THarrison351

Thanks Slusher! Thank you Bill! I'm thinking about getting the second rerelease and doing the movie version. I figure I can get the PPP Firestone NASCAR tires for the movie version. Thanks Tom! Yeah, I had know idea of this kits existence prior to its issue in 2002. I've never been to a model or trade show. My research to build it led me to the information of it's origins and the first issues values. I too wonder if the guy ever got what he wanted for his "valuable" kits Thank you Larry!

For the 1966 movie "Fireball 500" a custom car was created by Barris Kustom for the main character. It started life as a stock 1966 Barracuda with a 273 4 barrel. The body modifications are a love it or hate it kind of thing. The kit was based on the 1965/1966 annual barracuda kit modified to look like the show car, not the movie car. It comes with a sad excuse for a tandem axle trailer too. From everything I've read, at one time this kit because it was only issued once in 1966, was very highly coveted and valuable. That changed in the early 2000s when the molds were discovered and it was reissued. That's the kit I have. It looks like they changed the decals a bit and swapped out the the tires for lower profile versions. Around five years ago, Round2 issued it again with a new expanded set of decals. These have the original movie, and two new corrected fireball sets for the sides. However, they didn't correct the RH side USA shield for some inexplicable reason. As far as I can see everything else in the kit is the same as the 2002 issue. It's not a bad kit to build considering the age and it based on an annual 3n1 promo style kit. The annual kit was only offered with a slant six or a 426 hemi for the engine, so they opted to use the hemi as the SSXR's power. Someone could use a later AMT Duster kit and update the chassis and engine to make it correct, but I'm not up for that this go around. On to the pictures! (Barris Kustom) Movie car, looks like it has Firestone NASCAR gold stripe tires on it. Headrests are different too. You might be able to tell from the picture the steering wheel was "wood" rimmed in the movie. (Custom Rodder) How it looks after the movie and when it was kitted originally. Paint changed, headrests changed, hood pins added, side windows added and all tinted orange. Currently running lower profile white letter radials The model is issued with only one racing mirror. I scrounged two like ones from the parts box and pinned them on I didn't realize until after the USA shield was on, the fuel filler was going to be a problem. There's a raised circle for it's placement. That USA shield is so wrong...It's supposed to be like the left side with the USA forward, and for some odd reason the Plymouth stickers were not placed equally on the front fenders on the show car There's hidden Cibie euro lights behind the tube grill The taillights in the back of the headrests and tail fins appear metallic on the show car. I left the red plastic showing cause I like it. License plate should be recessed You really can't see inside the interior. More pics at the end. I didn't know Tamiya clear orange would craze windows. I'm glad I taped up the outside. I added a simple pre-wired distributor You have to love those early annual promo chassis... Air brushed with decanted Tamiya and Testors Lacquer. Testors white, Tamiya gold, clear orange, and clear red. I painted the back 3/4s gold, the middle orange, then added red Ready for final assembly Only five pieces

Thanks! You're correct about the the decals blue color, but that's what's available. I believe it's close to the same dark blue they used on the chassis parts and wheels and somewhere I read it was called equipment blue, but I've also read Kyle Petty called it Ford dark blue. I used the same thing I've always used for tampo prints and that's cotton balls and acetone. You have to be careful because it does remove some base paint. Edges will become bare if worked hard. I've tried non-acetone nail polish remover too. It works, it's slow, expensive comparatively, and in the end will remove some base paint.

Thanks Bob! I appreciate the compliments! Thank you Chris! Thanks Larry! I agree Dave! I'm thinking Racing Champions took the Franklin Mint Superbird and made some simplifications for cost and manufacturing cuts. It's clear they come from the same design. Thank you Mr. Slusher! Thanks Don! I'm pretty happy the way it turned out too! It took several cardboard templates to get the template correct. Dave as far as I know about the Franklin Mint tooling, Icon has that and they used it for the University of Racing Legends 1969 Charger 500s and Charger Daytonas. They created new tooling for the bodies and modified the chassis to fit. The chassis on the Charger 500s is almost exactly duplicated including the incorrect exhaust. On the Daytonas they have the correct dual side pipes. I wish they had corrected the wheels too. Not sure if Round 2 has the tooling from the RC2 Superbirds. Does your RC2 Superbird have diecast chassis or a plastic chassis? Also, on the Racing Champions cars I've seen the front nose intakes appear to be cast with chassis

Good job Randy! I picked up my last one(#2) a few weeks ago. I was looking for the postal Jeep, which I found and saw the #2 to complete the GT 40 set.

Didn't they have this in a promo and a SnapFast plus years ago? Seems like I built a maroon one for my son that looked just like this.

