Short and Sweet

This is the fifth commission I’ve built and a car I’d been wanting to do for a while. I bought a NIB kit a few years back with the intention of building it, but could’t bring myself to break into it so when I was asked to build this one I was more than happy to.

Painting was super simple, white body, white wing, white wheels and black mirrors. With these rally cars generally the easier the painting, the harder the sticker application and this was the case here. Lots of overlapping around compound curves and colour sections that go right to the edge of the body. For these I paint the edge of the shell to avoid the white body colour showing, something that’s quite noticeable on the official photo on the kit manual.

For the interior the driver suits needed to be red, and previously I would spray the cockpit black, then brush paint the drivers red. I found that spraying them red then masking for the black gave a better finish and also required less paint, so no loss of detail. After using the vinyl cutter to produce my own stickers for the driver I now prefer the method I used on the Focus 2002, which is to get them printed. This allows for more detail at smaller sizes and are easier to apply. The downside being cost and needing to fill an entire A4 sheet maximise value. I was able to get stickers for four projects onto this one sheet.

Detailing was my usual process and some new methods on this car include the textured headlight stickers which add the dispersion optics back that are normally lost by not using the box art stickers. I’ve cut these from vinyl in the past (see my 911 GT2s), but these look much more realistic. Both the headlights and tail lights are quite unique shapes on this car so I expected to have difficulty finding buckets to fit. I have a box containing nearly every light bucket Tamiya make, plus some Killerbody and Yokomo ones, and in this case it was the Suzuki SX4 WRC that were a close fit for the rear, and Yokomo 2003 Impreza for the front. Looking at the Impreza and the Corolla you’d think they’d be the last ones to work, but the headlight and indicator bulbs are in the right place and the shape where it mounts to the body is very similar.

The car’s rear lights have distinctive oval shapes moulded in the lenses for the separate brakelights, indicators and reversing lights. I was able to replicate this by cutting the shapes from red, orange and clear 3D texture stickers and then painting the rest of the area with clear red. To complete the headlights I fitted unwired LED bulbs in the bucket fittings then painted the indicator LEDs orange and the main headlight bulbs chrome, to avoid the obvious LED look.

The Corolla has a lot of vents and open sections, I used hexagonal mesh for the grille, square for the lower bumper aperture and left the upper bumper empty as per the real car. The vents under the headlights I thought too small to cut out neatly so I used 3D texture mesh for those. The radiator with Denso logo is an intercooler cut in half and mounted slightly further back as it sits behind the intercooler on the real car.

For the final touches I added all the little bits that are missing from the Tamiya stickers like the outlines and mounting points for the light pods, the red towing hook arrow, rivets on the roof scoop etc. Previously I’d made bonnet washer jets from styrene, but I discovered a neater way - cutting the tips off some spare wipers. The rear number plate was mounted on a thin piece of styrene to give the realistic 3D look.

Chassis wise, similar to the 206 WRC which also uses this TA-03FS, this needed quite an increase in track width. Even more so at the front, to the point where I had to change the aluminium brake discs to the plastic Tamiya ones as the hex is thicker. These are normally shiny chrome but I sprayed them flat clear then detailed the bells/hats in dark grey. As with the 206 I had to make sleeves so the brake callipers fit with the larger bearing sizes.

As this was built from a kit it had the correct white wheels but I gave them a coat of TS white to loose the plastic look. Semi-slicks replace the supplied tyres and I used my own Michelin stickers instead of the box art ones which are a bit small.

I fitted shims to the rear arms to reduce some of the slop, and replaced the upper arms all round with adjustable ones. The 53192 kit is rare and expensive, but the component parts can be bought individually for around half the price.

• Front light buckets (Yokomo 2003 Impreza)
• Headlight and indicator 3D texture sticker (Pandora RC)
• Rear light buckets (Suzuki SX4 WRC)
• Rear light texture stickers (Wrap-up Next)
• Tyre logos
• Matte black door handles
• Door locks
• Matte black tailgate trim
• Correct matte and gloss window frames
• Rear window heater elements
• Rear number plate mounted on thin styrene
• Grille and bonnet vents cut out and mesh fitted
• Widened track with wheel spacers
• Wheels painted TS white
• Wheel bolts painted silver
• Semi slicks replacing kit treaded tyres
• Thin black wheel nuts
• Intercooler and radiator
• Denso logo on radiator
• Towing eye
• Cockpit set
• Custom printed driver / co-driver sponsor logos
• Michelin and Speedline logos on spare wheel
• Printed co-driver pace notes
• Styrene roll cage with matte black front section
• Exhaust (ABC Hobby) painted silver
• Brembo brake callipers
• Brake discs painted flat clear with bells/hats in dark grey
• Windscreen wipers
• Roof aerials
• Roof transponder dome
• 3D bonnet catches (Wrap-Up Next)
• Bonnet washer jets
• Spotlight panel lines and mount points
• Body lines (Kyosho 0.4mm tape)