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RC2 AMT/Ertl Winged Express Fuel Altered - Buyer's Choice


Junkman

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I bought the kit many years ago ( no idea which issue it was ) . I started it and got bored with it so it sat , painted in the box for well over ten years.

A couple years ago stumbled on to it while looking for something else .

So I decided to drag it out and finish it.

Is the most accurate kit out there? no. Is it my favorite build,? No.

But I don't think a drag car model collection is complete without one. He made THAT much of an impact on the industry. I put him right up there with Ronnie Sox and Bill Jenkins.

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I built mine using the old MPC kit and really liked it, some parts cleanup is required but everything needed to build a nice replica is there (except wires, hoses and some detail items) but the decals are not that great. When I was building mine I looked everywhere on the www to find a Slixx decal sheet, which includes decals for the funny car but also the decals for both versions of the fuel altered, and it looks much better than the kit decals, but I wasn't able to find a sheet. So I built mine using the kit decals and some gold vinyl pinstripes...

859586wingedexpress014.jpg

Since then, Slixx re-released the decal sheet and it is available right now

http://slixx.com/1235.htm?id=4946

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One problem I have with the MPC kit is that the wing just doesn't look right at all to me. I dunno if M&B ever ran a wing like the one in the kit, but every pic I've ever seen of the second car has a wing like this. Maybe it's just me but I see a LOT of difference in the two shapes. I'll be scratchbuilding a wing when I get around to building mine.

n1jtn48mhuelhsrx1jyx.jpg

winged%20express.jpg

noblimp.jpg

Edited by Snake45
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I think it depends on which car you see. * untill this thread I didn't know there was more than one car back then .

I've got these I found while doing my build.

I really like the pic where the car is all out of sorts,,,,,and that left hand is still on the body and driving with just one hand ........ To me thats someone either crazy,,,,, or extremely confident in there driving ability ,,,or maybe a little bit of both.

Edited by gtx6970
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^^

Those are both showing the first car.

However, the second (Logghe chassis) car did run initially with the wing that's in the kit.

One has to look no further than the original box art photo:

eredRodWingedExpressMPCERTL001-vi.jpg

This was shuffled around quite a bit.

There was this exotic configuration:

Willy_70.jpg

The smaller wing:

willieChute.jpg

And occasionally it was run with no wing at all, believe it, or not.

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I think it depends on which car you see. * untill this thread I didn't know there was more than one car back then .

I've got these I found while doing my build.

I really like the pic where the car is all out of sorts,,,,,and that left hand is still on the body and driving with just one hand ........ To me thats someone either crazy,,,,, or extremely confident in there driving ability ,,,or maybe a little bit of both.

Talking to Mousie a few years back I asked about the one handed driving style we saw in so many pictures. He told me that Willie had not idea he was even doing it! Photographers where asking about it and he said that he was not doing that at all, until they showed him the pictures of it. He said it was because when the car got out of shape he was getting tossed around in the seat, so he would reach out and just hang on! He was not trying to put on a show, he was hanging on for dear life!

Well, it became his trade mark and the legend was born! So much that when he switched to funny cars, which Mousie hated and led to their racing career demise, they brewed up the fake arm to rest on the cars window area. Or so the story goes!

587398468_o_zps391d23c9.jpg

WWB_640.jpg

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^^

Those are both showing the first car.

However, the second (Logghe chassis) car did run initially with the wing that's in the kit.

One has to look no further than the original box art photo:

eredRodWingedExpressMPCERTL001-vi.jpg

This was shuffled around quite a bit.

There was this exotic configuration:

Willy_70.jpg

The smaller wing:

willieChute.jpg

And occasionally it was run with no wing at all, believe it, or not.

Interesting! I don't trust box art, as I know that MPC retouched some of this. But your second pic proves that such a wing did exist.

I'll still scratch the smaller wing, just to be different. B)

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A few other pics with the big wing

6068785fd1.jpg

1c13c81531.jpg

Notice the first pic is very close to the box art, but not the same pic, + the number on the wing is not the same. Also notice the different injector hat, I found 21 reference pics of the Winged Express when I built it, and there's something different on every pics...

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A few other pics with the big wing

6068785fd1.jpg

1c13c81531.jpg

Notice the first pic is very close to the box art, but not the same pic, + the number on the wing is not the same. Also notice the different injector hat, I found 21 reference pics of the Winged Express when I built it, and there's something different on every pics...

Your first pic is the second car, with what I'd call the "medium" wing. Your second pic is the first car, with the BIG wing. That's the car & wing that build the M&B reputation and legend. B) This is a fairly late pic of it, when it was carrying the Winged Express lettering on the "doors" instead of the M&B names.

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