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Mickey Thompson's Challenger One. Still alive, Feb. 8


Ace-Garageguy

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With the center hood nice and rigid from the 'glass, I was able to carefully saw the scoops off and preserve them for something else, which was the plan.....

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The profile of the car just isn't as voluptuous as the 1:1 shots appear, so that will have to be addressed.....

DSCN8108.jpg

Still, I really love the look of purpose and speed this car always presents. There will be considerable test-fitting and minor mods to make everything fit, skinwise, as well, but this is a truly outstanding kit and everyone who is interested in the history of motorsports needs one of these. It will make a better, more patient builder out of you, too.

DSCN8111.jpg

Edited by Ace-Garageguy
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Looks great, Bill. I see what you mean about the voluptuousness factor not quite being there yet. Looks as though the upper mid-ship needs a little dipperty action along the corners, and the back end of the panel when it comes up to the cockpit given a little rise in the center.

Still, looks ready to rip.

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...The profile of the car just isn't as voluptuous as the 1:1 shots appear, so that will have to be addressed.....

DSCN8108.jpg

Still, I really love the look of purpose and speed this car always presents. There will be considerable test-fitting and minor mods to make everything fit, skinwise, as well, but this is a truly outstanding kit and everyone who is interested in the history of motorsports needs one of these. It will make a better, more patient builder out of you, too.

DSCN8111.jpg

The unblown version has a considerably different nose section which accounts for the less dramatic contours of the later version Your comment got me wandering the web for pictures to confirm this. Here a some that illustrate the point. You'll notice that, assuming the height of the fender tops remained constant, the sheet metal between the fenders was rased and the contour of the fender tops merged into the surface in a less vertical contour. Also the nose openings are very different. Here are some pictures I found interesting.

These are from Machine-History.com ( http://www.machine-h...r I Streamliner ):

Image5small.img_assist_custom.jpg

Image6small.preview.jpg

I'm not certain but it appears possible that the crests of the front fenders were extended rearward some what more on the initial version, too, at least compared to Revell's version. They appear to resolve into the engine deck at about the center of the front most exhaust port. :

Image2small.img_assist_custom.jpg

And here's an interesting photo from the Hemmings site ( http://blog.hemmings...-i-streamliner/ ) that shows the car in an early form on its way to Edwards Air Force Base for some test runs where it went 250 MPH. Notice the additional vent openings.

MTChallenger1959_1000.jpg

In any case, this is an exciting and beautiful project you're tackling. I love the colors you've used for the chassis. Can't wait to see more!

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Thanks hugely for the pix, Bernard. They are very telling. I'm thinking Thompson got some professional aerodynamic input before the second skin was built. It looks to me like the front fender tops on the early car are somewhat higher, as the ones on the kit version just skim the tires. This would be consistent with an attempt to reduce frontal-area as much as possible. As you probably know, aero drag increases with the square of speed, so the drag at 400 MPH is 16 times what it is at 100MPH. A very small reduction in frontal area can mean the difference between making a record and not-quite.

There also appears to be more reverse-curvature behind the front wheel openings on the early car. This also would be in keeping with an attempt at reducing drag...in this case induced drag possibly caused by the slight lift or negative-pressure created by the down-curve behind the tops of the wheel openings.

Air is happiest flowing in straight lines, and though the earlier car is surely prettier, the later one is undeniably slicker. The straightening of the body contours may also have been done to try to compensate somewhat for the massive increase in drag produced by the blowers and scoops up in the air stream on the record version.

Edited by Ace-Garageguy
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I agree, Bill. One of the more counter-intuitive trends in things automotive is the rise of the blunt nose as the dominant form in reducing drag. We see it everywhere these days, particularly in passenger cars,often aided and abetted by other factors such as the EU law mandating that at speeds below 10 kph a car coliding with a pedestrian must throw the hapless victim upwards and not under the car, and the move to increasing interior space by having passengers sit more upright. All this has eliminated the old long and low, "swoopy" streamline look from the automotive design vocabulary. It's fascinating to see it so obviously manifest in Thompson's Challenger. The injected car was fast, though not quite fast enough to be a record setter. But it was fast enough to attract plenty of additional sponsorship. I have no doubt your surmise is correct, that MT got some professional help and this accounts for the car's more blunt shape at the front. I'll have to scratch around the web some more to see if I can find some history on this matter but it's quite clear in comparing the two versions. How very, very cool...

