MPC/ERTL Indianapolis 500 Hall of Fame Set # 6426

[Miatatom]

It's almost Indy time and I thought I'd try to build these kits. It includes the 1963 Parnelli Jones Watson Roadster, the 1963 Jim CLark Lotus 27 and the 1973 Johnny Rutherford McLaren M16C.

What are your opinions on the set? Any helpful experience, build tips, dos and don'ts, etc. would be appreciated.

Edited April 10, 2015 by Miatatom

[Gluebomber]

Tom, my only experience is with the Lotus 29. My strongest recommendation would be to look into the IndyCals detail set for the car (http://www.indycals.net/parts/indyparts/63lotus29upgrade.html). It costs $38 + S&H but you get new tires, a corrected nose, a vacuform windshield, and new decals. Here's a pic of my Lotus just so you can see the difference.

Good Luck with your builds!

Edited April 10, 2015 by Gluebomber

[tim boyd]

Larry....that Lotus is super sharp! Congrats on your build....TIM

[Gluebomber]

Thanks, Tim.

[Phildaupho]

Great project Tom. I have built the Watson and Lotus in the last couple of years without the use of after market parts or decals and they turned out fairly presentable but if I was to recommend anything I would say get the after market decals. I look forward to seeing the Rutherford car.

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[Bill J]

The Watson roadster and the Lotus are both helped considerably by the offerings from Indycals. The roadster and the Lotus 29 both need the corrected tires and decals. The Lotus update set solves the Lotus problems and the corrected tires and decals really add to the Watson. Indycals also makes decals with correct for 63 tire markings.

I am not knowledgeable on the McLaren but I do know Indycals makes some decals and perhaps update parts as well.

[Miatatom]

Tom, my only experience is with the Lotus 29. My strongest recommendation would be to look into the IndyCals detail set for the car (http://www.indycals.net/parts/indyparts/63lotus29upgrade.html). It costs $38 + S&H but you get new tires, a corrected nose, a vacuform windshield, and new decals. Here's a pic of my Lotus just so you can see the difference.

Good Luck with your builds!

What's the problem with the original nose and tires?

[Bill J]

The Lotus kit nose is not the correct shape. The resin part corrects this and looks much more accurate. The tires are completely wrong, they are actually 1962 style tires (which were 16 inch) the kit wheels are 15 inches, although they fit the tires, the tires are too narrow and too tall for the 63 cars. Also, the kit tires are slick and back then the tires were required to have some tread on them.

The nose and body on the Watson can also be improved to look more authentic and there has been resin pieces to accomplish that. I think both resin versions of corrections for the Watson body are out of production though. The 1:1 Watson cars and variations were all hand built and no two are exactly the same.

The vacuum formed windscreens also help the kit to look more realistic, particularly the Lotus.

[Gluebomber]

Tom, like a lot of things it comes down to personal taste.

For me the biggest issue with the kit was the tires. They lacked tread and were way too big. Also, the shape of the nose of the real car tapers and slants downward more than the one on the kit. That was less of an issue, but still noticeable to me.

But, it all depends on the level of detail you're after. If this stuff doesn't bother you, then you should build it straight from the box. Phil showed with his builds that they can be perfectly presentable without any aftermarket stuff.

I thought the Lotus was a pretty good kit, especially for its age. It went together well for me, but be sure to test fit the location of the engine. The whole rear suspension depends on it being positioned correctly.

Good Luck with your builds and have fun. Be sure to post pictures of the finished models.

Edited April 11, 2015 by Gluebomber

[Miatatom]

Tom, like a lot of things it comes down to personal taste.

For me the biggest issue with the kit was the tires. They lacked tread and were way too big. Also, the shape of the nose of the real car tapers and slants downward more than the one on the kit. That was less of an issue, but still noticeable to me.

But, it all depends on the level of detail you're after. If this stuff doesn't bother you, then you should build it straight from the box. Phil showed with his builds that they can be perfectly presentable without any aftermarket stuff.

I thought the Lotus was a pretty good kit, especially for its age. It went together well for me, but be sure to test fit the location of the engine. The whole rear suspension depends on it being positioned correctly.

Good Luck with your builds and have fun. Be sure to post pictures of the finished models.

That's about the decision I'd made. I'll just build them and do the best I can. I'm not skilled enough to justify spending $38 for parts for one of the kits when I only paid a little more than $40 for the whole set. Might spring for the decals though.

