Customising 1:64 scale model cars can be a quick, fun project to do. You can go full on and make modifications like adding 3d printed wheels for example, or you can just go with a simple repaint to give the car a new lease of life. 

In this tutorial, I'll show how easy it is to do a quick repaint of a 1:64 car that will only take you an hour to complete at most, this time using a Zuru Metal Machines car that I purchased from our local KMart store for a couple of dollars. 

First thing is to remove the car from the package (obviously!). 

It then needs to be disassembled by removing the chassis from underneath. To get these apart, I drilled out the mounting holes from underneath with my cordless drill. With those drilled out, the chassis could be removed and then the rest of the parts came with it. 

Now, if the body of the car is made of metal, then it is highly recommended to strip back the paint back to bare metal using a strong paint stripper. Luckily, the Zuru Metal Machines bodies are plastic, so all it needed was a quick sand with one of our SMS 1500# Sanding Pads to give the surface a slightly rough texture to allow the paint to grip better. 

With that done, the body was primed in SMS Surfacer Black. 

Our Surfacers work great on plastics like this, but if you have a metal body on the car you are repainting, then I suggest using our Etch Primer first to get best adhesion to the metal. 

Next up, a good coat of Jet Black was added to get a nice surface ready for the next layers. 

And then onto the next colour, Colour Shift Extreme Hyper Space! 

I set that aside to dry, and moved onto detailing the rims. These were first primed using Surfacer Black again and then using one of our HyperChrome Markers, added chrome on the raised areas. These were then top coated using Clear Green to create a candy effect on the rims. 

With that, everything was ready to reassemble! 

And there you have it, a quick and easy repaint to give your 1:64 scale cars a new look. 

Of course, you can always take it further and modify them using 3d printed parts, custom decals or fancy masking patterns, they are an open canvas for you to create whatever you like with them! 

Remember as always, have fun with your hobby! 

- Scott