I’ve wanted to put together a police car body for my TC4 drifter for a while now, but until recently I didn’t have a clear idea of what I wanted it to look like. A Dodge Charger in classic black-and-white would be great, but there were a couple problems with that. First off, I had a heck of a time finding a 1/10th Charger body anywhere, and even if I had found one I wasn’t 100% sold on typical U.S. police livery. I started looking at other car models that might make nice cop cars, and I eventually settled on HPI’s new BMW M3 GT2 (E92) shell. Not only is it a beautiful rendition of one of my favorite ALMS race cars, but it has just the right mix of exotic flair and street sinister I was looking for.
My next step was to choose a paint scheme. I considered various law enforcement liveries from Japan, Italy, and even France, but none of them seemed right on a BMW. Germany was a logical next choice, but being a huge fan of Top Gear I instead decided on a U.K. style police color scheme. The blue and yellow checker pattern is unmistakable, and it looks fantastic with the BMW’s aggressive lines. Matching the colors with my collection of Createx paints was an easy task; masking and painting the body wasn’t too bad either.
The third and arguably most important part of the project was to rig up the lights. I went with RC-Lights’ excellent 911STROBE system, which features a compact and highly adjustable light controller and a giant pile of 14 LEDs. My favorite part of this setup is that it operates in dual mode (meaning it will operate both like a “normal” light kit and also as police strobes) and is controllable via a 3rd channel. After a few minutes of programming my Nomadio React I can now switch the strobes on and off remotely – awesome!
The HPI body includes light buckets so I was ok there, but by far the hardest part of the build was figuring out how to make a convincing light bar. I thought about buying a toy-grade vehicle and cannibalizing it, but instead I went with the less expensive option of mechanical pencil lead containers. After a couple hours of work with my Dremel tool, a body reamer, some old parts trees, and a bit of epoxy, my light bar was complete. I am very happy with the results.
From there it was just a matter of installing the light kit, routing and concealing the rat’s nest of wires, and stickering up the body. I did quite a bit of leafing through my old leftover stickers for the finishing touches, such as the red and yellow warning chevrons on the rear bumper and details on the light bar. After almost two months, project “Rozzer” is officially complete – I love how it all came out. It’s definitely time for a bit of hot pursuit down at the drift circuit.
Here’s my complete parts list for the body and wheels:
-HPI Racing BMW M3 GT2 (E92) clear body 200mm (#17548)
-HPI Racing TE37 wheels 26mm black 6mm offset (#3846)
-HPI Racing super drift tires 26mm radial A type (#4402)
-RC-Lights 911STROBE 14 LED police system (#5024)
-Pentel super hi-polymer lead containers (#C25-HB)
-Createx opaque blue (#5201)
-Createx opaque yellow (#5204)
-Createx opaque white (#5212)
-Createx pearlized silver (#5308)
-Tamiya aluminum reinforced tape (#53351)
-Amazing Goop household (#130011)
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