This is the #3 Olympic special car that Dale Earnhardt drove in the 1996
Winston Select. It commemorated the 1996 Olympic Summer Games held in
Atlanta GA which was also the centennial celebration of the modern games!
The model is a 1995-6 Monte Carlo, the decals are from the Olympic car
kit, a regular #3 kit and slixx (contingency decals). This is also the
first kit on which I installed slab sides. Skirts and jack posts! The
procedures for this modification are the same ...except for 1 minor
difference...as for the T-Bird (instructions for which can be found by
Clicking Here) the difference is I used a wider strip of styrene (1/2 to 9/16 of an
inch) for the slab!
Painting and Decals:
The chassis and body interior as with all #3 Monte Carlos are chevy red
(this is one of the few cars on the circuit which isn't the standard light
grey). The body exterior is then airbrushed with gloss white. Once the
white is dry (1-2 days) I made a template for masking the blue front
section using the decals as a pattern, then traced this pattern onto the
body using these templates! I then masked off the front of the car using
magic transparent tape and plain white paper (I don't use newspaper because
I have found that has a tendency to leave ink behind when you paint... the
paint will bleed through and if the paper gets on the model it will leave
ink marks, especially on white!!!... I've found that printer paper works
well! I then airbrushed the front section with testors dark blue. The
decals as I said were from 3 sources. The Olympic kit: I used all of the
decals from the kit except for the contingency decals because as usual
there were no Winston, Busch or gatorade and the makeup of the rest weren't
right! I also used decals from a regular DE kit the snap on logos which
weren't included in the Olympic kit and a couple others which weren't
included. I then made up my own groups of contingency decals using decals
from a slixx contingency sheet (available at BSR, My Favorite Source for
decals). Once all the decals were dry (remember when you put the decals
on the sides ...the red stripes and #3 are all one piece... allow them to
dry throughly before applying the goodwrench and contingency decals!) spray
the entire model with high-gloss enamel (I use testors enamel in a spray
can) then paint the clear parts (as per instructions found by Clicking Here), mount the body
to the chassis (after allowing it to dry for 2-3 days). Once the paint on
the clear parts is dry install them on the body with clear craft glue and
you are done!
Complete instructions for painting and assembly of chassis, clear
parts, and construction of slab sides can be found at the bottom of the main page!