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We started with a stock Unlimited Desert Racer and then stripped it down to its tube frame. The UDR's realistic scale design is amazing—it’s built just like a full-size desert racer.

We trimmed off the body and fender supports so we could fit individual polycarbonate panels. The 8431 and 8536 roll-cage sections are only $12 each, so they’re inexpensive to replace if we ever want to restore the UDR to truck mode.

Here’s an “after” shot of the trimmed nose. We also removed the lower body supports, which required no cutting—just remove two screws.

To create the body panels, we transferred the hole positions to card stock and drew the panel outlines around the holes. After test-fitting and fine tuning the shapes, we traced the card templates onto 0.040″ clear polycarbonate. We painted the panels red and used stick-on vinyl for the stripes, then added decals from our sticker stash to finish them off.

The UDR’s truck body doesn’t attach to the roll cage’s roof, so we drilled holes to mount the new roof panel. The light bar looked like it was sitting too low when paired with the flat roof, so we drilled a new, higher mounting position (arrowed) and shaved the ends of the light bar to fit between the A-pillars. The empty holes for the stock position looked unfinished, so we put screws in there.

The UDR’s interior and figures are highly detailed right from the factory. For even greater realism, we painted the figures’ suits using flat colors so they’d appear more like cloth. The seatbelts and sleeve cuffs are made of textured ribbon we found at the craft store. We slotted the interior tray, pulled the ribbons through the slots, and glued them under the tray.

The helmets’ cooling-duct flares are molded solid. We drilled them out to accept silicone wires as stand-ins for ventilation tubes. The “tubes” simply disappear into holes in the seatbacks.

Next, we detailed the rear of the truck—there’s a lot going on here! All the detail parts can be removed, which makes them easy to paint.

The shock reservoirs were sprayed lightly with silver, so the fins and recesses wouldn’t fill with paint. This creates a more realistic look with “shadows” where the paint is thin. The fire extinguishers were detailed using silver and black paint applied with a fine brush, and the decals are from the UDR’s sticker sheet.

We went with purple for the quart bottles of oil, and silver for the “aluminum” holders. The floor jack received a coat of metallic blue with bright accents via a “chrome” pen from the hobby store.

Here are the parts installed. We also painted the terminals and positive wires on the (simulated) 12-volt batteries.

The radiator is sprayed silver to simulate aluminum, with the fan shrouds left black. The fan blades inside are separate parts, which we painted white for contrast. Look closely, you can just see them in there.

We replaced the UDR’s dual spare tires with a single wheel by trimming the tires’ mounting posts off and rotating the fuel filler 90 degrees A single tire post was created using a section of dowel that we simply sanded smooth and painted black. Before covering the fuel tank and rear deck with aluminum tape for a real-metal look, we added diamond-plate styrene panels so the texture would show through the tape.