SCCA Camaro Trans Am Set

Hot Wheels, Rain-X and Sunoco Liveries.
I meant to build each of these Revell kits as they came out, but never got around to it except for the one I made as a what-if street machine painted like our real '94 Camaro back in '98. I built that from an extra Sunoco kit I pulled the decal sheet from to archive and was curious how these kits went together. That one had a warped chassis and a very poorly fitting rear window along with other fit issues I'm guessing I'll need to contend with on these. (The license plate is off the Galaxie '48 Aerosedan sheet and is the actual plate from our real Camaro. Gary Schmidt let me include that when I designed the decal art.)
https://i.imgur.com/AGP11fJ.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/9rzCaSf.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/l2D2HQa.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/c7tjWl1.jpg
The gummy residue on the yellow Rain-X body will have to be cleaned up. It is from the test fitting of artwork I designed for the Sunoco kit. The blue one is the Hot Wheels car and the white one is the Sunoco. I started these back in February of this year (four months ago) and have been documenting my progress, but am just getting around to posting; so they are "mostly done" at this point and I'm catching up.
https://i.imgur.com/eJxvM1r.jpg
The hood of the Hot Wheels car was attacked by the tires in a half dozen spots. Those melted spots needed to be filled and smoothed. The Sunoco car also has an "R" divot from the tires in the nose.
https://i.imgur.com/z7ezjhx.jpg

After reviewing the previous built up I recalled the hood/fenders and front fascia didn't have a positive fit to each other. And the fascia is supposed to be cemented to the chassis with the hood & fenders setting on top and removable. To remedy this I installed magnets and made steel brackets to force the fascia and hood seam into alignment without any cement. I also added mounting bosses to the rear of the fender section and bored corresponding holes to the body.
https://i.imgur.com/jRalrhh.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/Gegj7qh.jpg

I thought I'd get the wheels painted early on so they could be totally dry when I got around to installing them. The wheel details are molded on the soft side where the centers meet the rim making masking tough. The chrome is very weak too, not only poor coverage but it wipes right off even with the most careful handling. So I brush painted them. It took four kits and all sixteen wheels to get twelve acceptable rims due to the bubbles in and poor coverage of the chrome.

For a detailed explanation of how I did the painting, check this link out:
https://finescale.com/how-to/articles/2024/04/paint-two-tone-chrome-wheels-with-black-recesses

https://i.imgur.com/GRdzYDA.jpg

The rear window could fit better than it does on my earlier built up. I shaved a good bit off the front and rear edges of the three rear windows. The windshield fits pretty well but they were also shaved around the edges to compensate for the paint.
The first round of painting is done on the insides of the windows. The lines are not molded crisply and they are not symmetrical so I drew up masks and cut them on my plotter so they would all look the same.
https://i.imgur.com/OC9qNwp.jpg
The vertical straps on the windshields are on the insides and they are on the outsides of the rear windows. I just used masking tape for the second round; more time consuming than I expected…
https://i.imgur.com/QBX9MJz.jpg

Wow, looking forward to the progress updates here. The idea of the small magnets and metal is genius!

Thanks Potsie!

I planned to build them straight out of the box to see how they build up, but I decided to add simple ignition wires for fun. The engines were built the same except for the different frame color of the Sunoco car on the motor plate and the added ignition wire colors. I know the wires are not routed correctly for these cars, but then with the other inaccuracies of these kits it seemed like a little artistic license was warranted.

https://i.imgur.com/K8PG5OK.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/AGc98nw.jpg
After all they are reconfigured Fords with a few new parts.

The center nuts are not uniform or cleanly molded and half of them aren't even centered well. I decided to machine new ones out of aluminum. I should have drilled them out of the rims before painting, but I was in an out-of-the-box mindset when I started.
https://i.imgur.com/GwdO51X.jpg

The roll cage sides took a lot of time to clean up. They are not overly fragile, but there are plenty of mold lines and heavy draft in some areas with bold ejection pin marks. These all are reminders of the era these were produced. (The blue plastic of the Hot Wheels version is proving to be much more brittle than the yellow and white plastic.) And the tires in the Sunoco and Rain X cars took their toll on these parts too; more annoying clean-up… A lot of hand painting is needed too, but it's worth the time to bring out the molded in detail.
https://i.imgur.com/Ovc5h3w.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/3xSHiuq.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/5GKFrnu.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/wzsOs4k.jpg

