Tamiya Subaru Brat 

You did a cracking job!! Beautiful attention to detail. I purchased the Tamiya Subaru Brat in 1984 when I was 14 years old. It was very expensive for me at the time ($500 with a Futaba controller and extra battery) but I kept it all these years. I worked hard to earn that money mowing grass and clearing snow. It took a while for me to build and my Dad had to help me. There was no out of the box plug and play like today's r/c cars. I recently took the Subaru out of hibernation and installed modern electronics, like the ESC and battery. The car is much lighter than the original and much faster than when I raced it back in the day. It makes me smile and feel good anytime I get a chance to play with it even though I tend to break a different part each time I use it. So little by little I am discovering the weak very old plastic parts and replacing them with new bits. My kids now enjoy the same toy I did 37 years ago! It's a blast! I primarily make automotive repair vids but I do have a vid on how I "updated" the Brat for anyone interested. Thanks for the vid! -Glen

I've always wanted a brat since I was a teen. A real one .

I always wanted this truck when I first got into RCs. Turns out the chassis is basically a Tamaya Frog (or is the Frog a Brat?) so converting my frog to a Brat was pretty easy. By then the hard bodies were not as easy to come-by as poly, so I painted a poly carbon body red (less details than yours) and added the stickers. My little Frog became a Brat the rest of it's time with me. Thanks for the trip back to the good ol' days. Cheers.

Beautiful brat. As a kid I had a big tamiya catalogue with high quality white glossy paper. book of dreams haha. my top five was monsterbeetle, porsche959, hornet, brat and lunchbox. Your hobby room with all the box arts brings back all the memories! thumbs up

Hi Painting the hard shells is my favourite bit.I love masking and taking my time.I always put 3 coat of ts clear on them, to help protect from bad scratching after the inevitable rolls.I think your brat looks great. Ian

That thing looks mint. Fantastic work. You have the patience of a saint. About 26.39 into the video you realize you still had more to do. You sounded quite disappointed. These body shells really should come prepainted...

I like the way you just crack on with it. It came out great.

The finish is excellent, I just would not have appreciated how much detail goes into this if I had not seen this video. All your winter projects, paint wise, will be a doddle!

haha I feel the same way doing hard bodies. I'm my own worst enemy. I had to paint my OG Monster Beetle over twice. The first time, I was outside and as I was laying red paint, it started to rain and it was a beautiful sunny day. I had to sand it down and re-spray red. Then, it was in my basement sitting for a few weeks and something got on the body in some spots almost like a haze... So I sanded, re-primed and then Italian red again. Man too much work into this damn thing lol.... anyways, as usual your brat looks top notch. Great job my friend.

Absolutely fantastic, time worth spending, fancy one myself now

Nice! Always liked the look of the brat. 👍

Top job! Never looked better. Had forgotten about all the details on the body. Enjoy, just don’t roll it over....

Great effort in this restoration!! Good on you for all the patience you needed.

100% box art includes painting roof panel between the 2 glass panels. Also the rear glass panel in the bed could do with some colour. Great job and i agree its the most challenging tamiya bodyshell to take on 👍

Looks great, well done painting the badges 👍

Exhausting just watching.. Looks great Glenn. Beautiful. Gauranga

Thank you Glen, that completes the build series that got me back into RC, I had Brat at the age of 10 and 35 years later have just finished building my second. In fairness I've only painted the lexan body so far, and I had my Dads support painting the last hard shell. Great Job on this one, the result well worth the effort. Love the channel, love your dedication, enthusiasm and workmanship. A true chunk of my childhood relived :)

So much nostalgia 👍

Stop your whinging! Turned out mint and soooo worth the work! Well done. 👍

Maybe it isn't perfect, but it's good enough and it's yours. That's all that matters to me, at least. And I would drive it for sure!😉

Had one as a kid that dad built for us

What a great job. Congratulations.

Looks fantastic Glenn. Yes I have done one and yes it took forever and I didn't even put on all the details that you have. I did do the little bit of red in between the sun roof panels though. Such a classic Tamiya. Top work !

pink primer helps a lot when painting red it covers much quicker

You have inspired me to buy one of these Glen, I love your honesty and expression when you do these video’s. I feel your grief with how long these things take to do and it’s impossible to get things perfect. Great job 😃👍

Looks great to me well done

Painting masked or unmasked is a skill. After just watching this vlog, I remembered I had an original reissue shell still packaged. I've been building tamiya rc since 1982 (7 yr old) and always detailed by hand. Not sure how I would fair now at 45yr old. Down a mud blaster she'll 10yr ago and now curious to check my quality. Great Brat, an all time favourite of mine. Got my original on shelf and a chrome chassis rere.

