Group 5 Celica LiftBack [FINISHED]

Modeling Subjects Autos
1

I picked this kit up in Japan at Tamiya (on my second TamiyaCon tour). A good friend had asked me to snag it as it wasn’t readily available in the U.S. at the time. It’s been patiently sitting for over 18 years and is now on the bench for that friend’s collection.
It’s a reissue of the 1/24th scale '78 motorized kit; sans motor. It will be built out-of-the-box.
I’m amazed at how thin the wall thickness of the body is and delicate the molding is. While that is impressive, it is a concern due to the fact that the dark blue plastic is excessively brittle. (This I know firsthand…)

A few hours of scribing new and rescribing existing lines plus seam and sink mark removal resulted in this primer ready body.

2

Cool project. Following along. I sure do miss those Tamiyacons. Never got to go to Japan but what fun we had in Aliso Viejo

3

Me too. I was fortunate enough to attend every one of them.

Did demos at many of them too.

And the once a month Friday night meetings. Good group of people.

4

The wheels were painted and the tires hand-lettered with Tamiya acrylic colors.

5

The taillight panel is clean but the lights are a bit simplistic. Tamiya transparent colors over chrome.

6

Looks sharp. BTW I attended one of your demos :slight_smile:

7

Thanks!

Decaling or paint/polishing demo?

Those were the two most common I did there.

8

The “battery cover” or rear section of the interior. It’s just three pieces so I hand painted the details rather than mask anything.

9

I shot the body with some age appropriate Testors enamel, 1111 Blue. A fresh bottle from about 40 years ago; only a little younger than the tooling for the kit. It dried pretty nicely overnight, but this will have to set awhile to cure…

10

This is Harald Ertl.

11

The instrument cluster has some detail molded into the gauges. Keeping with the theme of building it straight out of the box, I hand painted them; mostly dry-brushing silver over black. And a drop of clear for the gauge lenses.

12

It was easier to install Harald around the steering wheel, then slide the seat under him.
The interior is not overly detailed, but then it was a motorized model/toy. The gauges on the console received the same treatment as the dash.

13

The chassis/underside is no more detailed than the interior, but a little detail painting and mild weathering serves it well.

14

The side window trim was done with Warbird Decals Chrome Stripes.
The windshield banner decal was the first one I applied to the exterior of the car, looks like they are on the brittle side. A small piece chipped out during application.

I filled it with a drop of acrylic black and sanded it smooth.

15

With that issue brought to light, and a little extra caution, the rest of the decals went on pretty well.

They are matte finish so clear coat (already planned) needs to be used.

I knocked down the blue paint with 1500 before decaling it.

16

The dull sheen of the decals absorbed the clear more than I expected so a little more clear was put down than originally planned. Sure does wake up the color. Plus being in direct sunlight…

17

Looks fantastic. What do you use for clear?

18

Lovely work so far!
But I think that “battery cover” is a fuel cell/
Can’t wait to see it finished!

19

Thanks guys!

The clear is The Matrix urethane. It a two part automotive product.

The battery cover is what that part is.

The original kit was motorized and that panel with the fuel cell detail is the cover you would remove to change the AA batteries.

20

Once the clear had cured I was surprised how much die back it had on the white panel decals. Since they had to be sanded/polished out the whole car needed to be as well. Made for a much nicer overall finish.
I used Hasegawa Flat Black Finish for the windshield frame. It works a lot like BMF but is a vinyl material. A hair dryer is helpful getting it to conform.
The glass, headlights grille door panels etc. were installed too.