Enhanced Diecast: Hot Wheels 1:64 Ford GT40

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to ‘upgrade’ a Bentley Continental GT3 with some leftover paints I had lying around. When I ordered the Bentley, a different car also caught my eye: a diecast GT40 MK1 in Gulf livery. Being the racing fan that I am, I couldn’t miss the opportunity to also own a piece of racing history.

While the two arrived simultaneously, I wanted to try the Bentley first since it seemed like a less difficult job. During that first enhancement, I learned a couple of things. Among one of those lessons learned was that my brush was a bit too big for the job, putting me off from trying for now.

I had ordered some fine brushes of Aliexpress, but their delivery kept being delayed. Finally, yesterday, I received the brushes in the mail. This meant I had a green light to tune up this GT40!

Before

In the picture below, you can see everything I used in this project. I used one of these fine brushes, and most importantly: a toothpick. More on that later. I also used a couple of pictures of multiple GT40’s for reference, such as this one, this one and this one.

And here is what the car looked like before:

After

Because I had no blue or yellow paints, I had to be careful not to make any mistakes: I wouldn’t be able to mix the base colors of the diecast to touch up any errors. Fortunately, I discovered that by wetting the tip of the toothpick, I was able to scratch off any excess paint when it was still somewhat wet.

The new brush did an admirable job for its price (~€0.50 per brush). First, I added black details on the bumper, hood, engine cover vents, the rear and side air vents. I also thickened the black line around the headlights.

I continued adding silver details on the mirrors (seeing how some MK1 GT40’s had chrome mirrors), the bolts and straps holding the panels in place, the doorknobs, the exhaust, the gearbox and suspension. I also painted the outside of the rim silver, since some cars seemed to have that too and because I like two-tone rims.

I finished up by adding some foglights in the front bumper in white, and red for the taillights. I tried a bit of shading in the taillights by mixing both red with white and red with black.

What does that all look like? Well, look no further than the pictures below:

Please keep in mind though: these photographs make the car look decently sized and my paintjob a bit rushed. I can assure you, to the naked eye these blemishes are hardly noticeable.

For more information on the painting process, view my earlier post about the Bentley!