Completed the move of the 124Spider badge, and added one of those cheap metal Abarth scorpion emblems you can find on eBay/Amazon. Paid $8 for mine, a couple bucks more than some, so I could have it sooner, rather than later...
Amazon.com: UAUTO 3D Zinc Alloy Metal Pattern Badge Decal Sticker Emblem for Auto Car Motorcycle (Abarth-Silver) : Automotive
www.amazon.com
Unfortunately, I seem to have burned the clear in the area where the 124Spider badge was originally. I thought I had managed to get away without a scratch, but in a certain light this afternoon, I caught the shadow of the badge in the original location. I'll have to see if I can get it to buff out...
Being a life-long Star Wars geek, I've had a tradition since the first moment I had my driver's license. I like to reference the scene in The Empire Strikes Back where Han Solo and Princess Leia hide from the Empire by hitching a ride on the back of a Star Destroyer by hiding a small Millennium Falcon on the back of all my cars, trucks, motorcycles and even boats. I can't tell you how many times I've had people literally
freak out when they see it, want to know where I got it or how I did it.
I've been doing this for over 30 years now. I started in the 80's with the old Kenner diecast Falcons, and since the 90's, until recently, I had been doing it with the diecast Falcons from the toy company Galoob, makers of MicroMachines back in the day. Here's the very first Galoob I ever did, having been moved from car to car to car over the years, currently enjoy its golden years permanently attached to my Meyers Manx...
Unfortunately, Galoob ceased to exist some years ago, and getting ahold of these Falcons became a bit expensive. Thankfully, Mattel began making their own version a few years ago through their Hot Wheels brand. Very cheap at $4 or $5 each, I have gathered a bit of a horde of them, and hopefully have enough to see me out for all the vehicles for the rest of time.
As you can see, the Hot Wheels version is lacking in terms of painted details, the nature of a mass produced, inexpensive toy. I took a week and fully detailed the one for the Spider, marking each of the panel gaps, the correct painted hull panels, rust and soot where appropriate, and 12 (twelve) coats of matte clear coat to protect it.
I ground the bottom flat, and epoxied the ship to a coin case, for collector grade silver dollars, which I had epoxied solid and painted. Initially I was going to mount it to the rear bumper, next to the license plate. But, the more I looked at the car, the more I felt this would detract from the elegance of the car too much. I was quite torn. I didn't want to lose this lifelong tradition, and nor did I want to change the level of class I was trying to create in the rear of the car.
I was pondering the rear of the car, in my pondering chair in the garage, planning the 124Spider badge move, when it came to me... the wind deflector.
Now, the rear of the car remains clean, and elegant, and the Falcon is visible, but hidden in plain sight, exactly how I like it. On my drive today, I caught a couple teens in a clapped out Chevy Cobalt, taking a picture of the back of the car, and judging by the huge smiles and the thumbs up, and the Star Wars stickers in their back window, they had spotted the Falcon.