“How To” Project- A Matchbox Premiere Transition

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-“How-To” Project-

A Matchbox Premiere Transition

By: MINI-MOTORS, Inc.

When Matchbox first released what was later known as Matchbox Premieres They were called WORLD CLASS. The funny thing about these castings, at least the first coupld releases, is that the interior was deleted and mirrored glass inserts were placed in the casting. While they had real rubber tires and extra detail, we have always felt they were missing the realism that an interior provides. With a World Class Porsche 944 and a toy show Regular Line Porsche 944 (a bit south of mint) we set out to remedy the original casting.

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The first step was to disassemble both castings completely and determine what pieces would relate to the “re-build”.

As the castings were identical except for the glass and the interior, the process was fairly easy.

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The pieces to be used were then rinsed to remove any residue, grease and finger prints from the disassembly.   The chasses was left intact with the wheels as there was little to change. We opted not to detail the chassis on this project. We also test-fit the pieces to make sure everything would work during the final build.

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The body was next. Not liking the large name tampos on the sides we opted to remove them to clean up the car lines. The process we used is clearly laid out in a previous How-To we posted:   >CLICK HERE<   to see that process. Some additional small details such as light touch-ups, etc. were also completed.

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The cleaned and touched up body is shown below.

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Next the glass was cleaned more thoroughly. The yellow tint was factory made, however it seem to be toning/browning. Using a mild mixture of bleach and water the glass was immersed, scrubbed with a toothbrush and immediately rinsed. This was repeated a few times to help removed some discoloring and clean the embedded grime. While it did not remove the yellow tint from the factory, it did lighten the color to a more realistic shade.

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The clean glass is show below.

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The interior also needed a more aggressive cleaning. The piece went into clean tap water with mild detergent and scrubbed with a toothbrush.

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Once dried, the interior was given a couple coats of Tamiya Flat Earth XF-52 (taupe) and, once that dried, some details were highlighted with dark brown and silver. We like using the Tamiya paints for interior work as they adhere to plastic quite well, cover completely in 1-2 coats, offer a wide variety of colors for contrast and detail work, and are water soluble for quick clean-up.

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The casting was then reassembled and “glued” at the rivet point using JB Weld.

Pictures of the completed casting:

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We have a couple more of these pieces waiting for conversion and hope to post future transitions……. Just as a note, the “used” body was not without its destiny. The body was stripped and set aside for a later project sans the interior and glass.

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