My Christmas Beetle

This model was a Christmas gift from my wonderful wife, hence the name.

The black moulded hardbody that comes with the Black Edition will be finished to a high standard over the course of the next few months, with excess holes plastic welded shut, a high-gloss paint finish, very carefully applied decals, driver figure, etc. However this will be solely for shelf display. For running, it will wear the shell seen here - a Kamtec Baja moulding decorated with leftover stickers from other projects. The roof is bare for now - it will likely receive a custom vinyl from our local tattoo studio when they re-open after lockdown. I particularly like this shell because it gives a lot of freedom as to how it is trimmed, including giving the wide-eye option which I prefer to the narrow-eye look.

The chassis is mostly stock, but there are a few    hop-ups fitted to the car, some of which you can see in the final photo. In addition to the MIP diff,    rubber-sealed bearings and black alloy wheel nuts that are present but not visible, you can see the Miniature Manufacturing alloy rear hubs, the Ampro sintered steel swing arm braces, the TT-02B receiver box and the generic Chinese rebuildable 27t motor which I stripped down and painted a rich copper colour,    lacquered it for a hard-wearing finish, then rebuilt it with    better-quality bearings and brushes, trued the comm and advanced the timing.

The well-known issue with the universals popping out over jumps has been addressed by building the    shocks with internal spacers which prevent the rear suspension from dropping low enough for this to occur.