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NASCAR MODELS by MR NASCAR Bill Elliott's 1999 QPC Taurus

But I don't think we need feel too sorry for Awesome Bill, who has enjoyed a great racing career in NASCAR. All thru the mid-late '90's he had a lucrative sponsorship in Mc Donald's, and a perpetual lock on "Most Popular Driver".

Bill started out back in 1976 drivin' a car fielded by his father. Ultimately, the Elliott's bought Roger Penske's first fleet of cars, when he folded his CAM 2-sponsored operation, and those cars were the basis of Bill's success, after Melling purchased the team, in 1982. (The red/white colour scheme, prior to COORS coming on board, was a carryover from the CAM 2 cars!)

Of course, we are all used to Bill's red McDonald's cars he ran while an owner-driver from '96 to 2000, but here is an odd little scheme he ran as part of a McDonald's promotion in 1999. Looks like something out of a heavy metal video (paging Jean Simmons...), or a Borg would race in Star Trek: Next Generation.......

Sam fired these graphics up to me a few weeks back, and I had no idea where, when or why Ol' Bill ran this car. But the graphics were Sam's usual top-notch quality, and just begged to be used.

After some digging, I found that this car ran in at least two races, the 1999 Pennsylvania 500 at Pocono in July, and the following week at The Brickyard. The car I built represents the Pocono car; below is a shot of the Brickyard car, under construction by Jose Gonzalez, also using 3 Amigo decals.

The buildup of this kit was pretty straighforward. Starting model was the first Exide Taurus kit from 98/99. As has been noted before, to improve the fidelity of this model, hog out the top of the grille opening as in these pics, and use photoetch screen, as the grille opening in the kits is much narrower than they ever raced with.

After cleaning up the body, I primed it with PlastiKote grey primer, from a warm (tap water) rattlecan. One important trick on these kits is to remember that the "parcel shelf" below the rear window on the body is actually part of the chassis, and needs to be chassis colour, in this case, I was using VW Mars Red. To ensure the red would be correct colour I reshot the rear with PLASTIKOTE White Primer, then the Mars Red. I then masked off the package shelf, and shot the entire body black, using Tamiya #14 Gloss Black Aerosol.

Once that had dried, I masked the car to paint the rear sides/quarter panels, up to the middle of the door area, silver. The break line on the door is not too critical, as there is a big fat number decal that goes from rockerpanel to base of window opening to cover it. Just take time to sand away the black/silver break after you demask, so there won't be a ridge under the side numbers.

Application of the decals went well, there is one large decal that fits between the roof rails with the number and other geegaws, representing who-knows-what, and a honkin' big hood decal, that was intimidating, but went down well with some SolvaSet to coax it. There is a neat part on the side number graphics, that added an extra step to the ALPS printing process, once I'd figured out what was going on. On artist's rendition of the car (Sam Bass?) there was a "bar" behind the number ball on each side, that went from the rockerpanel to the base of the windows. It was white-to-black fade. Reference shots I had of the actual car did not show this... puzzling...

Finally a good shot in the 1999 UMI Yearbook showed this was a Mylar-type strip with a chrome look, and gave a very subtle difference from the silver metallic sides at certain angles. I was able to break this out as a separate layer in Photoshop, and print it in silver, which has a good chrome-like appearance. It can be seen on the model if you look closely at the area behind the side numbers. Much more noticeable on the model in the flesh...It was DEFINITELY NOT a black-to-white-to-black fade!

Parallel to that, I was working on the chassis, using PlastiKote white Primer, with VW MARS Red touchup lacquer over top. Chassis buildup was normal process, with only oil lines added under the hood to fill out the engine compartment. Going back to a pre 2000 kit meant I had to once more fabricate my own fan-style exhausts, using the procedure Randy Ayers has laid out on his site.