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I'm thinking I perhaps need to get myself a re-re Hotshot, but was thinking of metallic red rather than solid (if that's not sacrilege...)

I've never done metallic polycarbonate paint before though (just the fact that it's spray rather than brush these days was a new one for me when I built my Wild One recently!)

I'm thinking PS-15, but should that then be backed with something else? If so, would silver or white be sensible? And would there be a difference in end result between them? And finally is there a different red I should be considering rather than PS-15?

Sorry for all the questions, and thanks in advance!

It's your car, you can do what you like with it ... even more so with a re-release. That said, PS15 is a pretty subtle metallic red, it's not much of a deviation from boxart when you can only see the difference in very good light.

With the exception of the wing, the Hotshot doesn't really have any areas where it's not immediately backed by something dark, unlike say a touring car on a backbone type chassis that has lots of big windows to let light in to cast shadows, so I'm not sure backing is essential here.

Conventional wisdom suggests that if you are going to back it you should use silver (PS12) & that should reinforce both the depth of colour and the sparkles without really changing the colour. I would think white (PS1) might make it tend more towards a pinkish hue. I've used Black (PS5) to back (non metallic) red before & been very happy with it, is does make it a touch darker but adds a bit of class IMO.

More out there backing choices would be Gold, Copper or one of the many darker blues to add a hint of yellow, orange or purple respectively. I don't think I'd go any further than that

PS37 Translucent Red backed with something metallic (probably silver) is an option, but you do need to be confident you can get an even coverage of the red over several coats.

TL;DR - yeah silver, or maybe black

Thanks so much for all the info. That's really helpful!

Yeah - I love the idea of trying out translucent colours backed with whatever, but I don't trust myself and know I'd mess it up! I've only done solid black PS on bodies before (my re-re Wild One)... Doing a straightforward metallic seems like a sensible, one step at a time, skill-building exercise. So really, buying myself a Hotshot would be purely educational and investing in my skills - hard to justify not doing it!!!

Thanks again!

I've done many metallic red bodies and I always back them with silver. It really makes the metallic pop. As a last step, I back all my bodies with black so you don't see the color when looking in the window. Here's an example, although it's really hard to get metallic to show up properly in a photograph.

Thanks for your reply! And yes, it does seem almost impossible to capture metallic paint's properties in a photo - I'd looked at lots of pictures online but decided I couldn't tell anything from what I was seeing, so asked instead!!!

For a car body with windows, your backing with black makes a lot of sense. On a Hotshot, most of it won't be visible, and I don't think I mind the inside of the panels either side of the driver being silver and matching the roof. Kind of like it's a metal panel painted red on the outside. The wing I'm thinking I'll do red again over the backing, so that it looks OK from the underneath.

Thanks for all the advice guys!

I went with red backed with silver (PS-15 with PS-12) and it worked well. And then one more coat of red under the wing means the silver doesn't show. Thanks for the advice!!

Looks good

Looks even very good!