Ah, the Mini JCW (John Cooper Works) Coupe body. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of the stock paint scheme that’s suggested for this body. I decided to venture out on the interwebs and seek out my own flavor theme.

Above is the clear body with stock decal set. I wasn’t sold on the Lion theme and the silver/red.

A close up of the stock body. I trimmed it out first before washing it and applying any masks.

So.. if I didn’t want to do the stock box art for this body.. what did I want? Well, I didn’t know… So I searched around and found this amazing car rendering on DeviantArt.

Now, I don’t drink… but this color combo is right up my alley. I love the graphic styling as well. It was a perfect fit. I did some research and found the artist who did the rendering was Russ from Dangeruss.net, an amazingly talented designer and illustrator (check out his work!). I reached out and asked permission to use his design for this car. That probably was a bit beyond what was required, but I respect the copyright laws as best I can and try to give people their dues.

It was a little hard to make out some of the details (like the back of the car), and Russ even was willing to send me these raw files showing me the complete design! Awesome guy! Thanks SO much!

So with that in hand, I took to the vinyl plotter and my design software and cut some masks.

This probably would have been easier to freehand with liquid mask, but those lines are pretty thin, and I wanted them to be super crisp.

Well, here she is.. all painted. The windows look super dark inside under the lights. I used a tint from Spazstix. I also painted the mirrors to math the rendering. The arch on the sides are a little more subtle than the original rendering but I was happy with the result.

This was my first car where I had to paint light buckets. I painted them with Spazstix Mirror chrome. They look amazing mounted in the body.

Next up were the wheels and tires. I went with the standard Tamiya 60D Super Grip tires.

The included wheels in the kit have that same black chrome plating. They are the spoked “swift” style wheels and look pretty slick.

I used hard Tamiya foam inserts (not pictured) and mounted them up.

Now for the final reveal! After several hours designing and printing the logos, the car is ready for the track!

I followed the rendering as close as I could. I made a few minor adjustments like on the number plate.

Overall, here it is though in all it’s glory. I took a ton of photos for your viewing pleasure.

So, that concludes our build up. It was a very fun little build. I absolutely cannot wait to hit the track with this car. I’ve been told they will be running these when there are enough to make a class at CRC Raceway in Rome, NY. It has also been made an official class at Buddyboys R/C in South New Berlin, NY for the upcoming winter season. As I mentioned in the beginning, I also plan to make it out to R/C Kinetics in Troy, NY as well to test it on asphalt. Then of course if I want to drive a little, I could hit the next official TCS event at RC Madness.

I’m very excited to start racing this mean machine and get a taste of what everyone is raving about this class. All I hear is how fun the class is and how close the racing can be when sticking to TCS rules. It should be a great time, and I will keep everyone updated and hopefully post a full review later. Thanks for reading!