Here's a little project I am finishing up for my son but wanted to share. I also thought it might be fun for others to jump into and do their own and post them up.

Basically, in a nutshell, my goal was to turn this...



Into this:



There's tons of tutorials about getting these things apart so I won't go into all of that except to say that with the MC cars there's only one rivet to drill out as opposed to most of the others that have two. Basically drill a pilot hole and then use a 3/16" drill bit to drill the head of the rivet out and then pop them apart. It breaks down into four main pieces, of which you can see here, except I still have the bottom two stacked together.



Once you have them apart, use some paint stripper (not that kind of stripper!) and be sure to use hand and eye protection. This is nasty stuff but it takes the paint right off of them. The paint comes right off but getting in all the nooks and crannies took the use of an old paint brush. I think this goes without saying, but after using the toothbrush on the car, DO NOT BRUSH YOUR TEETH WITH IT!!! A little clean up and the body of your car should look like this.



Note: In retrospect, and likely these won't be the last versions of my little car, but the bodywork can use some cleanup at this point with a file of some type. I didn't notice till later how much it really would clean up the car to fix some stuff from the cheap molding process. Take a look at my later pics of the yellow along the top of the windshield for an example.

To match my tinting in my car, I decided to tint the windows of the matchbox car. This effect is easily accomplished by painting the INSIDE of the windows. This will keep the shiny window looking surface on the outside while making them very dark.



Now it's time to hit the car with some primer and some color. Note, I stacked the parts just to see how it was coming along.



At this point you could write it off and consider it done. However I wanted some more detail in the cars. I quickly found out that it's been years since I've done any kind of model painting and boy does it show. Not only did it take some time to get my paintbrush skills back, but my hands are more shaky on this stuff than they were when I was a teenager.

I still have some cleanup to figure out how to do on some of the painting and then I'll give them a clear coat and glue them back together but here you can see basically what they look like. How much detail you put in is up to you. I'm kind of pressed for time at the moment with Christmas vacation this weekend and my two year old son not understanding why he can't play with his car and why it's always sitting up on the counter where he can't reach it.

Semi-final look to the cars.



And just for fun, a little before and after - yes, I bought three of these. They had a ton at Walmart and they are a dollar each. Sadly I put more money into the painting than the actual car.



So...go scour your local store and pick up a Mini Cooper toy and start drilling, stripping and painting and let's see what you can do in making your car into a hot wheels car!!!

 

I like the idea. When my dad bough his Toyota FJ Cruiser, they send him a pretty good sized *custom* replica. I think mini should consider this too...

 

Nice... but it looks like you now need to add a rear wing to your life-size R56!

 

Thanks, but I'm not a huge fan of those wings on the real life car. I actually really like the smaller spoiler I have on mine as I think it really works well with the lines of the car. But I haven't found a Matchbox/Hot Wheels car with that yet. I could possibly fabricate one for the smaller version...but that's a bit more involved than I'm ready to get into at the moment. I have however seen pics of people doing it with other cars and creating custom splitters and everything. Too much work, too little time.

 

Maybe some masking tape for the edges? Other than that, looks good. I am sure your son will like it!

 

Nice Job! Sounds like a fun project to take on.

 

Yea, I thought I could do straighter lines like the old days. Not so much evidently though. I may try cleaning up the edges with some yellow, we'll see. Maybe on version 2.0. The cars are cheap, I've got the materials now, so it's just about the time.

 

That would be an AWESOME idea!!

 

I got a couple cheap diecasts and did some work to make them look like our cars. Then we put them on top of our wedding cake!

Our cars. Both 2005s that we bought new before we met.






They were already Electric Blue so I just had to do some interior painting and exterior details.






We were married on The Dragon and our reception was at Deals Gap Motorcycle Resort.

 

Both of you nice work! I might have to try that myself. When I bought my 350z they had models in their showroom that you could put together your own 350z with the body and interior and screw it together. They were about 2x the size of a matchbox car. I still have my brickyard red 350z saved somewhere. (I just moved so I don't know where stuff is anymore...)

I posted something in the main forum already so I won't double post, but I just got my R/C mini cooper body today and I am going to be painting it soon to match my car.

You can see some pics here:

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...eat-video.html

 

Good work. I wonder if there are plastic models of the Mini. They have everything else. I'll have to check that out. Looks like a fun little project and something to do in my spare time. Believe me, I've got lots of spare time. Retired. Already remodeled the kitchen, baths, outside, and just about finished black topping under my metal carport.

 

Nice Paul.
I never noticed the plates on your model Mini's. Excellant detail

I need to do the same with Claude.........."MINIaturize" him, so to speak......

 

This thread is so funny. I bought 2 Lightning blue hotwheels challenge cars. One I put in my car, the second I wetsanded and my Lightning Blue base coat, clear coat showed up yesterday. I will post my creations as soon as I finish it. Cool thread.

 

There aren't any second generation MINI plastic assembly kits out yet.

 

fun project and nice write-up!

 

Cool idea to customize the Hot Wheel. After all that work take them for a drive and show them off.

I love the wedding cake!

 

What about a Dremel to cut off the crazy big wing and maybe a little sanding fileing so it will look like a regular R56. Ive always wanted a model of mine but can never find one.