This is a project I’ve thought about for several years. Wanting to acquire a derelict Franklin Mint Petty Superbird and convert it into a Pete Hamilton version. I’ve been watching eBay for the best candidate, and most were overpriced or too damaged for my needs. This popped up a few weeks ago with a decent BIN and reasonable shipping with only a broken wheel and dirtiness. The wheel was an easy enough fix, the spindle where the screw mounts the screw was a clean break. Disassembled the wheel and glued the broken stub back on the spindle. My memory is terrible and there used to be a lot of great information on Randy Ayer’s NASCAR model sight until his server crashed and most was lost. Things I researched to change from the Petty to Hamilton car. First off, I knew from an interview of Richard Petty that I'd read years ago about the Petty Museum Superbird which the Franklin Mint car was based on was inaccurate. It was a short track car that they attached a Superbird front clip, rear window plug, and wing. The car never ran a race as a Superbird. They also massaged some parts like the fender vents to make them more aerodynamic as he was updating the car with every new trick they could come up with. First, the most obvious(and since changed, but wrong color) thing is the slotted wheels. Those wheels didn’t come into use until the 1972 season with the conversion to disc brakes although you’ll see slot wheels on drum brake cars because these were the first race wheels specifically for NASCAR. They might even be lighter, due to not having two centers welded together on the solid wheels. I know they kept the brakes cooler. I used PPP wheels in place of the slot halves of the Mint assembly and it worked out ok. Superglue can be your friend. Second was the tires themselves. In the 1970 season, NASCAR Goodyear tires went from treaded to slicks. Richard Petty said something like he was afraid of the slicks because if someone so much as spit on the pavement you could spin out or something to that effect. You can see visibly on the outside of tire when they changed by the Goodyear lettering. The small letters are the treaded tires and the larger were the slicks. The Mint car comes with Goodyear Eagles print which started use in 1981 but the tires are treaded? Fortunately, a little acetone and some course sandpaper on the treads made them look a little more acceptable. Third, the exhaust exiting out the left side! Only the short track cars ran both pipes out the left side because the cars squatted to the right in the turns, and they’d scrape if they were on the right. I cut up the pipe from the right header and drilled a couple of new holes for it to fit in. It’s not perfect when viewed from the bottom, but it works. Fourth, no front spoiler! I built a chin spoiler out of thin aluminum to match as close as possible his Talladega wins. The Daytona win spoiler is interesting and complicated, but there’s no side windows in this replica so that version was out. Fifth, the hood pin. So many, including my own personal Petty Superbird are often missing these sad looking lumps of plastic imitating hood pins. This derelict diecast had all of them! I removed them, saving one for my Petty car. And replaced the missing pins with lovely photo-etched ones from Pro-Tech. Last and requiring the most work, was the removal of all the Petty Tampo printing. Fortunately, I’ve dealt with this in previous diecast conversions, so I knew lacquer thinner, and acetone would be no match. I did leave the hood cubic inch print, but all the rest came off. I had several collections of Hamilton decals to choose from, but they were so old that even with a coat of clear, they crumbled in the water. Power Slide and Mikes Decal’s bailed me out and what great decals they are. The red nose trapezoid to help the pit crews distinguish the cars was the only dilemma. I compared my Franklin Mint car to my other 1/24 Superbirds, and it’s nearly 3/16 wider at the nose. Not sure if this is a Mint anomaly or the Museum Superbird dimension. Anyways, I had to split that decal and paint the center. Tried and true Testers 1103 red bottle paint over flat white primer matched good enough. Some of the other decals were a compromise to scale, but close enough for my needs. I also discovered the passenger door handle cover decal or Tampo was never on the car. I looked at the seller’s pictures and it’s missing and there’s no evidence it ever was on it. Last items: the seller didn’t disclose the car came from a smoker’s house. It reeked of cigarettes, and I didn’t notice in the pictures how yellowed the windows were. Even after polishing, they’re still yellow. I also added the missing upper radiator hose that all these cars came without. It’s not routed correctly, but it’s there. I would have added spark plug wires, but the engine was glued in so well I feared it would damage before I could remove it. The upper frame crash bars are in the way to drill the valve covers for wires. Icon diecast which produced the University of Racing Legends diecast used the Franklin Mint Petty diecast to clone the 1969 Charger 500s and Charger Daytonas. They created new body’s, but the chassis is almost untouched. I last read Icons were not planning to produce anymore cars until all their inventory was sold. I’m hoping because they produced the Chargers from the Petty molds, they can someday produce Superbirds! Painted the black line like the Pettys did to make it look like the nose cone was separate Painted the aero trim between the bumper and body. It's part of the chrome bumper on the standard diecast I need to add the jack point guide marks Don't know the reason, but Pete's number 40 was never centered on his cars Corrected exhaust All cleaned up and ready for modifications As recieved from seller, dirt and all Nice clean break Incorrect exhaust Car I tried to copy I used this picture to figure out the spoiler Teammates. You can see how yellow the windows are

Two lovely cars!