Looks great! Thank you for being open and honest about not being perfect and just doing the best you can. I can totally relate to be challenged with patience when painting. Watching painting videos by others can be depressing because I know I can’t do that quality of of work. This one reinforced that that is ok. Great stuff on many levels. Keep it up.

Your skills are better then you think Glenn! Looks fabulous and one of my all time favourites for sure!

Thats turned out really nice Glen be proud of it 👍🏻

Turned out brilliant

Great build. Love the Brat ✌🏻

I watched a guy paint a customized Sand Scorcher. When he masked parts of the car off, he sealed the masking tape line with a TS clear spray and it worked thought I'd share his tip. Great job on the Brat. Just done a Monster Beetle in Metallic red and clear pearl.

Fantastic job Glenn, i would struggle to have the patience! I would love to see a bloopers video of all you clips that don’t make the channel. You’re comments & reactions are priceless

Done a mighty fine job on the Glenn, I've been hovering over the 'buy it now' button on a rerelease one of these all week because I always wanted one as a kid, but may now delay for a while. I've just finished a Tamiya custom truck so not quite sure I'm ready for another big painting job just yet!! haha. Great vid as always, you should be proud of that. Looks bob on!

I love the build and the level of attention to detail. You did a great job and I particularly like the Subaru badges with the black and then the silver details. The Brat has always been a favorite of mine because when I was a kid my dad drove one and I loved riding in the back! Great video man and thanks for letting us see the process.

Great work Glenn, keep em coming. 👍

Fantastic vid fella, really enjoyed watching the Brat take shape 👍

Another great job. I really enjoy your work!

I have owned 2 Subaru Brats and it took me a long time also but came out nice. Yours came out better. First one was box but the second I painted blue and looks good still without the stickers. Even though I love the box art I like the blue better it looks good still and it didn't take half as long to do.

Awesome Glenn you have excelled yourself there. Love it.

I ran a lexan brat body on my Monster Beetle back in the day. Great pairing and I love the real ones.

Does anyone in this money pit hobby enjoy the painting part? The taping, the touching up and rinsing out the brushes.😝 End of the day, you did a good job.👍🏻

Looks fantastic! I painted one myself, definatly very time consuming body to paint. Great idea on the headlamp decals. I will be doing that to my for sure.

I done one for my son 3 years ago 11 turn motor rear wheel drive what’s not to love 🤙🏻🇬🇧 one of the cool kits just lots of work

I think you've done a cracking job mate! Looks great!

Nice work Glenn, another cool build 😎👍🏻

Look perfect Glenn 👌. One of my favorites Tamiyas. Your patience is legendary, true to your name😁

Looks awesome Glen you've done a good job .....

that looks amazing mate and I am glad you did this as I have to paint one soon

Stunning job

Looks amazing Glenn, i did one years ago and still have it pride of place in my collection, so cheap for such a great display piece I could never sell it, with the indicators and stop lights if you paint them silver and let it dry well you can use a clear red and orange over the top and looks very realistic like real lights with 2 coats, lil modeling trick.

Smashing job!

Can't wait to start mine Christmas day

Hi thanks for advising. I am just about to start my brat

Man, I can tell by your overall tone that this was a HUGE challenge! But well done for preservering!! It looks superb, dude!!😁👍💯

That looks absolutely killer! While you were painting it, I was thinking to myself if it were me, I would have skipped the silver around the windows and bed. Mainly because I don't think I would have been able to do as good of a job. However, I must say it's all those little details (window trim, door handles, and especially the badges) that really make it pop! Your patience really did pay off on this one. As always, great content.

A proper mission for you Glenn, but it does make all the difference. The more detail you can do, the better they look. Top job. I personally enjoy the painting more than the build if I'm honest.

Bloody hell, lots of hard graft and patience, you reap what you sow. Fantastic Job Glenn, looks fizzin. 👍🏻😊

What a mission, but well done Glen lot of work nice job 👍👍

smashed it, looks fantastic

Looks great!

Amazing work my friend

Mate, totally agree with you on this body. Will send you a picture once its done

Great video. Such a simple looking shell, you'd never have guess it was so complex for painting. Makes you appreciate it even more..... but be so incredibly careful driving something that should be driven at full throttle. (Although mine has never gone beyond half!!!!)

This video is most timely as I am in the final stages of my re-issue Brat build. I am finding this to be as difficult if not more difficult than you did because I have gone for metallic red on the body plus I intend to spray the wheels, front bar and roll bar silver. I found the front and rear sections a complete nightmare and did not think to use the masking technique like you did, I have done a lot of it freehand and for fine details and correcting my mistakes I used a cocktail stick. A massive save for me was the use of a black paint pen for the side strips and a Molotow chrome pen with a fine nib for the window surrounds, the line around the rear bed, door handles and Subaru logos. The paint pens sit in the grooves like a stylus so no need to mask most of the time. Anyway, so good to see you struggle as much as I am doing, great vid Glen, thank you!

