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Seat Leon II. Street version

The following work was commissioned by a customer who wanted to gift her sister a copy of her cart at 1/32 scale, a second series Seat Leon, recreated from a Scalectric WTCC Seat Leon.
Among the WTCC and street model there are many differences, but some are obvious, such as the wheel archs or the front apron diferent shape. The intention was not to reproduce the car faithfully due it would have required a lot of work to match the shapes of the street model wheel arches and I had not enough time precisely, but do some simple modifications, paint it in a tone as close as possible to the original car and odd detail more.
This is the car they asked me to reproduce a 2005 Seat Leon II painted in a nice dark metallic blue with green highlights and some custom stickers.

Seat Leon II street version Seat Leon II street version

And this is the Scalextric WTCC Seat Leon to transform.

Seat Leon II street version Seat Leon II street version

First off all, disassemble the body being careful not to damage any parts and remove all paint. For to disassenble the body I used a soldering iron to melt the plastic and separate the pieces. Once clean of parts,immersed the bodyshell in isopropyl alcohol for two hours. Alcohol acted softening the paint and was very easy to remove it scratching around with a wooden stick and a toothbrush. In some places the paint was more seized and need to be removed by sanding lightly with fine sandpaper.

Seat Leon II street version

As I said, the changes in the body were minimal since the time I had to finish the job was not much. So left the wheel arches as it were but if I made a few small changes such as altering the top of the rear bumper, removing two bulges the racing car has in both sides. Also plugged with caulk the hole where the right exhaust was.

Seat Leon II street version

At the front, modify the bottom of the bumper with putty, and opened the holes on each side of the central air intake, as the street car has. To cover them, with the same shape cut two pieces from a dumped chassis.

Seat Leon II street version

After these slight modifications, apply one coat of primer to match the surface and fix small errors that might have remained. With the primer well dry, we apply a couple of coats of final paint. It is a metallic blue with green reflections. The paint was a mixture of Tamiya acrylics reference X4 (blue), X5 (green) and X11 (metallic gray). The result has been very good, the paint covers homogeneously and the tone is quite similar to the original car.

Seat Leon II street version

The original car tires are five spoke but the scale car ones were a 6 spoke so I replaced the original wheels for a Cartrix 5 spoke Speedline ones, which although not identical to the original they are rather similar. A coat of aluminum spray paint left them ready for installation.

Seat Leon II street version

As the exterior of the car did not allow me many frills, I focused on improving the interior a little nit. I hate to make a decoration of a street car and leave the interior of a racing car with a driver, roll bars and other, so dismounted inside with the intention to improve it. First, let the tray bare and plug the holes where the roll cage was anchored. Then I cut and adjusted styrene strips to the sides of the cabin.

Seat Leon II street version

Of course, it could not miss a comfortable seating in a street car, built on top of a plastic base to which I glued putty and then gave shape with sand and lime until let them similar to the orginal seats. The headrests are separated pieces and then glued to the seat body parts.

Seat Leon II street version

And with all the pieces finished stuck to the tray car this was the result:

Seat Leon II street version Seat Leon II street version

I´ve never thought to do the detailed interior would take so long but seeing the result was worth the effort spend.

Continuing with the bodyshell, I painted in its final color. To the original mix I added a little bit of blue and got a very similar tone to the original car. I also painted details such as door handles or the background of the tail lights.

Seat Leon II street version Seat Leon II street version

With the paint completely dried, apply the first coat of automotive lacquer to protect it. As it dryed finished the plates. The car plates in themselves were a decal affixed to a thin plastic strip 0.25 mm. thick. The intention was that the plastic strip blow the white background of the plates plus get both were parts separate to the car and not just part of the decor, to get a more realistic look.

Seat Leon II street version

The varnish was well dry and placed the decals to decorate the car. Being a dark car decals not emphasized much as are printed on transparent paper. After placing applied the second coat of automotove lacquer to protect the decoration.

When assembling the car, I had to make a few modifications to the interior because it did not fit properly. In the following photo is marked with an arrow the places where I had to cut inside. Also, I went to paint in a darker gray than the first time to get a tone more like the original car, although it can be not much appreciated in the picture.

Seat Leon II street version

The dark color of the windows is painted inside with matte black acrylic paint to give a appearance like tinted windows of the cars. The mirrors were originally red top and painted it metallic gray.

And the final result after fitting all parts of the car was this.

Seat Leon II street version Seat Leon II street version Seat Leon II street version Seat Leon II street version Seat Leon II street version Seat Leon II street version

I would have liked to get a slightly more colorful decals to stand out more in decor but inkjet printers have their limitations when making the decals, especially those made over transparent paper and are applied on dark colors. In fact, one of the decals that more personality gives the car, the cross of Asturias over the back window, virtually unseen. It is a subject that I have pending with this car. Otherwise, I´ pleased with the result, and her owner too. That is a double satisfaction.

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