Well, what happens when you start with one of Ertl's best molds and do a little detailing and tweeking? You get a nice custom detailed model that looks great. The customer wanted a model that matched a 1:1 he had at one time. It was Hunter Green and lucky for him Ertl had a green one in production. But his 1:1 had had a black interior and white stripes. Well, a saddle interior can be painted and the silver stripes can be redone in white by yours truly. In this shot you can also see the gray paint on the grill insert which covers up some of that unneeded chrome.
At first I couldn't decide if the stripes should be removed and redone in decals or Pactra tape. Tape is easier to work with but I found it doesn't conform to contours as well as I'd hoped. So if it was going to be decals, I figured I should leave the silver stripes in place so the white decal stripes wouldn't be dulled by the underlying dark green paint. It took the better part of a week to get these stripes down well but the results were worth it. I had to glosscote the body to seal in the decals and this also seems to have enhanced the green metalic paint quite a bit.
The 1:1 the customer had back in the day also had the rear end raised just a bit. We took care of that detail as well. It's subtle but the rear is raised about 3/16" from a "stock" Ertl AMX. The door handles got a bit of satin foil to make them look less chromy like the real car's handles.
I wish I'd taken this picture at a better angle. The AMX 390's received chrome valve covers, chrome oil fill spout cap and a chrome air cleaner lid, a detail Ertl completely missed. Of course you can see the chrome on the lid but the valve covers are obscured by other engine components, but they are chrome now! The battery, hose clamps and radiator cap got details too. So did the fuel pump but it too is not visible.
The interior looked okay in saddle but does look better in black. The seat controls and dash knobs all got either chrome or painted details. With the repaint the shifter plate was lost so I foiled it too. It looks even better than it did before with just silver paint on it. I took pains to make sure the wood paneling on the doors and arm rests were preserved when I painted the interior parts.
The customer also wanted the undercarriage detailed. I was able to find a green metalic paint that was close. It was a little too dark so I had to use a little Scooter magic to get it to appear a little lighter, I think I'll patent that technique since it worked pretty well if I do say so myself! The white shocks are a special request and you can just barely make out the gold fuel pump. Man, the undercarriage of these cars are busy with colors!
