The kit was made by Gunze Sangyo in JapanA couple of weeks ago after racing at my local slot car club, I realised that the following week was going to be the first round of our 'Classic Car' Championship and I didn't have a car! Whilst driving home, I started thinking about what to use (within the constraints of the rules) and decided to go BIG. I remembered that I had bought a 1/32 scale kit of a 1963 Ford Thunderbird at a swop meet last year and had done nothing with it. This would make a really cool race car, but the question was, could I build it into a race winning slot car.
The kit was made by Gunze Sangyo in Japan
The rules stated that a proprietry classic kit could be fitted with a plastic chassis, with motors restricted to SCX std can, Ninco NC1, or the new Pro Slot Evo 1 (Derek Cooper took the rules litterally and put two NC1 motors in his musclebound American monster).
I decided to mount the motor sideways for two reasons. Firstly to get the best out of the motor, but really so that I could have the car as a soft top, with a full driver and interior to look really cool.
First job was to find a suitable chassis. I found that a Pro Slot Ferrari 355 chassis would fit (widthwise) as long as I was running narrow tyres (as per the rules). This was then lengthened by 20mm to get the right wheelbase, by cutting the chassis, glueing in a piece of 'plasticard' and then strengthening with some ribs.
This is the inside of the chassis.
I Painted the underside of the chassis, just to hide the joins.
I then built the car interior as a seperate unit.
The Driver is from Fly.
I then cut grooves in the bottom of the Driver's pan as the idea was that this would not be glued to the body, but 'float' within the body, reducing vibration.
I put carpet on the floor (Silk) to hide the slots from view.
I then sprayed the body in mettalic blue paint, the laquered the end result. (I'm not much good at painting, and the laquer has not smoothed out fully).
Final assembly was not too traumatic, apart from having to turn down the chrome Porsche 959 wheels and Ninco Super Soft tyres in a drill so the tyres cleared the wheel arches.
The end product.
Total time to build was about 8 hours, a true labour of love. How did it go ?
The car ran perfectly, it was smooth and fast, I only crashed it once all night. With 4 wins and 2 second places, I scored 34 points and was joint winner (with Dave Norton and his modified Pink Car Ferrari 250 GTO). To put this into perspective, in the two years I have been racing, the highest I have ever placed in a championship event is fourth. Chalk one up for 'American Muscle'.
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