Some of you may remember my initial build of this car... Things are taking a 180 degree turn in a different direction!

Gone is the whole Challenge car theme... GONE FOR GOOD! I bought a MINI to be different from the crowd, and it seems every schmuck who modifies their MINI to the extent I have tends to go "Fake Racecar"... Enough of that, I'm going to be kicking it back old school. Really old... No more giant ugly low quality knock off of a Challenge wing... No more senseless holes in the hood... And NO MORE "Look at me" I'm a racecar crapola!

If you cherish how your MINI shines in the sun, or are sickened when you see somebody who cant keep their car clean and pretty, it's probably best if you hit the back button now! Because Isobell is going to be one NASTY B****!

She is going to look like a project car, long forgotten in a field somewhere for the last 50 years... Aged to perfection. Mismatched paint between body panels, faded, and crusty. Who ever said rust was a bad thing? Somebody with no imagination that's who.

Say Goodbye to this look, it will never be the same...

 

I'm not going to bore everybody with body work, so I am starting this now with the first layers of paint going on the roof. There will be a break in the thread while I finish up the body work on the New-2-ME hood, and fenders, so just a heads up...

Everything has ben done by me in my garage as usual... Only thing that wont will be the 1.8 stroker from a un named MINI specialist...

Here is the first coats of primer, take notice of what is missing:






Then the first layers of basecoat... RUST! Two different colors of it, one on top of the other. Both using a combination of pearl, candy, and metal flake, mixed in different proportions...











The Result is astonishing, you can not catch the way it reflects, and changes color with a camera! I have tried! different lighting, different camera angles... It just wont capture the hidden beauty on film (Er... SD card )... This is about the best one I have been able to get, just to show it off:



So that's how she sit's until this weekend, I will update as I go.

 

I'm thinkin' you got too much time on your hands!! Interested to see how it all turns out.
Nice CR hood by the way!

 

It wont be Chili Red for much longer.

 

Will you paint my car with rust?!

It looks great, I had to take a second look and see the details of the paint. I'm looking forward to seeing the whole car

 

The rust is going to get covered up with primer, then various colors of base coat... Everything from Silk Green to the Bay Swatter's Kite Blue. Then that base gets sanded down in spots, and feathered out to reveal the rust colors, and primer. There is a lot more to it than that though, lots of chalk powders, clear coats, and a ton of work!

It's going to take me a couple months to get it all done, but that is OK... The only time she's been out of the garage in the last 2 YEARS is in the above photos!

 

I'm looking forward to this! Looks like it's going to be completely different. At least with the MINI, there's less surface area to work on. Unlike, say, the A-Team van.

Is it "missing" the S roof spoiler?

D'oh - antenna delete! Awesome!

 

And...

 

And...

 

thats a great color from what i can see!

 

Gotta say I'm going to miss the NACA ducts, but I can't wait to see this reveal itself as time rolls on....

C ya,
Dutch

 

 

Oh HELL what a great thread!

 

I wanted to keep one of them, but with the air box I will be using, its just not possible. :(

Could have the engineers at work draft one up in SolidWorks and have it made... But thats not really worth the time or money.

 

FYI: I am an engineer, with solidworks, and a 3d scanner. if you would like one drawn up just send a sketch. I do this **** for fun :P

 

Looks like a lot of fun, can't wait to see the results. Although once I saw it, I'm +1 for keeping the rust as the roof color!

BTW - what gauge mount do you have on the dash in your first pic?

 

I was wondering when you would get back to working on your car.All that previous work gone...things change in all of us.cant wait to see the finished product.hope it runs like a raped ape too

 

Very Cool Direction Rick!

 

Thanks all!

The gauges on the dash are mounted in AutoMeter Carbon Fiber gauge cups. They are staying...

 

Very cool concept. I really liked your car before though too.

Personally I would've waited for my paint to actually start rusting before I made the rest of it rusty though. Just seems like a waste of a nice paint job to me.

But hey, its your car and I'm sure its going to be pretty cool when its done!

 

They might take longer than you expect.

 

I did like the look of what I had done before... Hell I never even finished what I was going to do with it. Still have the JCW aero bumpers hanging on the wall!
I just got fed up with the style and how it had that whole 90's rice car feel to it. When I started doing the actual body work, I found how crappy all of the M7 fiberglass pieces where made. Bad part is, I actually got all the work done on those pieces, now I am not going to use any of them! I wasted a lot of time straightening out the fiberglass,which was moulded badly to start, then with the low quality resin they use when it dehydrated it was horrible looking! I could probably shoot those pieces with some primer and resell them... I just cant bring myself to do that though. Just because M7 thinks its OK to sell crap parts to people, doesn't mean that I will do the same.

The original paint was still in decent shape, and not very much body work was really needed to fix the couple dings the car had. It was time for a change though... I had thoughts of doing this when I started acquiring the parts for the first build, just decided it would be too much work. Time comes easy to do it when the car cant move, so it was now or never.

I actually just picked up some more of the base colors so that this weekend I can take it a little further! :D No its not stoping at a layer of rust...

 

Yeah, I've heard that M7 stuff can be kind've iffy. Props for taking on such a big project man. Its definitely not something I could ever imagine doing myself. Pretty ballsy for sure, but I think you'll be happy with the finished product.

Keep us posted as you go along, I can't wait to see how it turns out!

 

Not my first custom re-spray, my best friend owns a body shop, and I am the painter where I work. Big job yes, lots of steps and work to get it right, but nothing I don't feel comfortable doing in my spare time.
Started with rattle cans in 5th grade... Been spraying ever sense. :D Good part about having a painting hobby... Free labor, and you can always change it up again.

 

When I first saw the title, I thought: Oh God no, don't do this to a Mini. But since it's paint rather than actual rust... it's much better :p Looks great.