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Trumpeter GT40- it's finally finished!


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Looking fantastic. The more you build the more I see what I forgot to do to mine.

Really a great result on this build.

Thanks, Eric. I wouldn't have known to do most of the stuff I did with mine if it wasn't for your masterful

build!

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Here is a photo I thought you might all enjoy. It is from it is from the Cotter & Pearce book on Holman Moody. This is a later B model. You can tell from the twin carburetors. When I was speaking about the roll bar in the engine compartment I miss spoke(wrote?) and was referring to the anti-roll or stabilizer bar. As you can see in this photo it is much smaller that the one on the model. As to the eye candy in the engine compartment, there were a lot of different configurations. You can see deeper oil catch tanks in this photo. The size of the tanks was dependent on the race. The 427 used a lot of oil to cool the beast. Also of interest, at some point the need for a lot of fuel pumps was reduced by adding a large 2" diameter crossover tube between the fuel bladders. This ran between the tanks under the drivers seat. I can't imagine that passing safety inspection now.

GT40engineHampM_zps6fcf21d7.jpg

Just a little back ground that a lot of people don't know. On the GT40, H&M acted and the primary contractor with ford. When the original Mk2's bodies were finished in England they were all shipped to H&M for final assembly and prep. The H&M shop in Charlotte was always the main shop for this effort by Ford. When major mods were done, they were all done there. At the time Shelby's shop didn't have the capacity to handle that many cars.

That is why you will see a lot of shots with John Holman in them. He had primary responsibility for the cars. There was a lot of friction with Shelby as a result. At one point John actually had Shelby ban from the pit area. You can well imagine how that went over.

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That is why you will see a lot of shots with John Holman in them. He had primary responsibility for the cars. There was a lot of friction with Shelby as a result. At one point John actually had Shelby ban from the pit area. You can well imagine how that went over.

Yet his cars finished in the top three spots in '66!

I know John and Ralph didn't like that. :lol:

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Yet his cars finished in the top three spots in '66!

I know John and Ralph didn't like that. :lol:

Actually the Shelby cars were the top two spots with the H&M car third. The finish was called by Ford and I never did understand that! H&M was running in first near end of the race and all three cars were so far ahead of the field that no one was going to catch them. Ford decided the finishing order and decided that it needed to be Shelby so H&M was ordered to stand down. It might have been that Shelby had two cars running and H&M only had one or perhaps Ford was going to market the Shelby name and they wanted the publicity. I suppose an H&M Mustang just doesn't have the panache of a Shelby Mustang. Who the heck knows. I do know that John Holman was a team player. Had the situation been reversed and Shelby asked to stand down that may not have happened.

One other thought on the finish, it may have been that H&M had much more going on with the stock car end of Ford Racing and Shelby had nothing even close. Kind of a spread the wealth sort of thing.

Edited by Pete J.
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Actually the Shelby cars were the top two spots with the H&M car third. The finish was called by Ford and I never did understand that! H&M was running in first near end of the race and all three cars were so far ahead of the field that no one was going to catch them. Ford decided the finishing order and decided that it needed to be Shelby so H&M was ordered to stand down. It might have been that Shelby had two cars running and H&M only had one or perhaps Ford was going to market the Shelby name and they wanted the publicity. I suppose an H&M Mustang just doesn't have the panache of a Shelby Mustang. Who the heck knows. I do know that John Holman was a team player. Had the situation been reversed and Shelby asked to stand down that may not have happened.

One other thought on the finish, it may have been that H&M had much more going on with the stock car end of Ford Racing and Shelby had nothing even close. Kind of a spread the wealth sort of thing.

I'm going to go with this one. Ol' Shel built some great cars, no doubt, but he was always very publicity-conscious. This would have been right at the time the Shelby Mustangs went from being rare race-bred machines to more of a top-of-the-line production model, and the Shelby name was closely associated with Ford performance. It definitely made more business sense to give the win to the Shelby cars... not that it was fair to Holman at all.

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Actually the Shelby cars were the top two spots with the H&M car third. The finish was called by Ford and I never did understand that! H&M was running in first near end of the race and all three cars were so far ahead of the field that no one was going to catch them. Ford decided the finishing order and decided that it needed to be Shelby so H&M was ordered to stand down. It might have been that Shelby had two cars running and H&M only had one or perhaps Ford was going to market the Shelby name and they wanted the publicity. I suppose an H&M Mustang just doesn't have the panache of a Shelby Mustang. Who the heck knows. I do know that John Holman was a team player. Had the situation been reversed and Shelby asked to stand down that may not have happened.

One other thought on the finish, it may have been that H&M had much more going on with the stock car end of Ford Racing and Shelby had nothing even close. Kind of a spread the wealth sort of thing.

There is no doubting that H&M were great race car builders and contributed to the GT40's success but I must disagree with you Pete. According to "Le mans 1960-1969: The Official History of the World's Greatest Motor Race" by Quentin Spurring P/1016 (the highest finishing H&M GT40) was never higher than 3rd place and finished 12 laps behind the Shelby GT40's (P/1046 & P/1015).

DSCN1649-vi.jpg

DSCN1646-vi.jpg

Edited by afx
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You guys are starting to sound like IMPS guys looking at a WWII airplane on a specific date and mission. :wacko:

Anyway - great model and I like the choice of not doing the #2 car colors. As with any GT40, these cars changed from race to race so to build an exact replica is difficult unless you have bunch of photos from that one race.

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So here are some shots of the finished model. I'm going to post more in "under glass" as well as a link to this thread. The only real hiccup in final assembly was that I lost one of the hood pin clips in the carpet... I bent one out of wire to match (actually, I bent about 8 before I got one just about right!). The steel cable on the hood pin clips and engine cover retainers is .017 from RB Motion.

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I loved every second of building this model... even when I hated it! I've never stretched my talents or patience so much when working on a build. It was really an experience, and I learned lessons and techniques that I'll take with me on all my future builds. Thanks, everybody (and especially Cato) for your interest and support!

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...
  • 3 months later...

Certainly true Rick. But a small nit to pick for the best 1/12 replica kit we got these days. And most of us who've built one corrected many of Trump's flaws.

All your SPF LHD replicas are nice cars but have similar small compromises to 1966.

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Are there any other larger scale GT 40 kits out there other than the Trumpeter????

Sorry-NOT a kit but the best GT I've seen in any scale; the diecast Exoto 1/10 scale.

Superior to the 1/12 GMPs. I considered 'accurizing' the finishes with use and patina but decided to keep it valuable.

I used mine for reference when building my Trump GT:

LMedium_zps88fdf8e5.jpg

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Certainly true Rick. But a small nit to pick for the best 1/12 replica kit we got these days. And most of us who've built one corrected many of Trump's flaws.

All your SPF LHD replicas are nice cars but have similar small compromises to 1966.

Note that the diecast (red unit) sold as a "Shelby Collectible" is actually a Superformance replica! It has the Superformance LHD dash and the console/park brake handle that is unique to the Superformance GT40. The exterior however is correct and has all of the RHD MK II features such as the hatch to access the brake/clutch reservoirs. It is a nice piece for the low cost.

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post-14937-0-54365500-1420238914_thumb.j

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  • 7 years later...

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