[horsepower]

After pulling up pictures of the 27, & the 29, the 27 nose is flatter and has a higher ground clearance than the 29, the 29 is a sleeker design, but it's not the one represented in the kit, it may not be 100% correct, but it's closer to the actual car than the 29 conversion is, in my eyes anyway.

[Art Anderson]

It's almost Indy time and I thought I'd try to build these kits. It includes the 1963 Parnelli Jones Watson Roadster, the 1963 Jim CLark Lotus 27 and the 1973 Johnny Rutherford McLaren M16C.

What are your opinions on the set? Any helpful experience, build tips, dos and don'ts, etc. would be appreciated.

For starters, the McLaren is supposed to represent Rutherford's 1974 Indy winner, which actually was the M16D, but the AMT kit was a slightly modified version of their 1973 Penske McLarens, which were -C's. This image shows the major difference in layout that AMT ignored (more than likely for cost reasons--as AMT was beginning their slide into oblivion by 1974-75 when the Rutherford kit was in development: http://blog.ims.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/jr_qual.jpg

Note that the exhaust header and the placement of the turbocharger are quite different from the AMT kit you have, in that for the 74 Team McLaren M16D, the turbo is turned upside down, in an "undershot" position (virtually every other Turbo Offenhauser engine had the turbocharger mounted as an overshot unit (meaning the exhaust pipe goes into the top side of the turbo, where the undershot exhaust goes into the underside. In addition, McLaren fitted their Offies that year with a tuned exhaust header. To acommodate the moving of the turbo forward of the rear suspension mounting points, McLaren Cars added an extension to the driveline, in the form of a spacer that was approximately 10 inches long, between the flywheel housing and the front of the transaxle, increasing the wheelbase by pretty much that distance. On the right hand side of the engine cover, your kit has a rather crudely done blister as a separate part for the engine cover, which is pretty incorrectly done as well: It's nowhere near as prominent on the real car as depicted in the kit parts, the forward end of the blister should be rounded, rather than having a blunt, squarish profile as the AMT kit, when viewed from the right side. The rear wing, IIRC, is still the 1973-type, which was way wider than allowed after the disastrously fatal Month of May in 1973. USAC mandated a much narrower wing starting with the Milwaukee race a week following Indy back in those days.

On the tub, AMT left the right side fuel filler plug, which for 1974 and beyond, could no longer be installed--in fact, for the '74 and subsequent seasons (Both USAC and later CART) banned right side fuel tanks completely. Note also that the remaining two filler ports on the left side are very nearly flush with the surface of the bodywork, not just "laid on" the outside as in the AMT kit--that's pretty easily fixed on the model BTW. Also, while AMT made the panel immediately behind the cockpit as part of the cowling/engine shroud part in the kit, those "panels" are actually 3 separate sections on any McLaren M16 series cars. The cowling around the cockpit is a separate, lift-off panel, as is, of course, the engine shroud--the part in between that looks like a headrest is actually integral with the tub chassis, and was one of two fuel tanks on this car (1972 and 1973 M16's had 3 tanks), the so-called seat tank.

This is Gary Bettenhausen's 1973 M16D, as it qualified for the 500 in 1973--the kit on which your Mclaren was based--note that it has the longer, blunt nose, but with a flat upper surface rather than the curved shape depicted in the AMT kit. http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr259/racebrown27/GaryBIMS1972_zpsd4db13b3.jpg

Up front, the nose cone is completely wrong, even for a 1973 M16--that downward-curved, long nose cone appeared only in the first few days of practice back then (up through 1973, practice for the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race began on the 1st of May, which gave 2 to 2 1/2 weeks of practice before pole day--LOTS of changes got made to cars in that period, in the annual search for speed!), and was replaced by the shorter, tapered, flat-topped nose cone you see in Rutherford's official 1974 qualificactions picture. That can be made from pieces of Evergreen sheet styrene rather easily.

I modeled Rutherford's '74 winner in the summer of 1979, after having been given a quart of REAL McLaren Orange lacquer by none other than "Lone Star JR", while touring Gasoline Alley during a rain delay on the Friday before Pole Day that year (Team Mclaren's support vehicles--golf carts, battery carts, push tractors were still painted in McLaren Orange that year), so I know the work can be done--even whittling out that driveline extension casing from two layers of 1/8" sheet styrene went very quickly--all that was left was to make longer trailing arms for the rear suspension. As for the tuned header, cutting up a couple of Offy exhaust manifolds and some creativity worked there. Also, note that Rutherford's '74 winner has it's rear wing mounted on a single, central pylon--again easy to make from some thick Evergreen stock, with files and sandpaper.

