dougwintz

Decided to take a break from GT and Rally cars with this 1949 Mercury. Some aftermarket parts like the dice, upholstery and wheels. The paint is Testors (RIP) Icey Blue which went on easily and didn't require any sanding/buffing. If I had to do it again, I'd spend more time on the engine but I was "done" and ready to move on.

Speaking of BEER, see the TsingTao Mercedes! (This also reminds me I had a few Delirium Tremens and Duvals in Brussels a few years ago)

Hi Helmut. The wheels come the Pit Wall trans kit. I bought it at SpotModel.com, but it's not listed there now. I see it at Hiroboy.com, but also looks like it's out of stock. https://www.hiroboy.com/124_Mercedes_300SL_Carrera_Panamericana_2004_Transkit--product--12861.html Good luck with it. If I had to do it again, I'd buy an extra set of decals. They are thin, and don't cover 100% of the fender flares the way I would like them to.

Thanks for the comments, guys. Nice way to end the year. Have a great 2022

Ok. Here's the last build of 2021. Fun project using the Tamiya model, and Pitwall decals, photoetch and resin. Hope everyone has a great new year.

Yes, that's right. The entire body was painted Park Green, Tamiya. Everything else (even the gold) was decal - SK Decals. They primarily make decals for GT, Le Mans, Rally cars. Best decals I've ever used. Slides off the paper easily. I use them sometimes if I get an older Tamiya kit and the decals are yellowed. SK makes some replicas. I used some decal solution, but not a lot. I also used some scrap carbon fiber decal I had in the parts bin. SK decals has a Facebook page. Only problem is that they are located in Hong Kong. You can see a bunch of their stuff here https://www.spotmodel.com/index.php?manufacturers_id=1288&page=2 Thanks for the comments, everybody.

Beautiful!

Looks great!

I saw this livery online, and thought it would make a nice version of Tamiya's kit. A good exercise in decals. I don't normally do curbside, but this was challenging enough. There's a WIP thread on it as well.

Stance is pretty good. Decals are starting to make their appearance. Getting to the most difficult stage -- getting the rest of the decals to line up with one another.

Started working on the decals. For this livery, the wheels have color highlights on the rim. There are 10 separate decals that go with each wheel. Back is red, front is gold. So good new! If you have OCD, this is the project for you!! Anyway, they look pretty good. I positioned the body just enough to see how the colors contrast. After I took these pictures, I did the final placement of the body and the stance is perfect - I'll post pictures of that later.

I posed the wheels just to see if the color worked. Tried matte black, grey gunmetal, finally settled on a shade of black/gunmetal.

Interior, front and rear lights are in place

I'm working on a couple of Mercedes models, the 2018 GT 3 model sponsored by Tsing Tao beer, and the 2004 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing Panamericana sponsored by Corona Beer. I just liked the subject manager and the livery. I really don't drink that much beer! This post will discuss the 2018 model. I found reference photos online, then was able to find the decal set. The Tamiya kit is engineered really well. The taillights are 5 piece assemblies. The body parts, bumpers and air intakes fit very well. I do wish they had a version with the engine - curbside is really not my thing. But, the livery was so cool I had to take a shot at building it. Next up, getting the headlights, taillights and interior details together. Stay tuned.

This is the Toyota Toms 84c model by Tamiya. Thanks to IndyCals and Shunko, I used the Warpzone livery. Fun build of an older, classic Tamiya kit.

Hi Perry. I should say I have a special technique to do that - but the REAL truth is the hood medallion is a decal, and so is the wood!!!! Both are included in the kit!

Thanks all for the comments. Dave, thanks for bringing up Mike Hawthorn. He certainly had an interesting story in racing and in life.

Hi. This is Tamiya's kit. Instead of building the racing version, I found a 1:1 example, slightly modified and tried to replicate it.

Thanks. Looks great. I'll reach out before the next Torino build!

Thanks. I know. I cut the front spindle as much as possible. Might be a frame and body fit issue.

Hi. This is MPC's version of Bobby Issac's Ford Torino. Very tough to get the track and the stance where I wanted it. I must have trimmed, cut 5 times until I couldn't anymore. So, it sits higher than I wanted. Easy kit if you just count the number of parts. Tough kit if you are interested in a proper fit. I took a couple of pick before decals and after

Thanks for the comments. I applied a wash of Tamiya panel line accent to the grill, but I can see that solid black is more accurate. Your build looks great. I am always looking for something out of the ordinary like this kit. Very hard to find "walk around" photos of the real car, though. I also bought a couple of additional decal sheets because the kit decals were a little yellowed. So I bought from Tailormade (in Germany, by the way) and another from someone on ebay. Thanks again for the comments

Well, this was an interesting case. This is the Tamiya kit, pretty well detailed out of the box. I wondered about the dark green exterior and the blue interior and chassis - but reference photos seemed to indicate it was just that. The kit had some clear parts for the undercarriage. I would normally just paint them, but I decided to leave the clear for a change. The biggest challenge was the decals. The kit decals were yellowed, so I sourced out a sheet from Tailormade - and they were pretty good. Whiter than the yellowed kit decals. I also bought a sheet from "some guy on eBay". Between the 3 I felt like I had something to fall back on. Neat Mercedes hood ornament in the kit too. Anyway, a fun and unusual build.

Thanks for the nice comments. Car is done, you can see all the photos here

This is Tamiya's Peugeot 205. I used some resin pieces ad decals from Renaissance, seatbelts from Spot Model. Very finicky to build. Still have some minor details like mudflaps to add, but it's pretty close to "under glass" at this point.