Beautiful Model! I have the first brown and gold release. Yours still has the wings on the flying B hood ornament, very rare. Mine has the B but the wings are gone. I had another one used for parts and its was missing entirely. The brown and gold versions also suffered from zinc pest. My parts car had it bad in the top

Thanks! I built about fifty or so various aircraft when I joined the Air Force between 1983 and 1987 before I got married. Once I was married, all my aircraft went into storage and I just built and collect model cars. Eventually I gave all the aircraft away to a neighbor. They never would have survived the moves anyways. Thank you! Thanks! Thank you Thanks! It was and would you believe it's DNA is in the F-18 Hornet?

First plastic aircraft model in 35+ years. My son recently commented the lack of affordable F-5 models either diecast or pre-built. Usually around $100 minimum shipped. I decided I'd buy a kit and build one for him. This kit offered decent details, multiple decal options, fair reviews, and looked easy enough to build. It took a month to ship from China, and another month of weekends to complete. Finding paint to match was the toughest part. Even those that were the correct paint codes needed tweaking and still ended a little off to my old eyes. Not much more than paint and decals. So finished just in time for his birthday last weekend and he put it proudly on a bookshelf. Today he became a proud father, and I'm a grandfather! On my son's shelf Pretty simple cockpit, the decals take care of most of it. The belts were photoetch, and tiny Comes with decals to do eight different versions. Very tiny decals and tightly grouped Ready for final assembly

Great Kit, easy to build! First one was in the mid-seventies with the red custom El Camino on the side, long gone to the plastic graveyard. Last one I built was the pre-painted ProShop blue and white release. Still have all the leftover parts. There's a lot of them!

Outstanding build! Jason Myers! One of my favorite drivers from Bowman-Gray's Madhouse! The other of course is his multi-championship winning brother Burt! Also, it being Ford powered makes it great too!

Looks like a great project! You can see the DNA of Tom Daniel's Badman.

First picture yes, has to be a 1966 Impala or Caprice because it's a hardtop and the Bel Air line did not offer hardtops. Second Picture is an early seventies Datsun 1200 Coupe, the middle truck is a '67-72 Ford F-350 Dually, and the last is a 1964 Chevy. Third picture, that's definitely a binder. Hard to tell the year because that style grill and fenders were built from 1962-1978. The car looks like a '63-64 GM full size roofline

It looks good! Pillarless! How would the doors secure? I'm not sure Ford ever offered a four door wagon in any form but sedan style doors.

For the 1963 model year Cadillac redesigned its V8 engine, modernizing the tooling used in the production line while optimizing the engine's design. Although it shared the same layout and architecture with the 1949-vintage engine, the revised engine had shorter connecting rods and was 1 in (25 mm) lower, 4 in (101.6 mm) narrower, and 1.25 in (32 mm) shorter. The accessories (water pump, power steering pump, distributor) mounted on a die-cast aluminum housing at the front of the engine for improved accessibility. An alternator replaced the former generator. The crankshaft was cored out to make it both lighter and stronger. The revised engine was 52 lb (24 kg) lighter than its predecessor, for a total dry weight of 595 lb (270 kg). The revised engine shared the same 4 in × 3.875 in (101.6 mm × 98.4 mm) bore and stroke of its predecessor, for an unchanged displacement of 390 cu in (6.4 L). Power was unchanged at 325 hp (242 kW), as was torque at 430 lb⋅ft (583 N⋅m). (Wiki)

I believe that's Gunze Sangyo

Not sure why there's lines around those either. The box art is incorrect and always was. I plan to build this, I'm hoping these decals are better than all the disappointing aftermarket ones I've gathered all these years.

Not a current picture, but pretty close. The area to the right is usually and currently covered with works in progress and I have a portable table in the middle for overflow.

Thanks Larry!

This is nice! I'm curious though, why you've titled it Dart Sprint Car? I was a Chrysler "Kit" car meant for Late Model Sportsman racing.

That's pretty cool! Henley Gray is the only NASCAR driver I've known that drove a big bodied T-Bird. Of course it was the 1970-71. The green Model King release has the decals in it to replicate his car.

Great looking car!

Thanks Bob! I never realized these were problems when I purchased the kit along with the #98 LeeRoy Yarborough car years ago. The kit had other issues that made me put it away and then when I pulled it out to complete it, I found a few other builders had fixes and had shared via the web. I don't regret selling the #98 and all the Talladegas I never started. I got pretty good money off of eBay for them. Thank you JC! Thanks Dave! I appreciate that Pierre! Sorry to hear you didn't have good luck with yours. I can understand though. It is a frustrating and poorly engineered kit. Thank You Mike! Thanks Steve! It was a challenge, definitely! Thank You Harold!