As a bit of backstory here: From 1966 through 1983, my model car building passion was doing the cars of the Indianapolis 500 from 1911 out to whatever the present day might have been at the time. Along with several other local modelers, I put on an annual Month of May 500 Mile race display in the 20' wide show window of Weber's, then the dominant hobby shop here in Lafayette IN (and one of the most comprehensive hobby shops in the Midwest back then). At it's peak, our display included over 200 1/24-1/25 scale models of cars that faced the Green Flag at the Speedway on Race Day, with their car name, driver's name, qualifying speed and start-finish record, on small wooden plaques placed in front of each car. We created a 15' long wooden platform, covered in Walthers O-Scale red brick paper, to replicate the original brick front stretch, with the open pit area used through 1956, complete with a 1/25 scale wooden model of the original "Pagoda" which was the forerunner of the Bombardier Timing & Scoring Tower used today. We also got the use of display Goodyear Speedway Special racing tires every year from our local Goodyear Tire Store, and a wheel & tire from Bill Vukovich's 1952-54 Kurtis 500-A roadster. A couple of times we had an actual Offenhauser racing engine in the display, gutted of all internals--but it got attention! By 1970, the window display attracted so much attention from race fans, even racers, mechanics and car owners (even the Speedway Oldtimer's Club), that the store owner put in a Guest Register, for visitors to sign in on--and that reads like both a geography lesson and a veritable Who's Who At Indianapolis Motor Speedway from back then. I've also been told by Chris Etzel (who grew up here, and I knew from the time he was a kindergartener) that the window display is what inspired him to start Etzel's Speed Classics, as a maker of exacting 1/25 scale Indianapolis cars staring in 1995.

Art

[Miatatom]

Thanks for the great backstory, Art! I love to read stuff like that.

[Art Anderson]

Tom, like a lot of things it comes down to personal taste.

For me the biggest issue with the kit was the tires. They lacked tread and were way too big. Also, the shape of the nose of the real car tapers and slants downward more than the one on the kit. That was less of an issue, but still noticeable to me.

But, it all depends on the level of detail you're after. If this stuff doesn't bother you, then you should build it straight from the box. Phil showed with his builds that they can be perfectly presentable without any aftermarket stuff.

I thought the Lotus was a pretty good kit, especially for its age. It went together well for me, but be sure to test fit the location of the engine. The whole rear suspension depends on it being positioned correctly.

Good Luck with your builds and have fun. Be sure to post pictures of the finished models.

If anything, the tires that AMT has used on the Lotus 29 (actually almost a Lotus 34) and the Agajanian Willard Battery Special are larger than the 1964 and later-out-to-modern era Indy car tires. The story goes like this, pretty much:

Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner, Anton Hulman Jr., worked pretty hard to entice European Grand Prix teams to come to Indy (what most do not know is, the Indianapolis 500 paid World Driving Championship points from the mid-1930's through the late 1950's!), and as such, there were accommodations made in this regard.

When Ford approached Team Lotus with the idea of a Ford powered Indianapolis effort (remember, this was the era of Ford-advertised "Total Performance"!), Lotus Cars responded with a chassis based on their conquering Lotus 25 F1 car, which became the Lotus 29. In those days, the standard USAC Championship race car tires were 8:00-18 rears, and 7:50-16 fronts, on those sizes of Halibrand magnesium wheels. Team Lotus persuaded Halibrand to come up with 15" wheels for their entries, and Firestone Racing Division provided this diameter tire for them, for the 1963 500. (For 1964, Lotus, driven by a dutiful patriotism toward British manufacturers, had Dunlop build the same size tires, with disastrous results!). Those 1963 Firestone Speedway Specials built for Lotus were large, with nearly the same outside diameter as the 16 and 18 inch rims and tires used on all the roadsters--and war broke out in Gasoline Alley. Halibrand and Firestone both went into overdrive, and managed to equip about half of the Offy Roadster teams with the new size wheels and tires. The remaining entries were stuck with the older tire and wheel sizes. It wasn't until 1964 that Firestone brought out what they advertised as the "Wide Oval" tire configuration.

The original soft PVC tires that AMT used in their Offy roadster and Lotus Ford kits were much more correct--having the proper tread pattern but with no sidewall detailing.

Art

Thanks for the great backstory, Art! I love to read stuff like that.

Tom,

Models of Indy cars were a big thing in my hobby life for so many years, it all comes out when I see a thread like this!

Art