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NASCAR MODELS by MR NASCAR Bobby Labonte's 2004 "The Passion of The Christ" INTERSTATE Monte Carlo!!

Bobby Labonte drove this special scheme in the 2004 Daytona 500, to commemorate the upcoming movie “The Passion of The Christ”. The movie itself has inspired much controversy, but no one can argue the fact that this was a striking paint scheme. As soon as we saw it, Sam was all over it, and within a few days, had sent the roof and hood graphics to me. I added some 2004 contingencies as had been done for the "Born On" car and started to work on the print files. Our original plan had been to recommend the SLIXX 2003 regular sheet for all the side and rear gaphics, and the numbers. However, on the SLIXX sheet, many 2003 contingencies were embedded in the side graphics, making it virtually impossible to make an authentic 2004 version.

In order to address this, we put together a "Clean" version of the side graphics, with no contingencies embedded in them. The plan was use unique 2004's we had already developed, plus a couple more missing new ones, and use 2003 SLIXX contingencies where they were the same as 2004. Thus, a couple more weeks were added to the schedule while that artwork was developed.

The final result was what you see here - a complete set for the car, including roof and hood decals, plus unique 2004 contingencies, sized for use with the REVELL 2003 Monte Carlo. As planned I tracked down the “common” contingencies for the fenders from SLIXX 2002/2003 sheets to complete the model.

This was a very straightforward build. I prepped the body (already some flash on these molds!), and applied white PLASTIKOTE aerosol primer (warmed in tap water). This was sanded and a full coat of white was applied (I used a GM white touchup aerosol).

I then removed the hood, and masked off the roof between the rails, and sprayed the entire body green, using TAMIYA’s #35 Park Green, a close enough match to Interstate Green for my purposes. For maximum smoothness, all aerosols were gently warmed in tap water, to improve atomization.

(One thing i did miss was that the decklid spoiler needs to be black to match the car as it ran at Daytona. I was afraid of messing things up if i did that after the decals and clear had been applied, so left well enough alone. Frustrating thing was, I KNEW I needed to do that, just got caught up in the excitement of getting the decals on the thing to see how it was gonna look!)

At this point I assembled the kit chassis, which needed to be painted light grey. For added accuracy, I liberated the ignition boxes from the roll cage and installed them on top of the dashboard on the right side as mandated by NASCAR for 2004.

Once the paint had had a day or two to dry, I applied hood and roof and side (“lightning”) graphics from the sheet I'd printed. Those were allowed to dry overnight, then the rest of decals, including contingencies were applied.

The final touch was to apply several LIGHT coats of clear (TAMIYA TS13 from rattle can heated in hot tap water) after decals had had a couple days to dry thoroughly. then polishing with Turtle Wax compound.

In the race itself, other than a bit of an agricultural excursion en route to the pits on Lap 32, Bobby had a fairly uneventful race, starting 26th, and finishing 11th on the lead lap.