Jump to content
Model Cars Magazine Forum

Lets see some "phantoms", cars that never ran or were submitted but never used for cup racing.....


Recommended Posts

seeing the Mirada and Imperials that are under construction has got me excited again!

I've got the Little CeasarsLincoln MKIII and also the BoJangles Cougar from the 90's in resin, but those are still in the box waiting for some inspiration.

What other cars were propsed or built but never made it to Cup racing? I know a few cars were used once or twice, like the '69 GrandPrix and the early 70's Grand Am.

Model car pics or actual car pics are welcome in this thread.17KingCobra1-vi.jpg22DaytonaIIbody-vi.jpg71SuperbirdIIylw-vi.jpgSep1005-vi.jpg

I did build a phantom Torino "King Cobra"(R&D Resin body combined with Revell Promodel Torino and PolarLights Cyclone chassis), and started on the Daytona II (AMT 71 Charger with AMT Daytona add ons), Superbird II (MPC kit right out the box) and also the Mercury "Super Cyclone" (Unkown resin with addition of scraps such as the hood from Datsun280zx).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is a very interesting topic, that King Cobra Torino look great. I have an old Supercar Magazine issue with an article on the original yellow concept car and clay study model. Your other projects look equaly interesting and inspiring,please keep us posted in their progress.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't want to hijack this thread but if you search on the workbench for RiviAirEh you can see I started with a '69 Riviera.

Mine is kind of a "phantom phantom", in my mind it was never run in a race but it was built and driven/tested. I have my story for it in my head ;)

I really love your builds for this thread Steve, got any more of them for us to look at?

Bob

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That Buick is a good start at a what if ! I think someone actual ran a similar buick back then, I think I have a pic.....it was JD McDuffie....

.mcduffie20206720Buick202-vi.jpg

Years ago I mocked up an AMT Torino Cobra with a Johan Superbird wing. I had seen a black and white photo of a factory mock up of a '69 Torino with a wing and also what looked like the nose of an early Datsun 240 with chrome bumper and similar headlights and under cut grill. Thats when I went actively looking for what we now know as the AeroCobras and Spoiler III. I abandoned the earlier Torino once I started on these. I may have to come back to that idea someday.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Here is a post from The H.AM.B. about the Chevelle.

YUNICKchevelle.jpg

Over the years the legend of this car has grown, some stories are true and some have just gotten better with the retelling. In the day it was believed that this car and the ’67 car were 15/16 scale versions of the production Chevelle. This is not true, they both used factory sheet metal, the length and wheel-base are correct but the proportions have been “improved”. Smokey even created the first template to show NASCAR that his car matched a street Chevelle in the parking lot. It did, but then again the street car in the parking lot also belonged to Smokey. The front bumper was sliced and extended 2 inches to create a front air dam. The roof was modified with a subtle “vortex” generating lip. All the rough edges were smoothed, the glass was fit flush to the body, and the rear bumper feathered into the rear fender, all to improve the aerodynamics of the car.

It was common practice in NASCAR at that time to use the much stiffer Ford frame in a Chevy, Pontiac, or Dodge. Smokey believed that to mean that you could use “any manufacturers” frame in any car. So he “manufactured” his own frame. Since you had to keep the engine centered between the frame rails, he moved the entire frame to the left, as well as the fuel cell, driver and many other components to improve the balance of the car on Daytona’s banking. The engine was also used as a stressed member in the frame. The underside was an engineering marvel. The floor boards were lowered to create a belly pan, custom-made adjustable front control arms replaced stock units, and a revised front steer system was used to optimize the Ackerman angle and make room for the engines belly pan style oil pan.

The car weighed 3,900 lbs. and was powered by a de-stroked version of the Chevrolet Rat motor that displaced 416cid. Smokey’s theory was that less reciprocating mass meant higher backstretch RPM and decreased fatigue. The engine made 450HP at 7600RPM.

