TOPIC:

Hi, maybe you have seen my boxart WRC's in this topic . Well, here come my other Impreza's. Drift, Time Attack and WRC (but not boxart).

I want to start with my Team Orange GC8. I've found this second hand shell and the plan was to finish it with some more decals. So far the plan . It was not orange and the black paint for backng came through on several places. The decals were very transparent and with a lot of air bubbles.







Removing the paint with Revell Paint Remover (used in on one of my blue WRC's) didn't do the job. So i decided to sand blast it in a home made cabin, made of cart board boxes .



The shell gets matte this way, but that's no problem. I covered the windows so they remained clear.
This after half a day of blasting. Half a day to go .





Another problem was that the first owner has cut out his decals on the body, with deep scratches for result. Polishing with paste only filled up the scratches. Si i had to sand them afay first, and than polish the shell again.



A few steps ahead. The body is clean now and the black lines around the windows are painted. Ready for the Team Orange theme... As far as i know, decals for the GC8 don't exist. I printed the crocodile of the real car on scale and glued it on the back of vinyl. Cut out (by hand) this was my painting mold.



The rest of the lines are improvised and based on pictures of the real car.



First paint job. Not black, but (to dark) brown and gold. There is some blue vinyl at both sides. That keeps cracks closed. Once the body is painted, i will glue them at the inside.



The GC8 is darker than the other team cars and a bit fluorescent. I mixed 6 colours to achieve a suitable colour.



Painted and with FaceWorx decals (for EVO X).





Now i needed something for air inlets at the side windows. I made them of a package of TL light starters.





Side windows painted, rear wing and home made front splitter added, some black vinyl at the front bumper and boot lid, mirrors added and on the correct wheels... I didn't apply a sun strip and door numbers yet.





I made this body for competing the very first King Of Europe competition in 2015, here in Belgium. So here it is with KOE sunstrip and door numbers.



Special award. I won the drift park battle (with 20% skills and 80% luck ).



That's it for now...

That's an awesome work

By coincidence I’ve found a red Tamiya Impreza shell on a French website. I saw only a part of it on one picture and it wasn’t even mentioned in the description of the advert. But a red Impreza rang a bell to me. Because in 1997 I saw Bruno Thiry with his WRC in Winfield livery. A real nice car.

I could buy that shell separately and a new project was born.



First of all I removed all decals. It was very visible where the decals have been, or not.



So I had to polish the shell. I started with the roof because I had the chance to meet Bruno Thiry and I wanted his autograph on it.
I told the friendly pilot my plans and he signed my strange red thing. I covered his signature and went on polishing the whole shell.



As usual I painted the lines around the windows mat black. But the red paint came to far on the windows. I wiped it off with Revell Paint Remover.



The red paintwork was a problem in general. On some parts it was damaged / scratched off. Some parts were painted too little and on other parts way too much. I covered the windows and wrapped up the outside. Ready for new paint.



Also the rear wing needed a fresh layer of red. All together I used almost two cans PS15.



I applied some new decals. I had spares from sticker sheets from other projects. I also painted the headlights white, because I had transparent decals to apply on it.



Here are my home printed decals for the headlights. The yellow ones are for this project (+ spares) and the other for two projects with clear headlights.



The decals are on the headlights and the front splitter painted. Doing the making of, i needed a shell to ride a local drift competition. I used some white decals, white wheels and a high rear wing. The blue Fina backgrounds were covered a bit with red decals.





After the competition. With door numbers and sun strip on the windshield.
And the golden transmitter i won for my first place in 4x4 category.



Despite it looked good this way, i removed the decals and went on with the rally livery. Winfield logos in white and gold (except for the very small ones), license plates in the correct font… Here I’m trying to make a perfect arrow on the bonnet. All done with vinyl.



Making a straight line on the correct place on both sides of this well-shaped shell wasn’t easy.



The finishing touch were rally plates of the Condroz Rally 1997. I printed them on a A4 paper and cut out that part. I placed a small part of decal paper in it and printed the same file again. It is transparent decal paper. The big rally plate came on white vinyl on the bonnet. Also door handles and Belgian flags are printed.



The small rally plate remained clear and is on the rear windshield. I also made mud flaps. Applied with double sided tape on some lexan corners. The mud flaps are mat black vinyl, on both sides of a piece of paper.



You can see the final result in my showroom.

Very nice work Gumpie. And that changes of the blue.

Thanx. Yes, this is very different than most other Impreza's.
I liked the real car much and i'm happy with this one

You can.

Nice work buddy & thank you for the great write up on how you managed the restoration

Thanx man. Yes, i like to make pictures and share my techniques.
Have you seen the result pictures? I've put my model on a Winfield flag.

The final picture is awesome on the flag

Very nice work, Gumpie!