Hi Greg,
I'm with you on the colored plastic thing, why do they do it ? I always end up priming heavily to hide it. I do most of my modelling late at night, when my eyes are tired, and dark coloured plastic is starting to give me some trouble. Nonetheless, your Mustang is coming along, I can see a that you are spending some time on the details too. I like the way they build up with the chassis and roll cage, I might have to go there.
In the meantime I decalled the Merc today. After several glitches with earlier builds of these Hasegawa Group C cars, I'd sworn off their decals and determined to use aftermarket where ever possible. That strategy has been working well, until, , I got sucked in again. They've all gone on perfectly, but for some reason the blue stripes on the sides became really rough in texture. I thought they were breaking up, but they didn't.. After multiple iterations of heat, pressure, Super Set , Sup Sol and bad language, I think I've got them down flat enough that I can put a few coats of clear over them and polish it out where necessary. However, you can make out how bad it is within the NACA duct, I'll have to get those out and paint it I think. It happened on both sides, and only to the blue part of the decal...go figure. All other decals were just fine. You may also notice that the bottom edge of the blue decal is a little uneven, but its right on a panel line and can be trimmed and tidied up easily enough.
As far as those blue stripes goes, the silver C9s raced at many venues with out it. To my eye, the car is more aesthetically pleasing without it too. However, the research I've done so far is indicating that Suzuka was the only race where the car had the front centre panel as depicted in the Hasegawa kit, and silver liverie. It also had those blue stripes. Think I'm stuck with it.
This version raced a few times in 1988 in AEG Circuit Board liverie too. If you want to see the difference, compare the front centre panel of the car on the Tamiya box lid above, with this front centre panel below. On the Tamiya kit, the front panel is larger, and that air scoop (I guess that's what it is) is situated in the middle of the panel, immediately above the red AEG (it's a little hard to see). On the Hasegawa kit, the panel is smaller, the air scoop juts out above it. It raced like this at a few races in 1988, and only at Suzuka in 1989. I have to check my Revell Kouros C9 as well, because it was based on the Hasegawa kit, so may well have the smaller panel. However, the car raced with Kouros liverie in 1987, and I haven't found any photos showing the car being raced in this configuration during 1987. I may have to stick my Kouros decals onto a Tamiya body.
BTW, there is a Studio 27 decal sheet, featuring the Kouros liverie, and also one where Michelin was the major sponsor. It was discontinued so long ago though, I haven't been able to find one.
Here is the rest of the progress shots.
I haven't picked up that version of the Tamiya C9 kit as yet, getting one at half price would be ideal. However, in line with my earlier comment, I do have the Studio 27 decal sheet for it on order.