20 replies to this topic

[Cheater]

Here's a nice little article from Pete Vack's velocetoday.com website/newsletter, written by Aldo Zana in Italy, who also owns the models themselves.

These sure would look nice as slot cars...

 

Aurora had already emerged as one of the leading brands in plastic kits when its products first reached Italy, shortly after their 1952 launch in the U.S. The catalogue focused on model planes and the few model cars were limited to 1:32-scale European sports and GT vehicles – at least, those were the ones sold in Italy.

The brand strategy aimed at a lower-end positioning than competitors Revell or Monogram. The Aurora plastic kits featured a lower number of parts, were easier to assemble and priced to be affordable by the majority of kids in middle- to low-income families. In Italy, one could buy as many as three Aurora car model kits for the cost of a single 1:24-scale product of the competition.

The launch of the Aurora Indy Winners series in 1958 was coherent with the strategy: easy to build kits, attractive boxes, good value for money. The collection re-marketed the Best-branded plastic kits from a few years back, originally promoted as: “E-Z Assemble”(sic) but never available in Italy.

Click HERE to read the remainder of the piece, which contains a lot more pictures.

[Brian Czeiner]

With .400" wide drag tires all around? Hmmm.....

[Cheater]

You Philistine! LOL...

[MSwiss]

Some lend themselves better to be a slot car than others.

Are the molds around anywhere?

[Cheater]

No idea on the molds.

[Pete L.]

IIRC, these kits were also offered by a firm known as BEST...

[Brian Czeiner]

3D-printing could recreate molds. Hmmm... even chassis and other details.

Oh... so many ideas. So little time...

[Steve Deiters]

A close look at the assembled models seems to indicate from an esthetic stadpoint the box art was the real winner.

[Dave Crevie]

I wouldn't use 3-D printing to make a plastic injection mold. Can't be polished to the high luster required for that

process. Making a mold from ChromaDie with interchangeable inserts for the different chassis would be the best

solution. But really, is there enough interest in those to warrant the cost? 3-D printing could be used to create the

chassis if the powdered media system is used. An FDM would just not be desireable. For a few dollars more, a

resin 3-D printer would also be a good choice. Don't forget, you also have to create wheels that can take the abuse

of slot racing. True wire wheels would probably not take it. I have several 1/32nd cars with the BRM wire wheels

on them, but nothing open wheeled, so I don't know what kind of hit they can take. Narrowing down Pro-Track tires

is a real solution, as I did with the resin Kurtis-Kraft indy cars I did. Whire wheel inserts could be used to get the

effect of the wire wheels. Anyway, I'd like to do a class of pre-WWII grand Prix cars. It would be a hoot.

 

 

 

 

[MattD]

They would be a fun car to build and run.    I think the true scale of these is 1/28.    Actually the best solution to having these bodies would be to build them and make molds that can be detailed and then vac-formed.    Doing 5, 10 or even 20 bodies is possible this way.   Talk of molds and 3D printing really gets into a lot of work and finishing (most 3D I've seen).    I'm sure there is no way to make these a positive financial deal.    Fiddling around with a couple and doing the rubber outside molds and resin  bucks to vac  from is about the only way that makes much sense.    just my opinion

[Dave Crevie]

These would not be a good candidate for vacced Lexan. The under-rolls of the tails can't be done. Using silicone rubber

molds would work much better, and casting the bodies in resin can reproduce the fine detail we desire. I made both

Kurtis-Kraft indy and KK sprint car bodies some years ago. And made a stamping die to form the belly pans which were

the main component for the chassis. Mike Swiss promoted a proxie series using indy bodies pulled in Lexan from a mold

developed from one of my resin bodies. The effect was there, but they just weren't the same as the resin counterparts.

When I get home I'll post pictures of the raw bodies and chassis. 

[MattD]

Dave, do you still have a picture of the belly pan.   I make the Watson bodies and a few other Indy bodies.   Usual chassis is Sprintsplus, soldered brass or Dynamic.     It would be nice to have the capability to stamp a chassis that fit the body perfect.    I'd like to see what you came up with. 

 

  I doubt it is worth doing it now, but 3D does open doors for that. 

 I just don't like plastic as a chassis material.   I'm stuck back in the 60's. 

[MSwiss]

I'm toying with the idea of having more bodies vacuformed, and having a simple brass slab chassis made for it.

