Detailing a Corgi 1/43   HILLMAN IMP

This is a very special car in my life... It was our family's first car, my father had bought it when he was in the U.K. and had it shipped to Turkey in 1964. It was most probably the only sample too, by then. I had a thought of replicating it, and the biggest scale available was Corgi's 1/43, which I bought from ebay.
 
 
 

17 December 2006: This is how it arrived. Signs of wear through the years...
I disassembled the model.
I scraped the paint by brushing automotive paint remover throughout.
I sanded the base metal and applied putty on the rear area where mold marks made unequal levels on the body.
24 December 2006: I sprayed a base coat and machined the headlamp lenses to concave reflectors with Dremel.
31 December 2006: The steering wheel had to be transferred to the left since our car was LHD. I cut the place for the steering column.
I machined the place for the steering column in the dashboard too...
07 January 2007: Our car was white with black interior, so I painted it accordingly. I applied BMF to the bumpers and reflectors. I scraped the paint over the door handles, drip rails, emblems and scripts to reveal the real metal below.
I filled the reflectors with drop-gel in 3 layers, to depict the headlamp lenses. I painted the front and rear signal and stop lamps with clear glass paints.