thinners so it could be airbrushed

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The engine & gearbox is 99% finished, the customer didn't want any super detail done on it, so I didn't take the time to wire it up

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Wheels were drilled out and painted in Old English White, looks better than just picking out the hole detail using matt black paint

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Rear sub frame painted and fitted

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Inner door panel painted and detailed

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As the real Mini that I'm making a replica of has a Motalita wooden steering wheel, I did the same with the model, the spokes were drilled out as well

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  • 3 weeks later...

Work is coming to an end on the one, just the roof to fit' plus the chrome parts, plus door and boot handles, plus front & rear lights and afew small parts, then it will be off to iit's new home....

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that is looking super! these little Tamiya kits really rule!

the yellow on the body, are the photos really showing a true shade, or it more yellow than it looks in the photos? it almost looks a pale green to me in the pics.

beautiful work on all of that, and I am totally impressed that you have people calling you to have you build for them. of course the reason is clear. and the Tamiya magazine too. nice stuff!

jb

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that is looking super! these little Tamiya kits really rule!

the yellow on the body, are the photos really showing a true shade, or it more yellow than it looks in the photos? it almost looks a pale green to me in the pics

jb

It's a very hard colour to photograph, do a search for Fiesta Yellow Mini, and you'll see so many different looking yellows'

, this is the most realistic photo I have of one.

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