By the way, when it comes to voluptuous streamliners the old Hammon-Whipp-McGrath Redhead will never be equaled!

early+redhead+2.jpgredhead+1+1964.jpg

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  • 2 months later...

Anymore progress on this one?

Thanks for your interest. I'm having to heavily modify all of the upper body panels, and had to open up another kit so I wouldn't lose the baselines. Also had to make scaled drawings from the best of the online images I could find. So, typically for me, it's taking a lot longer than I originally envisioned. I didn't realize how much different the early version actually was.

I just find it so amazing that with the technology we had in the 60's we were able to build a car that could go over 400 miles per hour. IN THE 60'S!!!

Sometimes human inginuity just makes me speechless.

I don't know how old you are, but the '60s were hardly the stone age. The speed of sound was broken by an airplane in 1947. The Mach-3 SR-71 Blackbird first flew in late 1964. It is still the fastest manned aircraft ever built (officially).

As far as human ingenuity goes, in 1807 a Swiss engineer built an internal combustion engine powered by a hydrogen and oxygen mixture, and ignited by electric spark, and by 1861 the first confirmed patent for a four-cycle IC engine was issued. Every piston engine today, and in the '60s, was an outgrowth of those pioneering efforts.

The major differences in IC engines today as opposed to then, besides metallurgy, are better combustion chamber-shape and efficiency brought on by the power of computer simulation, and electronic (computer) engine management (including improved cam profiles and variable cam timing). Otherwise, the principles are the same as those discovered in the 1800s.

What has always impressed me about Challenger the most is that although there were many people involved, it was essentially a one-man design, and a lot of the car was actually built from junk (the tramsmissions, for example, were late 1930s LaSalle). Mickey Thompson was probably one of the most gifted natural engineers the world has ever known.

Edited by Ace-Garageguy
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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...

I've been thinking, and because the revised body panels have to fit EACH OTHER perfectly, the only way to get it right is to fixture all of the body panels together while i sculpt the modified shapes. I've glued temporary alignment jigs on the insides of all of the panels, and left enough of a gap on the end pieces for a razor saw blade.

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Due to variations in the thickness of the kit parts, you get an idea of why this model has a reputation for being difficult. Still, this is one of my favorite kits of all time, and all the thickness and fit issues will be corrected as I go along.

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Everything is stable, so the sculpting of the new shapes can commence, with the assurance the body sections will actually match up when the thing is assembled. This is another case where taking a break while thinking through the best procedure is going to streamline the work, and make for a much better model.

DSCN9954_zps1056268f.jpg

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First things first. Got the sides flat to give myself a clean starting point by block-sanding with 80 grit open-coat paper. Seems a little brutal, but it's effective.

DSCN9956_zpsa3a878b1.jpg

Next up, the voluptuous curves of the original body on Challenger begin to sprout. There's a LOT to get this body looking like the real first incarnation. Every panel is different, except the canopy.

DSCN9988_zps92276cec.jpg

Edited by Ace-Garageguy
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...

Next up, the voluptuous curves of the original body on Challenger begin to sprout. There's a LOT to get this body looking like the real first incarnation. Every panel is different, except the canopy.

DSCN9988_zps92276cec.jpg

Lovely! So what exactly are you doing here, building up the surfaces with filler then re-contouring them?

I was also thinking... it's so bitterly frustrating that M/T and his wife were murdered. He could have achieved so much more (and doubtless would have since at the time of his death in 1988 he was as creative, productive and committed as ever). And, as an old man who would have just turned 85 last week, with a lifetime of great work behind him, he would have deeply appreciated your approach to replicating one of his intuitive masterpieces.

Edited by Bernard Kron
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