07/29/2026
The Peugeot 307 WRX #7 is a VERY nice model. In fact, it’s proof that we all should mourn AUTOart’s decision to abandon 1:43… However, it has one issue: the livery is not complete. Since Marlboro Peugeot Total was sponsored by a tobacco company, AUTOart decided to not produce the model with its full livery 😖. Kind of stupid, if you ask me, since the real car didn’t have tobacco livery in the race 🤷♂️. Back in 2005 Germany already imposed bans on tobacco livery in sports events. Therefore the team’s cars only raced with the “Marlboro bar code” livery.
Since AUTOart didn’t make it right, it was up to me. Fortunately, I found on eBay a seller who makes and sells the correct decals. Well, kind of correct, to be more precise. What he made was the decals for the 2005 Tour de Corse #8 car. Fortunately though, the livery was almost exactly the same for the #7 from the Germany race. Or at least, the bar code graphics were the same, and that’s all I needed. So, come a chilly and cloudy Saturday afternoon, and I had a moding job to do 😎.
Usually a decal job like this is straightforward. Just cut the decals, loosen them in water, apply the decals – done. However, here things were a bit complicated. The door decals were a problem, because they covered the door handles. With that, I had to cut a slot on them so that the door handle could show. Moreover, the hood decal was a tad too long, and worse, the top should match the curve of the top of the bonnet. Nothing impossible to do, but I had to be very careful with the cutting. With that, due to the needed trimming, it took me almost an hour to place only twelve decals 🙄.
So, difficult decal job done, time to photograph my greatly improved WRX #7. I mount the Sony on the tripod, set up the rough road diorama and shoot away. Since the Sony α7 III is a really good camera, and by now I got the hang of shooting 1:43 models, I made the shots without paying much attention. Photo shoot done, I put everything away and then sit done for post-production on my computer. And what do I see? THE BONNET DECAL IS OFF-CENTER 🤦♂️! Arrrrggggghhh!!!! It’s nothing major, so I can leave it like that. Right? HELL NO!
I went to bed and decided to fix it, because I just couldn’t stand knowing it was wrong. OCD 🤔? Probably, but just a tad… So I got up on Sunday and went back to the shop. Fortunately, the eBay seller very kindly had sent a second sheet of decals as a backup. I cut the decal on the right places and applied. The result? Now the car looks good. Even so, there’s still the wing. Though I couldn’t find any good picture showing the area, on this one I can see that there are graphics there. Unfortunately though, this decal kit didn’t come with those three (?) graphics.
So, in the end, is it perfect? Nah… There’s the missing wing graphics. Nonetheless, I’m still mighty pleased about how it looks now. Even without the correct wing graphics it looks MUCH better now then when it came out of the box. Therefore, doing the math, I guess this was a true win 😎.
PS: If you want rally decals (specially), try Rallye-Miniature on eBay. Terrific quality and fast shipping, I don’t think I can recommend anyone better.