After nearing killing himself building the car Smokey showed up at Tech for the ’68 Daytona 500 on the last day. It was required that the car be inspected without any fuel in the tank. After six hours in the tech shed the car passed. The team pushed it over to the gas pumps to fill up and get ready for practice. They were refused fuel and told that they would not get any until the head of tech Joe Gazaway signed off on the car. Joe looked the car over and found ten items that had to be changed. First on the list was Smokey’s custom frame. It had to be a stock “Ford” frame. According to legend, with no fuel in the car and Joe telling a steaming mad Smokey he needed to change ten things on the car to race. Smokey jumped in, fired up the engine and said “make that eleven things” drove the car out of the racetrack onto the street and back to his shop. Smokey says that really isn’t true, he had put some fuel in the tank... but where did he get the fuel?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another Smoky story is that when NASCAR mandated running a certain size of fuel cell they also mandated it have a 2" filler neck. In a stroke of genius of playing in the gray areas of the rule book Smoky ran the 2" filler neck up into the passenger floor board before returning it to the tank. The total length of the hose was ten or fifteen feet and it held about another five gallons of gas. The rule book now states that the filler neck must go directly to the fuel cell.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

According to Smoky he never violated the rule book, he found omissions in the book and exploited them.

Smokey always said that you had to "race by what the rule book doesn't say. If the rule book doesn't specifically say that something is illegal, than I have to assume that it's legal." As a racer...those are words to live by. Smokey should be in the NASCAR HoF!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

S.Svendsen above isn't the only guy who built a Concorde a while back. I'm sure many of the guys on this website who also have read Scale Auto remember their 20th Anniversary contest where they bound a set of Slixx decals into an issue of the mag and you had to build a model around that theme. It didn't have to be a race car specifically - there were several magazine delivery trucks entered, for instance - but most entries were racers (I hope there's no backlash for posting photos bearing a competing magazine's name and logo!) . I built two for the contest, which meant buying a copy of the magazine at the LHS in addition to the subscription I had at the time (long since lapsed). My premise were two NASCAR entries from the same team, 20 years apart. In the present day, they campaigned a new Chrysler Concorde as seen directly below, but when the team (and the magazine) were just starting out, it was a year-old 1979 Monte Carlo in the Late Model Sportsman Series, as seen at the bottom of my post. The Concorde body is from the AMT "Slammers" "Street Heat" model, and the Monte Carlo's body is from an MPC 1979 Monte Carlo annual glue bomb. Sorry, but I just don't recall which chassis' I used for these builds. (I apologize for the poor quality images. They were taken about 8 years ago on a very early digital camera. My cell phone takes better pictures!):

00ChryslerConcordeScaleAutoMagazineNASCARWinstonCupcar1.jpg

00ChryslerConcordeScaleAutoMagazineNASCARWinstonCupcar2.jpg

00ChryslerConcordeScaleAutoMagazineNASCARWinstonCupcar3.jpg

79ScaleAutoMagazineMonteCarloNASCARGrandNationalcar1.jpg

79ScaleAutoMagazineMonteCarloNASCARGrandNationalcar2.jpg

79ScaleAutoMagazineMonteCarloNASCARGrandNationalcar3.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm currently working on one of Car Kiekhaefer's Chrysler 300C "Road America" cars. the story is that he purchased 4 new 300C's to compete in NASCARs road race at Road America in July of 57. before he got the cars completely modified to 'race trim', the Road America race was cancelled. he put the cars back to street status, with him taking one of them to drive as his personal car and one of his staff taking one of the others. should be an interesting build. I'm getting info from the shop in Kansas that is restoring one of these "Road America" cars, the special order Gray one, for the owner. pretty cool stuff they did to them for racing that will be incorporated into my model.

post-10125-0-40163600-1341833734_thumb.j

Edited by Honda446
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I built this "phantom" Adam Petty 1999 Chrysler Concord a while back while the Petty Teams were still running Pontiacs. I thought it would be neat to see the Petty name on a Mopar again.

petty1.jpg

petty3.jpg

petty2.jpg

looks much like a car that was on the cover of a magazine in 99 or 2000, depicting Mopars re-entry into NASCAR. pretty cool model!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi!

Here's mine, it's a '85 or '86 Chevy Monte-Carlo from Monogram with Fred Cady decals.

Since it's never been raced, i don't know who was the designated driver at this time..

By the way, if someone can help me with that, because i've been told it was a phantom race car while i was building it.. so i left it aside a bit and never completed the decals on it.

I built it four years ago!

It's been built box stock, except for the engine wires, the paint is white automotive lacquer...

Mike...

post-10165-0-17709800-1342051402_thumb.j

post-10165-0-89581700-1342051420_thumb.j

post-10165-0-32495000-1342051433_thumb.j

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...