42 replies to this topic

[don.siegel]

Great looking cars Rick, thanks for posting.

Love that Porsche! Not sure what was wrong with your DC70 - I've got a number of them and they run very well, especially the DC70-6 (6 volt model). Maybe just binding, or needed to be rezapped... That basic Kemtron frame is also very effective. I've got one with my Ram XL-500 that I've been running for a good dozen years, and it's rock solid. Of course, over the years the pivoting front end had some problems, so I locked it up...

Don

[havlicek]

Rick,

I have to admit that these cars are for me mostly interesting because of the personal connection. This is something that I "get" from looking at about any cars and what I mean is that the cars tell a story about the person. So cars like these that get used have a special interest beyond the "nuts and bolts". Having said that, the little Porsche GP car is too cool for school, regardless of how it goes. On a side note, I recently got some cars from a blogger that, like these weren't historically significant, but had personal significance. One of them was an open frame motor inline that was barely running and would even smoke at low voltage on the PS. I looked at it for a while drinking coffee and trying to figure out what was wrong as it all looked fine. Then I looked at the com and noticed that the gaps between the segments seemed to be filled with brush dust. I carefully removed the dust from between the segments with an X-acto blade and it ran perfectly afterwards. Sometimes it's the little things and I've seen the same thing on Mabuchi and C can Muras occasionally. I figure you already know this stuff, but sometimes I forget "the little things".

-john

[mcseitz]

The Chaparral 2J is so cool, at least as cool as any wing flapping 2E I've ever seen! Thanks for taking the time to post all these.

[dc-65x]

I built that DC-70 a long time ago and was really clueless......even more so than now ! Anyway Rodney's got it running great. Oh, I was amazed at how well the Russkit rubber rear tires worked. He lightly trued them and got the glaze off. They hook up pretty well with the old Pittman. I'm going to give some a try.

Glad you guys enjoyed the pictures .

[Randy Tragni]

dc-65X,
I watched you guys photographing these on Sunday. I really like the Chaparral 2J as well. All of Rodney's cars are great cars but it seems to me that you also have some pretty nice cars. I really like the Lotus 23C you have. Maybe you should post some of yours as well?
Randy

[dc-65x]

Thank you Randy. I'm hogging the forum all the time. Here's a link to my Lotus build:

Jerry Hansen's 1966 Lotus 19 Chevy



I really get a kick out of sharing Rodney's cars..............I sure like that blue Ferrari

[gascarnut]

May I ask a question, and I'm not trying to nit-pick, just to understand other people's approaches to these things:

Why paint a scale livery but paint the driver's helmet the wrong color, or get the design wrong?

Examples:

1. The red/white #7 Surtees Lola, Big John's helmet design should have the horizontal blue stripe go all the way round the helmet from the peak to the base of the helmet at the rear, where the vertical stripe ends.

2. The #30 Porsche is the iconic Gurney French GP winner, so why would that driver get a red helmet instead of Dan's equally iconic black one?

No disrespect meant, and obviously each to his own, these are very cool cars, but for me they are spoiled by those little details being wrong.

Thanks!

[Tex]

Both have cool engine detail:

Man, what I would GIVE for some of those side-draft carbs! (hint, hint.... anyone?)

[dc-65x]

.........The #30 Porsche is the iconic Gurney French GP winner, so why would that driver get a red helmet instead of Dan's equally iconic black one?

Hi Dennis,

I have absolutely no idea . That was one of my first cars I built about 15 years ago and I guess red seemed like a good idea at the time .

I built this one a couple of years ago and it's a little closer to scale. I have to admit I don't worry about "exact scale replicas of real cars" as much as some. On Slotforum you get Crucified if the slightest detail is incorrect :



Even in this car the driver should have a visor if it's supposed to be Dan Gurney right? It supposed to be a 1964 or so slot car so I guess I could have used a Cox drivers head with a visor.

What I built back in the period were commercial track "amateur race cars". Mine were more detailed and scale than most but they were definitely not "exact scale replicas" of real race cars. Looks like today they still aren't .

[munter]

On Slotforum you get Crucified if the slightest detail is incorrect

Rick,I know what you mean about some guys over there.
My motor racing history is weak but my love of slotcars is strong so I build how I like and claim ignorance or stupidity.
regards

[dc-65x]

The red/white #7 Surtees Lola, Big John's helmet design should have the horizontal blue stripe go all the way round the helmet from the peak to the base of the helmet at the rear, where the vertical stripe ends.

