Painting and Detailing a Ferrari P3 Sports Car
For the Morrissey Group III Pro Series "What-if " Sports Car
By Rick Thigpen
Time to paint and detail the body for the Morrissey "What If" sports car.
The replica Russkit wide rear wheels are very deep. Here's how a Russkit wheel insert looks pushed all the way down into the wheel:
That's not quite the look I'm after so here's my fix. A couple of plastic washer Zap glued to the wheel insert will do the trick:
The insert installed:
The car ready for paint:
I've got to get the Ferrari P3 painted but my painting skills are marginal. I've searched the hobby shops looking for a small paint brush that doesn't shake in my hand but with no luck! So what to do to paint all the trim around the windows, windshield wiper, etc, etc. I tried it again free hand and I suck. So I washed it all off with thinner and did this:
On an old tech block I cut strips of tape with a 6” scale and Xacto knife. I left the strips long so my big mitts could hang on to them and started masking. Below the windshield wiper is finished and I'm painting the side window trim and rear engine cover. This process takes forever but at least it turns out OK for me. I should have taken a picture of the windshield wiper done free hand.....boy, what a mess.
I made some exhaust pipes out of 1/8" aluminum tube and glued them to a piece of hobby shop plastic. I cut out the molded in pipes on the body:
To spice up the Russkit Lotus 40 interior a bit I came up with a Kustom shift lever and boot made out of a 1/16" axle retainer, a piece of pin tube and a pin that came in a new shirt:
Here it is installed:
I also ditched the Cooper wheel inserts for some BWA Lotus 40 repops. The real car had 5 spoke knock off wheels painted gold. These are close enough for me:
Here's the finished car. I might swap out the decals for Russkit numbers in the future:
My Borla exhaust:
The interior and the results of my masking efforts on the body:
This is Rick Thigpen's work (says so in the title)... 
