Lizard Racing

A classic hot rod.

Good looking Chevs! I'm working on a '57 right now. That makes 3 for me. I like the detail black in the headlight bezels. Great touch.

Just finished the AMT kit I bought at a show last year. Being an old kit, the decals were no good. But IndyCals came to the rescue. They make good stuff. I usually don't do driver figures because they look fake. I used this one without the driver decals. It's OOB except for the fuel and spark wires. I have two survivors built back in the '70s to show the 20 years of development in Indy Cars.

I agree. There are a lot of options in carb position, mostly dealing with float bowl and linkage position. Your best bet is to research your application and build accordingly. Remember the modeler's eye for detail!

Just fantastic!!

For general pictures of these cars, I would recommend Karl Ludvigsen's excellent book "Indy Cars of the 1940s." There are some bonnet off pictures of the engine. It's too bad about these cars not achieving any success at the speedway. They were truly innovative in all respects. IMHO, it is worth a trip to the Speedway just for the museum.

I built one of these in the '70s and rebuilt it in 2016. I didn't know it was re-issued. It's a good basic kit with all the hard work of turning a street car into a racer done. A lot can be done with this kit. Yours looks good.

Absolutely stunning!! That Corvette grille really looks good.

It's just amazing the things that should have killed us in those days. Every effort went into making the car go. Stopping and cornering were an afterthought. Wonderful Days!!

Welcome to the forum. This is a good resource for the builder. Your tag line caught my attention. I am in bountiful and there is another Utahan in south Ogden.

My cousin had one of these. He was as wild as the car was. Yours is a good re-creation.

A really good companion book to this movie is Go Like Hell by A. J. Baime. An interesting character contrast between Enzo Ferrari and Henry Ford II.

Dan Gurney was arguably the finest international race driver America ever produced. He was a winner in sports cars, Indy cars, Can-Am, Trans Am and Formula 1. He won four Grand Prix races and gave three makes their first wins. He holds the distinction of achieving the only all-American grand Prix win and Le Mans win-within two weeks! Jim Clark said the only driver he feared as a rival was Dan. The cars he built were winners also in Formula Ford, Indy cars, Formula 5000 and IMSA prototypes. In 1961 Dan took a Chevrolet Impala SS 409 to England to contest the Saloon Car Championship. The car was essentially stock with race preparation. He competed in only one race, at Silverstone, where a rear wheel broke on the last lap while leading. Unfortunately, politics and prejudice prevented further racing. But he certainly got everyone's attention. Here is my tribute to Dan Gurney. RIP. This is about the only picture I could find of the actual car. The kit is Lindberg's. I fudged a little bit using the heavy-duty six lug wheels, as these were the only open wheels I had in the stash. If Dan used these, he may have won the Silverstone race. From a video of the race, it looked like the colors were blue exterior and gray interior. There's a lot of chrome on these old cars, especially in street trim. The mighty 409. Like the rest of the car, essentially stock, but blueprinted. Dan wanted to drive the car on the road between races. That must have been a blast!

Being a Chevy man, it was hard to find a Dan Gurney Chevy tribute. But in 1961 he took a Chevy SS 409 to England to race Jaguar Mk IIs. Although he won no races, he certainly got their attention. This is the Lindberg kit, pretty much oob, as the real car was surprisingly stock. Just started final assembly and will probably complete this week.

I have always wanted to do a model from the year I was born. This is the 1948 version of the Galaxie Limited kit. It has very good detail and fitment. I did have some trouble getting the hood to fit right. There's a lot of chrome on this car, especially after the race cars I usually do. I think I'm getting better with the Molotow pen. Colors are MM Sublime Green and Testors Gloss Green. My research shows this isn't a factory combination, but I didn't like the original colors. I hope this looks stylish '40s. I couldn't help hot rodding the engine. The easiest way back then was add more carbs. The distributor is a pre-wired from Morgan Automotive Detail. They are plastic and come in 4, 6 or 8 cylinder.

This is like Pi Day, 3/14. We need a fun thread like this occasionally.

I did a DX Corvette (blue and white) some time ago. Trying to get the color separation to follow the top fender line is really tough and you did good.

Have you tried applying scotch tape and pulling them off? I assume you want to avoid damaging the underlying finish.

This looks like the AMT original kit. I've been building these since '63. Still have three in the collection. A simple kit can still look good, as you have proved.

A funny thing about airports and race tracks: They are housing magnets. A facility is built in the middle of nowhere, and before you know it, people start building houses and complaining about the noise. Didn't they know that racetrack/airport was there before they built houses? There are plenty of places to build houses, but not so many places to build racetracks. Then hear them complain about the street racing.

Great build of a great car! I finished one last year. Here is a u-tube video of Junior guiding a tour of the car. Priceless stuff.

You say you're not a carpenter, but I see some really good work there.

I bought this kit at the GSL show last February. It was in a bag because they said someone wanted the bodies from a bunch of kits, so they sold the remains for $1 each. I should have bought 2 or 3 of them. I always wanted to do just the chassis from a NASCAR stocker because of the engineering that went into them. The downside was that once assembly began, I found some other parts missing. The result was there are no front and rear crash bars or front upper control arms. Someday I will fabricate those to finish the model. But for the price, I can't complain too much. I have left over parts. See my entry in the "to trade" forum.

October 13, 1962 saw Riverside Raceway stage a 3-hour race for sports cars. Notable among the entrants were three brand new '63 Corvettes. They were part of the initial batch of 'Vettes with the Z06 option package. They were so new, they were not yet recognized for SCCA production racing. The organizers created an "Experimental Production" class to allow the new cars to run. There was also a new California hot rod called Cobra entered. Winner of the race was Doug Hooper driving one of Mickey Thompson's Corvettes. The kit is one of the old AMT annuals I already had built as something else. The numbers were printed on white decal paper with black font background to get the white numbers. The emblems are from the excellent Vintage Racing Miniatures. Wheels and tires are from the parts box. Thanks for looking.

Very impressive collections! And I thought I had a big collection; at least that's what my lovely wife tells me. The shelves have to share space with building materials and books. At least until the models need more space.