The bodies have color on them; all decanted Tamiya sprays. From left to right, TS-47 Chrome Yellow, TS-44 Brilliant Blue and AS-8 Navy Blue.
The Sunoco body will get a different shade of blue for the final coat; the Navy Blue is just to cover the white plastic. I swapped the rear bumpers between the Hot Wheels car and the Sunoco since the latter is molded in white and it needs to be painted white for the former.
https://i.imgur.com/vugl3Fg.jpg
This is the Sunoco body now… TS-72 Clear Blue.
https://i.imgur.com/Q1SKPdT.jpg

I decided to decal the Rain-X car first. The decals are thin and quite stretchy and while that is normally a good thing since they do not work with solvents, it's like dealing with Saran Wrap during a windstorm. That makes it a challenge to get them off the sheet and onto the car without folding under and rolling over on themselves or sticking to a finger.
Lots of water to float them while uncurling the edges with a brush is best way to deal with it. They fit OK, but the main graphics don't cover all the way down on the front, rear and sides. I already touched up the front and rear.
https://i.imgur.com/YVCUjgr.jpg

Turns out there are some decals that don't fit at all and are better done with paint (like the Camaro lettering on the rear end) and many of them, and the placement instructions, don't match the real car on the box art. I split the difference on that as some are configured to fit where the instructions indicate and won't fit properly where the photo of the real car shows. I know it could be that the box art photos are as the car was at a different race from the one it was photographed for the reference used to draw the decals.
This is almost all of the kit provided decals applied. I still need to make a few (for the lights) before adding the last ones.
https://i.imgur.com/dBRJ30F.jpg

The Hot Wheels was the next up for decals.
While I wanted to use all the decals for posterity, I had to paint the blue on the rear bumper because the decal just didn't conform at all. Any overlap of the decal creates a darker color and being a dot pattern makes it impossible to match the cracks with paint. It's just as well; the blue decal was not even a near match for the color of the painted body.
https://i.imgur.com/cgugsEf.jpg

I added the black decals for the lights that didn't come on the decal sheet, now I can put the 33 decal on the left headlight.
https://i.imgur.com/uXxpT9h.jpg

Before applying the main graphics to the Sunoco version I painted the roof white.
https://i.imgur.com/zFdlBkG.jpg

I had to raid another kit for the decals as the ones in this kit had apparently been subjected to some very humid conditions and disintegrated before releasing from the sheet. The roof decals went on fairly well. Fluorescent inks can be more brittle than regular colors and I had a couple cracks from age to contend with even before they came off the paper, but surprisingly butting the pieces together yielded decent and acceptable results.
https://i.imgur.com/ccRE9Xz.jpg

All of the decals are on the Rain-X body. I'll let them dry for a while before clear coating.
https://i.imgur.com/Q81HCPV.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/eKg3OvK.jpg

All of the decals have been applied to the Sunoco car. It took about a week to decal. I had to do some touch up on the yellow decals that cracked and I added the SCCA decals that were not included in the kit due to licensing issues.
https://i.imgur.com/cHMJvcw.jpg

With the Hot Wheels decals being printed earlier than the Rain-X according to the date coding, I expected them to be more manageable due to more ink/less clear (equals more integrity) for many of the body wrapping graphics. Unfortunately they were more fragile and prone to cracking on the sheet even while still in the water and tearing during application. These CMYK U.V. ink printed (as opposed to screen-printed spot color) decals are usually somewhat resilient but apparently age may have taken a toll. They also, in this case, do not fit very well. I can already see there will be a lot of touch up painting done on this one.
After getting the main decals on and letting them dry I started touching up the cracks and areas that didn't fit/cover the body color. It's a challenge to make an equivalent to the translucent white decal with paint. (Even the black is not opaque.) I used Tamiya Pure White mixed with a tiny bit of the TS-44 to treat the cracks and mis-fitted areas to start.
There is still more touching up to be done before I apply the other decals, which will probably need to be touched up too…
https://i.imgur.com/WuNM3Zl.jpg
I blended white paint over the decals to soften the contrast between the painted rear end and translucent white side panels.
https://i.imgur.com/arlx2hL.jpg