That looks amazing. I still own my Subura Brat that I got when I was a teenager about 40 years ago. I refurbished it a couple of years ago but I chickened out of all of the painting detail so it looks a lot simpler than yours. However, I still love it all these years later.

For masking areas like the window trim by the wipers, you could use liquid mask instead of tape. She came out looking great!

Hi Glen, you should switch from masking tape to liquid mask 😷, waaaaay better, and the heavier you apply it, the easier it is to take off. On polycarbonate shells, you can draw the outline on the outside of the body, and transfer it to the inside, using a sharp hobby knife to trim the inside mask where you need to remove it for painting and absolutely no bleed under the mask. It’s great to use and also quite easy as well. Anyoldwho, niiiiiiice video Glen. 😎👍👍👍🇬🇧 Ps....... you should always T-cut the body after you paint it to get rid of the orange 🍊 peel lol 😝 Pls.....I’ll send you my Subaru hard body to paint it for me lol 😂

Did a great job Glenn well done 👍 😉

Definitely worth the hard work you put in Glenn looks amazing 😎

Looks very cool mate , well worth the effort . Great work bud . All the best .........................

Now you made me want to do one two, because your end result looks so fine.

The car turned out great! The Subaru badges look awesome with the silver pen details. Great work!! Now we know why Tamiya provides a poly body; you would never want to run the hard shell after spending so much time painting it. I have one of these re-re's NIB and I'm thinking about going box art but with Coral Blue rather than red. The Brat is one of Tamiya's finest RC's. Cheers!

Looks great, fine job! I also remember the masking for the badges and stuff, all fun! 😂👍

Looks great!!!

Nice job Glenn. I think the Brat was hard work for you but I would say your efforts paid off. Looks top rate to me 👍

looks great

Turned out nice , the brat was my first Tamiya in 1983 and I bought a ReRe a few years ago . It’s still the hardest body to paint because of all the detail but once your done it’s a work of art . I was thinking of getting another body and doing it for a shelf queen, needless to say your video made my decision not to much easier 😂.

Loved this video. It’s been in my watch list a long while and well worth the wait. I was not aware of the amount of work required here, appreciate the honesty it’s exactly how I feel at the end of all that effort. Would I running it? The answer, No!!

Looks ace 👍

Nice work!

Fair play Glen.. it looks great.. so much work. I admire your patience there🤣🤣. Needless to say I won’t be doing one of those!!!. No point really because I would end up throwing it out the window half way through!!!!. Seriously though it looks fantastic

I did the trim with silver and black sharpie markers, it came out great

I’ve got a rerelease cheap waiting to be build over the winter... you’ve done an amazing job you really have come along way this year. I can no longer accept your false modesty you must surely be considered an experienced Tamiya builder by now 👍

I recently did a bruiser clone body to box art. Like you I’m not one with the greatest painting skills. Having said that, I was surprised out how good the body came out as well as how great your brat looks. I love the style of this kit. Definitely on my wish list.

Looks great!:)

Great job 👌.

Beautiful Job 😎👍

I had the same shell on the Mudblaster, yeah a lot of painting but with patience you can get very good results, when i used to bash my mudblaster very little paint would get damaged but the top of the roof between the front windscreen and the sunroof got cracked from a heavy tumble.

Well done glen it looks fantastic from my seat, I won't be trying it,😀😀😀

Great work Glenn! Lots of patience required for that shell but the end results speak for themselves I think!

Looks sweet , been thinking about a Brat , and a Pumpkin . I guess I'm gonna have to do some ordering.

Wow, that turned out well. After spending last month wrestling with the paint on a re re sand scorcher, I can feel your pain with detailed hard bodied cars.

Great job Glen 👍

Brilliant work mate 👍 I've just bought the re re so I've got it All to do 😱😁

Nice Job Glenn really appreciate your points on painting....looking forward to owning a Subaru brat but the classic one not the rere.

I had one of those I bought it when I was 18 I sold it last year I would love a new one

Nice job Glen👌 Last time, I did the Isuzu Mu in orange. So much masking😬. Ended up not driving much because I did not want to scratch it and a year later I sold it to a collector. I want to run all my cars. A Black clod will be my next hard body rc car for sure 😊

Looks ace bud definitely worth the hard work 👌 cant wait till mine lands after seeing this 😉👊🏼