Lizard Racing

Guten Tag! You obviously put a lot of work into this project. A classy car and a clean build. Good work.

First off, thank you for your service to our country. Welcome to be forum! I also do primarily race cars, mainly road racing but I have branched out into NASCAR. I try to do a specific car at a specific race. Takes a lot of research. Nice work on the examples you submitted.

All my Chevy engines were black/dark brown: the color of oil and grease. I think the red/orange applied only to V-8 engines. I had a '58 wagon with a six-banger that was blue. Don't neglect the Stovebolts!

I still have a few parts from the Challenger I tried to build in the '60s. I did a better job on this one:

There is an outfit in New England that is rebuilding a crashed P-61 found in New Guinea. Haven't searched for an update lately. I must get started on my P-61. It is one of the more interesting aircraft in an era of interesting aircraft.

It's going to be almost a real car when you're done! Details show up fantastic.

If it ain't broke, fix it anyway! It's always a temptation to keep tinkering with a project. I do replica race cars, so there isn't a lot of customizing involved. But I do rebuild older cars, hopefully better.

BTW, Thompson did make some hemi heads for Pontiacs. Jack Chrisman won a Top Eliminator title with one in a Dragmaster chassis. Building my Challenger I was an exercise in patience. The Ivo Buick dragster is still in existence. I saw a feature on some TV show a while back. Ivo was a bit pressed to contort himself into the cockpit.

That was quite a famous transporter in Europe during the '60s. The August 1963 issue of Road & Track carried a photo of the Ferrari transporter arriving at the Targa Florio. The transporter was in the foreground and the race banner in the background. It became an iconic photo. What a great idea, converting a London Bus into a transporter!

Tail fins and fender skirts! Gotta love it.

My grandmother's aunt had a Hudson like this one. "The car you step down into" was their slogan.

You do some good work. On top of that you seem to be a good Chevy man! Welcome to the gang.

IMHO, 1969 was about the last year we had any decent cars. I was watching Bullitt and realized I could name almost every car in the movie. Try doing that today. That being said, there's a lot to be said about today's cars. They're more reliable, safer and more economical. Road & Track once did a comparison of two Corvettes, 20 years apart: A1969 L-88 big block and a contemporary 1989 model. The conclusion was that the '69 was limited by its bias-ply tires. The newer car was only marginally slower, but did it with a lot less fuss. It was easier to drive fast. Yes, today's performance cars are probably faster, but there's nothing like the exhaust roar and getting pinned in your seat.

Just the model would have been good enough. But the diorama is killer!

far out!!!

beautiful job

One of the first things Duntov did in designing the GS was to get rid of the split window. Prophetic, since '63 was the only year for that.

I use snack size bags to hold sets of parts within a category, such as a set of wheels, parts off the same engine or a roll cage. These can go into bins for engine parts, tires, wheels, etc.

A good discussion of this is in Super Stock: Drag Racing the Family Sedan by Larry Davis. AWB started big time in the mid-'60s with MoPars. They moved the rear wheels forward 2% of the wheelbase for better traction and weight transfer. And it was hardly noticeable unless one looked closely. That worked good, so they went clear crazy with it and next year the rear wheels were moved to just behind the doors. The days of factory-built drag racers!

I usually do the engine first, then interior modifications. Since I do mostly race cars, the interior involves removing the back seat and building the roll cage. I save the body for last to avoid damaging the paint with all the dry fits required. But we all arrive at the same point: a well-finished model car. As Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes) says: "Instructions are for sissies."

A good what if ... project. This is what modelling is all about.

Craig: You are a truly devoted modeller, watching all those Beaver episodes. I remember someone saying Wally's car was green and Lumpy' as "sick purple."

good work! There are so many things that can be done to display an old truck.

I would agree with bbowser about the Challenger. I would also add Revell's Kurtis Midget. Both have lots of fragile small parts to break. That's what adds detail though.

It's probably cheating, but I removed the wheel retainers from the inner wheels, then glued the wheels onto the suspension in the "settled" position. It doesn't show unless one looks closely. I'm so ashamed!