Topaz Detailing is an exclusive automotive detailing and paint protection film specialist, handling the largest volume of supercars anywhere in the world. Founded in 2009 and based in a purpose-built 11,000 sq ft studio in Park Royal, North London, their facility is equipped with air purifiers, water filters and temperature-controlled bays — the optimal environment for the kind of work that goes into cars most people never get close to. Their clients bring Ferraris, Koenigseggs, McLarens. The work they do is precise, methodical, and largely invisible to the untrained eye.
The brief was to make all of that visible — and to put it in a five-star hotel lobby.
The Brief
Topaz commissioned Chisel & Mouse to create a diorama of their workshop: a scale model of the studio in full operation, to be displayed in a lit vitrine in a London hotel. The intention was clear — a showpiece that communicates the breadth of the Topaz process to the kind of audience who walk through five-star lobbies.
The model needed to capture the full workshop at 1:24 scale, with five working bays — handover, wash, detailing, PPF and QA — each with a car in it, plus a reception area. Maximum dimensions including plinth and case: 880 × 280 × 93mm.
And the people in the model needed to be the actual Topaz directors and employees.
The Making
We began with the structure. The floor, walls and ceiling are etched acrylic — precise, clean, and able to hold the fine detail of a working studio interior. The reception area includes two chairs and a table. The Topaz branding appears throughout. Five off-the-shelf diecast cars occupy the five bays, each dressed to suggest the work being done to it.
The eleven people are where this commission became something different.
Working with a specialist third party, we visited the Topaz studio with 3D scanning equipment. Directors and employees were scanned on site, each in a pose specific to their role and location in the model — a detailer bent over a bonnet, a PPF installer working a panel edge, a member of the reception team. The scans were then 3D printed in full colour at 1:24 scale. The result is eleven miniature portraits: recognisable to anyone who knows Topaz, and legible as working figures to anyone who doesn't.