 

Below is the late "Manta" Ray Price's Kurtis Proxy Race car, sporting a Noose paint job.

[Dave Crevie]

Here are the pics;

 

Kurtis-Kraft indy cars;

 

 

The bodies are thin-wall cast and weigh about the same as the styrene counterparts.

 

 

The Kurtis-Kraft sprint car;

 

 

The bodies are cast in three sections, just like the indy cars;

 

 

This is the sprint car chassis. The indy chassis is the same, just longer wheelbase;

 

 

The pan is stamped brass, with a 3/4 inch motor mount soldered to brass angle which has been

soldered to the pan. Front axle tube solders on top of 1/8 x 3/16ths square brass tube, soldered to

the inside of the vertical sides of the pan stamping. The guide tongue is one piece with the pan

stamping. I don't have a picture of the pan alone.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MattD]

I got you Dave, I thought maybe you had stamped a pan that was nearly a complete frame.   Not sure what pix I have on this machine, but here's some similar cars I've done.

 

Before anybody mentions it, I didn't realize I had put numbers on the sides instead of the back 1/4's till I took this picture.   Egg on my face.    These are vac bodies,   The Watson is either from Gene or one of Victors.   The Kurtis in back is an old time Dubro, I think.   Of course it is not the correct for the Simoniz car, but it looks close.   

 

The blue car has an LVJ 1/32 narrow frame stretched to the max, with no other mods.   That frame is about $12 or so.  The red car is an inline Dynamic and the gold car has a stretched Sprintsplus brass frame 

 

Here's one of the Strom Dirt Track bodies on a stretched Sprintsplus.   My mold gave out after 25 years or so and this body and others I have been using come from Larry Baisch, complete with all parts except a windshield.   I solder solid 1/16 brass to the frame for the nerf bars. 

 

 

That Offy book ought to be required reading for all race fans!!

 

 

 

 

[MattD]

Dave, this is the 2 piece LVJ which is so easy to use under a 1/24 open wheel car and easily soldered.

 

The Sprintsplus has been around longer and is a one piece brass unit and requires cutting and soldering back together with a  brass belly pan to  make it longer, but the added brass makes it handle nicely.   

 

Both these frames are cheap, under $12, I think, when I have ordered them from Pro Motor or maybe your local raceway if they stock them.     It makes it hard to rationalize the time I used to spend with motor brackets and 1 inch wide brass making a suitable frame for the big open wheelers, when these are so readily available and easy to use.

 

I like open wheelers!

 

[Dave Crevie]

But the under roll doesn't work. The real cars have a rolled pan underneath, and I wanted to reproduce that. The

sides of the body do not go straight down on the sides. In other words, not slab-sided.

 

I wasn't looking for an easy way out. I wanted them to be as close to the real cars as I could get.

[MattD]

On the big cars, the frame is about 1/4 inch too narrow.   I epoxied a piece of balsa on the last one and sanded a countour to fit the body sides.   Being vac formed, they only roll a little under the sides.

 

I didn't notice a roll on the chassis pans you made.   I thought they were just flat on the sides and the bottom.   My mistake.

[don.siegel]

Here's one built by a buddy here in France, Fred ("Xbox") from Lyon. Strickly vintage, with an old Buzco chassis and motor, plus his own silicone tires, on the original wheels... and no, I haven't run it yet! I've got a couple of these models and really like them. There was a boxed Boyle Special the other day on ebay, but turns out I'm not the only one who's always liked that car... 

 

 

Don 

 

 

[MattD]

I had the yellow car in the center of the leading post.   After looking at it for a couple months, I just sent it to another guy that wanted to do some of the early cars!!!   Between wheel size and body size, I didn't think you could really build a nice racer.   A shelf car, sure you could do that, but to race them at what would be an appropriate speed, they probably would be best powered by a rubber band!

 

There were a few early open wheeler vac bodies made.   Some of the current open wheel modelers do make some nice resin kits.   Using one of those curbside bodies for a mold to make some hollow bodies  may be a better solution.

[Dave Crevie]

All of those models in the OP could be resin cast. Using my process they would have very thin wall thickness, and be light

enough for slot cars. The wheels could be turned aluminum with resin wire wheel inserts. For someone who really wanted

to build these to market, it could be done. I built 19 of the sprint and indy cars, and could have easily done a hundred if there

had been the interest in them.