Mini Clubman body

As a kid, one of my favourite toys before I discovered Tamiya, was Scalextric. My two best loved cars were the Mini Clubmans, far from the best handling, certainly not the fastest, but definately the most fun.


Fast forward '*!¬ years & I wanted another Clubman, not for a Mini chassis though, this is destined for something far sillier ;)


A hotrod clubman shell was purchased for the paltry sum of £5, this is quite small, being Mardave V12 size.

Taking inspiration from the slot cars, the paint job had to be a chequered roof & 1275GT stripes.

Problem #1; nobody makes paint masks like this to my knowledge (if anyone knows different shoot me a PM)

OK, painting is always 90% prep, 5% shooting paint & 5% cleanup, so the roof was measured & compared to photos on the web.

After much headscratching, I decided to go with 15mm squares, this doesn't work out to whole squares at the sides & front, but most real ones aren't either.

Some time with a scalpel, masking tape, a straightedge & label carrier backing from laser labels, left me with over 30 accurate squares of masking tape.

Layout lines were marked on the outside of the shell with a fineline permanent marker, & the squares carefully applied inside.

Edges were carefully rubbed down to minimise bleed under the masks (not wholly successful, but it's my first poly shell so I'm fairly happy.)

After a couple of hours I had the roof masked to a standard I was happy with.

The windows were again drawn on by hand, not particularly scale, but I liked the proportions, then taped using the same method as the roof.

I also wanted to reproduce the 1275GT stripes, so very fine pinstripes were hand cut & laid, again not perfect but I was happy with the result.

I couldn't hope to cut lettering that small, so a gap was left, sized for a Tamiya sticker left over from another set.

I was torn between yellow/black & red/white schemes, red/white was decided upon, but I may get another shell & do a yellow/black one too :D

Problem #2; No paint. For various reasons I didn't have any paint available in my chosen colours, a quick trip into my LHS nets me 1 each red, white & black of some unknown paint brand, time will tell if it's any good.

Problem #3; Weather!! Finally we get a couple of dry warm days, vaguely suitable for spraying so every opportunity to throw a layer of paint is taken. 3 coats of red, 3 of white & 2 black.

After removing the masks & overspray cover (a tesco bag, LOL) all is revealed.
The final result isn't perfect, paint bleed is evident is several places, down to a combination of poor rubbing down & cheap masking tape. This, however, is my first attempt with polycarb paints & shells. The paint cost more than the shell so I'm not too worried that it's not exactly concours quality.
The masking was a long job, but I'm pleased with my handiwork & I will very likely buy another shell to do a yellow/black variant.

Keep an eye out for this shell appearing on a new chassis in my showroom soon.

Comments welcome as always on anything in my showroom.