Hot Wheels Maserati Mistral restoration is complete!

I've spent some odds-and-ends of time finishing the Maserati restoration. It went fairly well except for chipping the paint during a test fit of the chassis, which required the body to be resprayed. 

At the end of the previous post in this series I was ready to strip the old, original paint from the body. I wasn't sure what to use for a paint stripper, so I decided just to drop the body in Super Clean and leave it overnight. Next morning the paint was soft and loose. Some scrubbing with a bristle brush under running water removed most of the paint. The photo on the right is the result. I then used a dental pick to clean paint from the panel lines and a few areas where the paint refused to let go. After that, I polished the body with a small wire brush attachment in my Dremel.

The chassis was a gloppy mess of thick, black enamel. I don't think the fine little springy axles had much spring as they appeared to be stuck in place. Although, the wheels did turn.

Some careful poking and prying with tweezers and an Xacto knife popped the axles free. The hardened enamel was then scraped from the wires. 

The wheelless chassis was then dropped in Super Clean and left for several hours to soak. The usual process with a scrub brush, dental picks, and the wire wheel was used to clean this piece. The front bumper also underwent the same cleanup process.

And this was the result. The wheels are considerably springier now that the wires were de-glopped. The chassis had a slight upward curve from when I pried it from the body back in the '70s, so I straightened it out with a pair of pliers. I also carefully straightened the wheels so they wouldn't look quite so misaligned. 

We've been lucky weather-wise and there was a mild day when I could spray the body outside. After several light coats this was the result.

After hardening for a few days I tried test fitting all the components and wound up chipping the paint on the front :-( So, a fix up and another round of painting, drying, and then spraying with several light coats of Testors Gloss Cote. 

Then there was another round of parts fitting and gluing the components in place.

The front bumper is attached to the chassis with a medium thickness superglue. The chassis is attached to what remains of the body pins with Weld Bond. 

There are still some gaps in the chassis to body fit, but nothing extreme. I only did the minimum amount of chassis and body bending as I didn't want to risk any serious damage. 

That blue image is what remained of the toy until a few weeks ago when I accidentally found the old chassis and bumper.

I didn't try any wheel restoration, so it's still got the 'racing aged' ones from it's speed demon career in the late '60s and early '70s :-)

I brush painted the red tail lights. I think the toy originally had the headlights painted silver, but I didn't try that on the restoration. After having to respray the body once, I didn't want to press my luck and have to do it again.

And that's that. A pleasant little project and an interesting diversion. 

It's easy being green

Since I probably used the same type of paint on the body as I used on the interior I decided to soak the body in Super Clean and see what happened. I dropped it in just before dinner and checked on it afterwards. The blue was very loose and some light work with a stiff brush removed most of it, and maybe some of the original green too. 

The photo gives a better idea of the match between the original paint and the Tamiya I plan to use. Close, but not identical. Also, the original paint is likely worn and dulled due to age and having an overcoat of brushed on blue enamel removed. That jar of purple fluid is Super Clean after it had been used to strip the paint from the interior and the body. I started fresh and you can see it's a bit cloudy now, but still good for more work. I'll continue on to see if it can remove the original green. If not, I'll need to buy something more powerful.

Maserati interior cleaned up

I did some work on stripping the paint from the Maserati's interior. Back in the '70s I painted with Testors' enamels, and that's likely what I used on this. I wasn't too sure what was best for removing this paint, so I stuck with what I knew, and let the unit soak in Super Clean. After 10 minutes or so I used a small, stiff brush and a fine metal pick to remove the much loosened paint. Several rounds of this stripped off just about all the old stuff. After reviewing the digital images I see a few paint flecks still stuck on in some odd places, but they shouldn't be hard to remove. The interior looks more-or-less ok now, so I'll move on to cleaning up the body.

Maserati green?

I dropped by the hobby store today and saw they had a can of Tamiya TS-20 Metallic Green. It looks pretty close to the body's original colour - you can see a bit in the wheel well that I managed to overlook way-back-when when I brush painted on the blue. Now, to find some suitable paint stripper.

Trial fitting the Maserati's chassis & bumper

Rubber cement was used to temporarily hold things together

 After carefully prying out the interior and windows I found the chassis and bumper fit quite well on the body. However, the fit isn't too good with the interior and windows in place. I'll need to think about where to make adjustments, but with the body, interior, and windows undamaged (except for a small crack in the back window) it should be possible to make a reasonable restoration. And I think Tamiya's TS20 Metallic Green spray paint might come close to matching the toy's original colour - which you can see peeking out from the front wheel well.

With this kind of luck I need to buy a lottery ticket!

Being partially insane I decided to go through every single drawer in my old spare parts cabinet, and by some minor miracle I found the torn-off bumper and grill stashed amongst a pile of old plastic parts for 1/24 scale model cars. Good grief, chassis in a box of old papers, and bumper in a drawer of styrene cast-offs!

Well, the chassis and bumper are a bit twisted, so the fit isn't too good. Maybe some judicious work with pliers and epoxy might do the trick. It'll never be a perfect restoration, but it'll at least have sentimental value. I wonder if I can colour match the body's factory green?

Maserati Mistral chassis found!

Hot Wheels Maserati Mistral

The last time I showed this Maserati Mistral Hot Wheels car it was in a pretty sorry state and missing its chassis. While rummaging through stuff from my parent's house I stumbled across a Hot Wheels chassis on which was stamped 'Maserati Mistral'. I dug up the body and attached the two together. Not a bad fit, although the chassis is a bit bent. If I'm lucky enough to find the still missing front grill and bumper I'm going to try my hand at restoring it a la Marty's Matchbox Makeovers. The search continues!

Hot Wheels Maserati Mistral

The word Maserati had a certain allure for reasons unknown, so this diecast was always one of my favourites. Too bad all that's left is the body and interior. The original was green and the blue is a repaint - and it was repainted with a brush!  Maybe it could be restored.

My neighbourhood is experiencing creeping gentrification. There’s a guy down the street - an architect who built a fantastic modernist house where a pleasant 1940s vintage bungalow once stood -  who owns a new Maserati. It’s a beautiful machine, but I suspect if he knew what I subjected its miniature namesake to all those years ago, he wouldn’t even let me glance at his :-)