49 replies to this topic

[Martin]

Being a fan of of the Dynamic kit cars that came in a clear boxes there was always one that had eluded me.

The Calex Chaparral 2F.

Not much is know about the company called Calex. But the car itself is pretty basic.

A Dynamic chassis with a chrome can 26D motor, Riggen wheels, Weldon gear and a clear Lancer 2F body.

Once I sourced a the one piece axle drop arm the build was on.

The car was easy, but I want to display it with box art and instructions, this took a little more time than the car itself.

I had a copy of the Harvey instructions and they share many of the same parts.

All I had to do was change the front axle/drop arm. Once you get into it is very likely this Dynamic instruction art-work was generated from the Harvey art-work.

There are other small changes to make the Harvey art into the Calex but I am happy with the result.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Flathead]

Nice recreation Mart👍🏻

Thought this shot of the correct instructions may be of use to you as the blurb starts with how to swap out motor parts unlike any Dynamic instructions.

Photo courtesy of the LASCM;




A variation with company address and easier to read.

Photo courttesy Jocke Widin facebook;

[don.siegel]

Nice going Martin! 

 

Fascinating car in a way. I actually got one of these about 25 years ago, after answering a classified ad in a French collectors' magazine... About 600 francs, or 100 euros, so not a bargain at the time, but a fair price. I hadn't realized how rare it was, but that wasn't really my objective. 

 

I made the mistake of painting it, and then displaying the assembled model on a shelf, not car from my halogen light... you can imagine what that did! Actually, just curled up the body flank on that side, but hard to repair something like that. In a way, I never really warmed to the car and sold it to a Chappy collector here some years later. 

 

Glad to see you're doing it the right way here. 

 

Don 

 

[Martin]

Thanks Lee and Don for the comments. 

I sure wish I would have ask if there was better images of the real thing, this is what I started with and now I see my mistakes. 

Interesting how one set of instructions has the full address and the other has nothing?

 

The words on mine are all from the Harvey but this is all I had.

 

 

I do enjoy playing in photoshop though I can spend hours going back and forth trying to find the differences.

The writing was too small to mess with. 

 

Don, funny how our tastes change, every time I sell something I wished I had not. 

 

 

[Mark Onofri]

Is this (what's left of it) the same body?

Attached Images

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[don.siegel]

Hi Mark, 

 

Offhand, that looks like the Dynamic handling body; what's odd in the kit is that the handling body is pictured on the box insert, but the actual body is a regular scale Chaparral 2F by Lancer. 

 

If you cut it down a bit more, you could make a great Thingie out of it! 

 

Don 

 

[Bill from NH]

You build one of these, didn't you Don?

[don.siegel]

Yep, one of those and one of Floyd Manley's early super-fast, super-light thingies - both with Edo now. 

 

Good memory Bill! 

 

Don 

[Martin]

Always wanted to build a clone of  the 2F thingie.

 

I pretty sure I read that Phillippe bought a Calex kit with a the Dynamic 2F body. Makes sense to me. But have no evidence of this.

 

P.S. The body art on the Calex box is of the shorter nose Dynamic 2F which is recognised by the spare tyre indent at the rear. 

The long nose body has the mesh at the rear like Mark O showed.

[don.siegel]

There's some more info on Calex in this old Slot Forum thread: 

 

https://www.slotforu...495#post-306495

 

Don 

[Mark Onofri]

🧐 thanks, after comparing the two, I stopped to think for a moment, and didn't start again. 1/2 right is better than 100% wrong.

[zipper]

I had one, bought from a department store in Central Finland. No idea how it got there...The remnants of the chassis got transferred to an 1/32 car which we drove on a Scalextric home track, it did run rings around those original cars. Sad as the original is pretty rare nowadays.

[Larry Horner]

Great car Martin and I always loved the coupe Chappy's, both the 2D and the 2F. I never knew that the front chassis piece used on the Bandit was also used in other cars.

[don.siegel]

Looks like it was distributed more in Europe than in the USA! 

 

Don 

[Martin]

I got that it it was sold more in europe.

 

Looking at the full address with the word International is a clue. 

 

Anybody have Dynamics address. Could it be the same ?

 

 

Its not the same.  Dynamic was in north Hollywood.

 

[don.siegel]

Dynamic Models, Inc. 

13755 Saticoy Street

Van Nuys, California (no zipcodes on the sheet I have)

 

Don 

[Martin]

Thanks Don, so that's three address in the neighbourhood.

[Martin]

I have a question. 

 

If  step 1 is to replace the brush springs. What was wrong with the brush springs the 26D motor came with ? 

 

The springs came in a clear bag and was part of the Calex kit.

[don.siegel]

I assume they're a little stronger, most of the Hi-Po replacement springs at the time were. 

 

Don 

[Martin]

 News flash, this just in........ Thank you Victor.

 

"I have no doubt the Ron was involved with most slot car body patterns during that time this Chaparral is a cross between the Lancer 2F and the Dynamic 2F.

 

If I (Victor) was a “slot car history story teller” I’d say this,

 

Ron Von Klein was involved with Calex and was commissioned to do a cross between the Lancer chaparral 2F and the dynamic chaparral 2F so he started working on this at some point he couldn’t complete the job because that’s when he and Jim Russell moved to New York to head up the Aurora HO slot car division to go to the market so So Calex went ahead and included the chaparral made by Lancer."

 

Dynamic on the left, Lancer in the middle and the supposed Calex 2F on the right. 

[Mark Onofri]

Way cool Martin. Now if you only had them. 🤔. Or,do you?

[Martin]

Thanks Mark, I would love to have the Calex high-bred version of the 2F body.  Maybe one day 

[Larry Horner]

Incase anyone else was wondering, I knew this (and most other Chappy's) were powered by Chevy V8 engines so I was perplexed by the 5 holes on either side of the rear cowling. So I did a bit of sleuthing and found this photo which shows that these have nothing to do with the engine intake as you can clearly see the velocity stacks nestled further up.

 

[Bugeye]

I always wondered about this body. I got one years ago chopped and mounted on a Cuc chassis.

Not chopped as bad as the Thingie in the article.

 

Rob

[Martin]

Would love to see your chopped 2F Rob, if you have some pics to share ?

 

It's on my list to do a Thingyfied Chapy.