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NASCAR MODELS by MR NASCAR

Bobby Hamilton's "Marvin The Martian" Monte Carlo!!


If Salvador Dali had been a cartoonist, he would've worked for Warner Brothers, and he'd have been the chief cartoonist on the Marvin the Martian cartoons, with all those surreal Martian space/landscapes! What great imaginations, and creativity, these guys showed!!

Bobby Hamilton drove this colour scheme in the 2001 Monte Carlo 400 at Richmond in the fall race, for Petree Racing, with the officious little Martian and his weird poochoid sidekick gracing the colour scheme... For that race, Petree was one of a number of different Monte Carlo owners that had opted for special LOONEY TOONS based colour schemes, featuring some of the favourite TOONS classic characters from over the years.

Sam Lopez came up with these great graphics, along with those for three other TOONS-related schemes, that had not already been done as decals. All these now grace my display cabinet, and the decals are available from 3 Amigos!

Everything you see on this model, except the fender contingency decals, are on the 3 Amigos sheet we have put together. Contingencies came from the SLIXX 2002/2001/2000 individual sheets. (As with the other three, I actually took the time to lay them out exactly as in reference shots...)

The starting model for this project, and the other three in the series, was the REVELL ProFinish Monte Carlo kit, which, as I have indicated before, is far more accurate bodywise than the regular kit. This model is built box-stock, no changes were made to the body or chassis, except the addition of seatbelts.

The main challenge in building this model, as with the others in the series, is the fogging in of the background colour on the lower half of the body. Rather than go through the entire explanation once more, Click Here for the gory details on the fogging process, described in my RoadRunner write-up. Only difference is, you don't need to add the sand-coloured fogging, just the white. This car in 2001 used a solid colour (non-pearl or metallic containing), and from my references, this car had a slightly more sombre colour scheme, dark blue, with a more gradual fade-to-white fogging pattern than the others. This allowed for an appropriately alien-looking Mars-scape... a dark, solid red-toned blue, Toyota 8A1 (1983-87) Medium Blue aerosol touch-up lacquer (CTC 47-0366-0) did the trick for me, appearing to be a very close match.

The fogging trick as described in the RoadRunner writeup was also used on this model, using a basic white touchup lacquer sprayed into a bottle from an aerosol can, with an extra 50% of lacquer thinner added. I took my time, working slowly around the body, using very fine atomizing, to allow maximum control applying the white for the fogged areas. Again, I came back with some of the medium blue itself, over the white, to get the proper rate of colour shift in the fogging. Once all the paintwork was done, I applied a couple coats of TAMIYA TS13 clearcoat,to give a nice, smooth suface for the decals. Decals are simple to apply, I made sure to trim close to the graphics, to minimize carrier film on the model.

First step was to apply the martian backgrounds around the base of the body. Once these had dried in place, the rest of the graphics were applied. After the body had had a couple days to dry completely, I applied some LIGHT coats of TAMIYA TS13 clear (heated in tap water), and after two or three coats, lightly wetsanded the clear to knock down the edges of the graphics. One more medium coat of clear, some polishing out with Turtle Wax, and it was done. The final model from this series to grace the cabinet.

Marvin and Bobby managed to accomplish something none of the other three Amigo/Tunes cars did in the race. They Finished!! Started 23rd, finished 13th!! There was no "Loud Kaboom"....

The Four LOONY TUNES from 3 Amigos!

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