Rodney emailed me the following story about his Surtees helmet transgression:

"An amusing story regarding the John Surtees Lola:"

"Regarding the Surtees helmet, I searched the Internet for pictures of Big John's helmet (as he was called when he drove for Jim Hall) and could not find good pictures of the stripes. I asked Eddie about the striping and he told me it went around the back and down the middle. Eddie's favorite driver of all time is John Surtees. Eddie informed me the stripe did go around the back and down the middle. So I made the stripe go around the back and down the middle when the car was first built. Eddie was horrified when he saw the car. I made the stripe too low around the back. So at the track, I removed the rear portion of the stripe and we said "the rear portion of the stripe is under the goggle strap." Eddie liked this better.

Well, I guess I will mainly stick to painting driver helmets with generic colors for historic cars and say the car was modeled after a car I saw at a vintage race driven by the current owner. I hope current car owners of historic race cars do not look at Slot Blog."

Rodney

I'm now compelled to make public my own transgressions....that's right, plural !

I built a Ferrari GP car patterned after the 1966 R&C race reports. It was my first attempt at building a Pro car replica. I tried to pattern the body after a NART Ferrari and the chassis after one of my favorites from the race report. I did this a long while back before Al Gore provided us with the Internet....at least in my house. All I had were some black and white pictures from a library book. I couldn't really tell how the helmet strips be done. I ended up hand painting this :



It looks goofy now that I know what the stripes should look like .

My second transgression if far worse...it was intentional . That's right, intentional. When I got to the point in the build of painting the driver's head all my paint brushes were shaking like crazy . No way could I paint those helmet stripes . I decided to use RC stripping tape instead. The only color I had at the time was..............RED!



There, I've come clean and my conscious now is clear .

[don.siegel]

On Slotforum you get Crucified if the slightest detail is incorrect :

Not by all of us, really...

Don

[Big Durl]

Thigpen, you disgust me.

Get out!



(winky-winks)

[dc-65x]

Hi Darryl,

Nice to meet you.

Rick

[TSR]

Whatever stripes on a semi-scale model of a car is not a crime, please people, relax. Thanks to the learned ones to provide added information, it never hurts. Big John Surtees (I don't know why "grande John" in Italian, that means "the great John") was stupidly translated in the language of Shakespeare by "big", as Surtees is certainly not anything like "large", but during his 1960s days in racing, he only had ONE helmet, that he used in every form of racing until the late 1960s.
This picture shows Surtees in the "non-factory" factory Ferrari F1 (the NART colors due to another fit by Mr. Enzo Himself) during the US GP in 1964, and one can clearly see that the white helmet has a pale blue stripe going over and meeting one that goes around, in the same plane as that of his goggles.



He did not always use this helmet, as he is seen here during testing of the 1966 Ferrari 3-liter F1 with a plain-white Buco helmet:


This one has a stripe made of adhesive tape, and no "top" stripe...



But here is the unmistakable hat, showing quite well where the subject of ire in this thread actually lays. Also please note the switch from the pale blue Dunlot overalls to white ones provided by Firestone and made in the USA by Hinchman in Indianapolis (at least those were made of Nomex, the Dunlop's were... cotton!):



Everybody's happy now?

[Alchemist]

Rick,

Your cars are also incredible and your craftsmanship is superb! Just got back from Eddie's and drooled over Rodney's cars (not literally - LOL!)

Rick, do you have shots of Rodney's Porsche (the yellow one) and the Mercedes Coupe slot cars? I'm sure the brethren would drool, just like me, if they saw the model conversion to slot car.

Thanks for sharing the pix Rick!

Ernie

[dc-65x]

Thanks Ernie,

Next time we get together I can take pictures of those cars.

[Prof. Fate]

Hi

P, I was a Big John fan as well. I assumed the "big" was irony. Like the bigest guy in the crowd is always nicknamed "tiny".

I have done the NART car a few times over the years, but the colors seem cursed for me. Some projects just fall together, and some just fight you every step. For ME, the NART colors never work out on the car. Bleeds, tears SOMETHING goes wrong every time.

Fate