Hot Metal

 My quest to complete a range of original Hot Wheels Redlines drew a little nearer this week, as I found three more vehicles off my checklist, along with a couple of others to use as spares.

The Custom Fleetside, based on Harry Benson Bradleys own car and the inspiration for the look of the Sweet 16 range, is quite an early model and iconic in its style. The model I bought in a scrap lot had a wheel missing, heavy paint loss and the bed cover had gone. I replaced the wheel with another of similar age, cut a new cover out of sheet plastic and gave it a quick once over with a paint pen. However, the results were less than stellar and certainly not good enough for such a fine model, so I decided to go full restoration.

By drilling out the rivets on the base, its possible to separate the body halves and remove the plastic parts. A dip in some paint stripper and a later rub down with T-Cut, removed all traces if old paint and resolved some minor scratches on the bodywork. I did the same with the Bugeye and Tri-Baby too and popped down to my local car accessory shop for some paint. Metallics are in short supply, but I found a lovely Renault Extreme Blue and a bright gold, which suited my requirements.

A couple of coats if blue and a shot of gold and the bodies were left overnight to cure.Then it was a case of washing the plastic windscreens and polishing with T-Cut. Finally, I reassembled the bodies and thevresults were very pleasing indeed!

Bugeye

Tri-Baby

Custom Fleetside

The Bugeye had the rear wheels replaced, as when it arrived it had some inferior plastic ones glued in. None of them will be running any races anytime soon, but will be gracing my next project - The Classic Carry Case!