I also had to touch up the side decals on the hood section. Orange was not printed in one part of the Hot Wheels graphic and it left a white area. Since the decals didn't line up with the body panels those areas needed to be hand painted in too. Unfortunately the decals are printed in a four color offset process, meaning all the colors are made up of dots, so there is no paint (or spot color) that can match any of the shades.
https://i.imgur.com/1PkhpCC.jpg
And the wheel wells needed to have the graphics painted into them as well because the decals did not wrap into them as they should. I used Tamiya LP paint for the red and white and some old Testors enamel for the orange. Close enough is as good as one can hope for with these dot pattern decal colors.
https://i.imgur.com/7Oyqf4k.jpg

Turns out I missed a few small decals that are applied on top of other decals. I'm going to blame it on trying to do too many projects at the same time. (In addition to these three I have nine other models in progress on my bench at the moment.)
https://i.imgur.com/NuvEpUi.jpg

The rear bulkheads also benefited from some tedious hand painting. Definitely worth the time if you're going to have the bodies removable.
https://i.imgur.com/qS5M8gj.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/DFcjXeM.jpg
The bulkheads fit pretty uniformly, but I was surprised at how differently each of the three engines fit into and lined up with the chassis since they all share the exact same parts. In the end I suspect it won't be noticeable.
https://i.imgur.com/seTCZSH.jpg

The exhaust pipes are molded poorly and fit together the same way. A lot of clean-up is required on each half of each pair. Then even more filling and sanded is needed after they are cemented together. The ends were different diameters on the left than on the right so I added the same size brass tubing to make them equal at the tips at least...
https://i.imgur.com/ZkATV89.jpg
When I installed the exhausts , the ends in no way would align with the holes in the body so I cut the tail pipe sections off and drilled pilot holes to pin them back together at a more appropriate relation to the body exits.
https://i.imgur.com/TObjO0t.jpg

The Sunoco kit came with decals for the ignition boxes. I used the same artwork to print copies for the other two versions. At this point, (due to inaccuracies of the kits), true accuracy is not as much of a concern as what looks good as long as it's believable regarding color choices.

That's the Rain-X chassis with the part installed. The blue boxes will go in the Sunoco car.

https://i.imgur.com/pCyLWvG.jpg

After I cleared the hood of the Sunoco car and it had dried for several days, some of the decals that cracked and I had thought looked OK after butting them back together had developed fissures at the same cracks where the dark blue now showed through. I blended in the same yellow mix I used earlier and a new mix for the red to hide them knowing it's a patch job, not a true repair.
https://i.imgur.com/qmEzp3M.jpg

The dashboards for the Rain-X and Hot Wheels versions came with decals.
https://i.imgur.com/b9ywoSf.jpg
I decided it wasn't worth my time to make decals for the gauges so I just hand painted the instrument panels as they came from the kits.
https://i.imgur.com/wOel5z1.jpg

Instead of building all three chassis at this point, I concentrated on the Rain-X chassis since the body was the furthest along. I needed to make the tailpipes fit on one so I'd know how to deal with the other two cars.
I went ahead with painting and decaling the individual parts for the other cars though. I used the extra seat belts from the left over Sunoco sheet (after clear coating them) for the Rain-X car and printed a copy for the Hot Wheels car. The Jack Baldwin lettering for the seat was not backed in white from the kit so I made a replacement decal for that too. I painted the seats dark gray for a little contrast against the black belts.
https://i.imgur.com/D1oqKyB.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/zWphhFo.jpg

The windows have been installed in the Rain-X car. They are not the best fitting even after all that sanding and trimming; the rear window is just too wide. And the windshield is a very "soft" fit with a good amount of load on it due to the flex of fitting the body on the chassis. They had to be held in place with CA.

For some tips on using CA to easily cement clear parts in without risk of fogging (or worse) check this out:
https://finescale.com/how-to/2024/07/cement-clear-parts-with-superglue-without-fogging

https://i.imgur.com/CD73Xco.jpg

The body doesn't fit too well over the chassis and the sides at the bottom do not want to meet with the chassis at all. I made some steel brackets and utilized more magnets to get the body to fit better and somewhat consistently line up to the chassis.
https://i.imgur.com/7waisIi.jpg

Whilst I am only able to login to he forum randomly, I always look to see what pearls you are building. Just to appreciate your expertise and garner any hints from what you are doing. I admit I would be very hesitant to use superglue around clear parts.

