Another e-Bay purchase, another page for the site. Just a few days ago I closed a bid on a Kyosho Optima and paid too much (of course). You see I need an Optima for a runner but it had to have a few things. The first thing is the belt drive. The belt drive conversions on e-Bay are going for about $100.00 NIB. The other thing this runner would have to have is an original body. Most of the Optimas I see have aftermarket bodies. This is the way it looked when I opened up the box, dirt and all.
As you can see by the above images, this car is almost fully complete. The wheels and tires are off some HPI buggy. I will need a set of original Optima rims and the very hard to find Sand Super tires. The shock collars are also cracked, these are also very hard to find at a good price. A driver doll for the inside is also on the list for this runner.
After all the scrubbing, scraping and polishing here is the end result. The Optima is completely finished other than the driver doll and the fact that it's wearing Turbo Optima wheels and tires for now. I've got the proper rims but have yet to find a decent set of the original Sand Super tires. This body was very difficult, I'm not sure what type of paint was on this one, but it was fairly resistant to the brake fluid.
It's been a long hard road but here it is. Part of the reason this one has taken so long was the decals. That's right, the livery that this Optima is wearing was created by me. My decal reproduction possesses have been a success! Other than the decals the paint was a very difficult undertaking. If you are thinking of painting an Optima to match the box art, make sure you use pin stripe tape for the thin black lines. I used paint and it was the most time consuming paint job I've ever taken on.
There are two things left to do, the driver doll and if you look close you can see that the rear tires are not the right size. Even though they look the same, the numbers are different and they are actually larger. The rear tires were made for the Turbo Scorpion. If you are buying tires for an Optima on eBay make sure the the numbers on the side wall read 320/40VR18. Most sellers don't know the difference and will sell Turbo Scorpion tires and say they are for an Optima.