Thank you for the kind words. I've been using the technique I shared in the link for decades since I came up with it and have never ruined a clear part doing it.

Turns out the windshields need to be fully cemented to the opening for them to hold up to the spread of the body over the chassis. It popped out after a couple days leaving some of the black paint on the body, so that had to be cleaned up and the trim repainted. Now I know for the other two… The body & windshield did not fit well over the chassis either. The dash and windshield fight for the same real estate. So I notched the dash and trimmed the support bar to move the dash rearward.
https://i.imgur.com/E8OSy23.jpg

I'm pleased with how the patch job on the paint/cracked decal issue came out on the Sunoco hood. I know where to look, but it's not easy to see if you don't…
https://i.imgur.com/OiTNbAP.jpg

Wow, such a cool cars! I am glad that someone finally built them in a proper way! Congrats on your work, it is really stunning with all those excellent details!

Thank you Corrrado!

I thought I was going to be able to finish the decaling on the Hot Wheels car, but the last decal was the Z28 & bowtie for the rear and it was printed in white. It needs to be black since the back of the car is white. I used the kit bowtie and printed a new black Z28.
Finally clear coated after that minor delay...
https://i.imgur.com/AVrOHJq.jpg

I installed the windows in the Sunoco car and went for a much stronger cementing of the windshield after learning how much load the chassis puts on it from the Rain-X car.
For some tips on using CA to easily cement clear parts in without risk of fogging (or worse) check this out:
https://finescale.com/how-to/2024/07/cement-clear-parts-with-superglue-without-fogging
https://i.imgur.com/tvAmpju.jpg

I figured out how to get the brass ends I added to the exhaust to work with the kit provided exhaust tips. The body fit is not all that positive, especially if you want to be able to remove the body. And it manifested in the way the pipes exited the body non-uniformly. I decided to use the kit parts to make them look the same from the outside. I shaved the insides of the kit parts down and drilled them out to receive the modified pipes. I had to file the brass tips to fit too.
https://i.imgur.com/BYhL0sG.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/opDrh4u.jpg

The tires needed to be sanded and when I first got my lathe back in the 90's I made this nifty fixture that came in handy. I was surprised at how different the rears were in diameter when I trued them up prior to hitting them with a sanding stick. At least they were fairly round.
https://i.imgur.com/uf3P7uQ.jpg

Originally I was going to make all three cars have matching tire lettering as each kit has variations of the Goodyear Eagle decals. The Rain-X and Hot Wheels have lettering for radials, but they are not exactly the same size and the Sunoco has bias ply lettering. None of the decals match the molded in raised lettering so I applied them to what should be the inside walls. I wasn't in the mood to print two more sets of the bias ply versions so I went with the kit decals from each kit; inaccurate or not.
The Rain-X ones had so much extra clear it was a requirement to trim them, but they went on well. The Hot Wheels also needed the clear trimmed because it was poorly registered to the white letters, and they went on almost as well. Neither of those set work with decal solvents. The Sunoco ones required no trimming and worked well with decal solvent.
Rain-X on the left, Sunoco on the right.
https://i.imgur.com/ZklqdyW.jpg

The chassis for the Rain-X car is finished.
https://i.imgur.com/dG95uwa.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/YldEEU8.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/68RL3Ww.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/qyGKyqe.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/qMzCufn.jpg

The chassis for the Sunoco car is done.
https://i.imgur.com/2aoj1Vf.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/DSSh0sz.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/cV6MawR.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/BcSZ5Hr.jpg

The windows on the Hot Wheels were installed using the same process as I used on the Sunoco car, CA all the way. That's six windows in a row (on just these cars) and not a single smear or any fogging.
If you missed how I did it, here's a link…:
https://finescale.com/how-to/2024/07/cement-clear-parts-with-superglue-without-fogging
https://i.imgur.com/nkA4ZfV.jpg

Wow! I really can't express just how stunning these are.

Thank you Potsie!

The chassis for the Hot Wheels car is done.
https://i.imgur.com/M4Irno2.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/dpWEQqW.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/o3YFlUs.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/F7vl0qh.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/d64BJgZ.jpg

Finally, the last of three is finished.
https://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=7239554#post7239554