Wickersham Humble

Railroad style rivet decals set my imagination to work -- but as mentioned, the backing is terribly fragile, and I keep wanting to make it curve. I use all the set/solve solutions, etc. but still have the darn little black things break apart, drift away in the initial soak, etc. I appreciate that the backing is quite thin for realism's sake, etc. Lots of great applications to get that effect. Haven't done the louvers yet. I was going to try to use rows for upholstery buttons on a '60 Impala custom build, but it didn't work out; would have looked cool if it had in that kitsch early 'sixties fashion. I've applied them under bmf, on a D/Dragster based on an ancient Double Dragster' frame and body, and gotten decent results, if not ideal. Still trying to perfect my technique! Wick

Bill: I don't know -- we've been lied to for so many generations that it would take some prevarication by AI to top it, or fool we old geezers! Mark Twain, an idol of mine, said in Innocents Abroad (paraphrased) about a father in a middle-asian city re: his son: "Only twelve, and already he's a very accomplished liar!" Or as as Erle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason said "Just because some people are liars, doesn't mean that we must be fools!" Amen to that! Ole Wick

Earl, Nope, I made it all; began in summer of '62 by promoting the AMT 1/25 scale Tempest four-banger from my cousins LeMans kit! It's hard to build an exact replica of the original show car because PMD changed it to a '62 with light lemon-yellow paint and Halibrand mag wheels for another year's showing. The real one supposedly still exists, but has some features (like a folding top) that were never on the original. I made this one from a sectioned four-door sedan, with the prototypical twin-headrest tonneau cover from a '63 kit, Corvair, I think. Pontiac had Mickey Thompson under contract to set records with their cars -- and/or engines -- which he did with a vengeance. He built a kit to put the small GMC 3.71 blower on the fours, and sold the company several for Tempests; also set FIA acceleration record with one in a slingshot, plus another with the cast-iron banger cut into a two-cylinder mill! All in HRM. The transaxle and diff wouldn't stand up to the 421 power, so he (and later many others) converted the car to the Pont-Olds 9.2-in. rear end. Won Stock Eliminator (A/FX) at the '62 NHRA nats. '63 SS/FX also. Thanks for the approval!! Wick

Too true! I guess I missed out on a MH Dodge 4x4 Powerwagon resin kit that is now obsolete; I wanted to build a tribute USFS Class IV tanker in honor of my last fire crew vehicle in '68. This isn't the trad PW, like the GI weapons carrier, but a D-Series pickup from about '64. I was five fire season's in by then, and a Red Card rated "Crew Boss' as foreman of my own 4-man crew in N CA. I almost rather do my favorite Dodge Class III tanker, with crew of six. like in '67; I sort of got demoted to a smaller station because I refused to shave off my 'Omar Sharif' (or was it Sgt. Peppers?) mustache that the gals seemed to like... Only resin kit 'in the wild' I seek now is the '54-55 Studebaker Conestoga wagon body, but always -- dollar short and day late! Wick

Tech-savvy friends: how do I convert pdf photos into jpeg or other acceptable images? For some reason, my android phone pics are uploaded as pdf files, which won't work with our forums. Quick and effective way to convert on my laptop, pls? Thanks!! Wick

I'm fascinated by the race cars that were put together in the dark ages of hot rodding (tho maybe the most fun era?) and what might have been on the Salt Flats and dry lakes. I'm doing a couple of 'what if' cars just -- mostly -- because I sourced engines that sparked my interest. Some parts are pretty hard to find for 1/25/ -1/24 scale racers, I discovered; real 1/24 size Firestone Super Sports 'tall n' narrow' racing tires, or that ilk, for instance. Some of the kit tires are reasonably similar, like the ones from a R-R limo in my pic, or Cad V-16 -- both with wire wheels, but 1/25. I've had a number of kits with big-scale rubber (and usually it was, in the 'fifties when lots of scale models were motorized, either JetX or battery powered, and expected to have some traction relationship with 'the road,' but 65 years later, what did I do with them? I have one wheel (nondescript, looks a bit like a later slot-mag) from a Comet 'Panther' race car design (Bonneville, or Indy?) to make resin castings from the tire, but resin often doesn't come out looking right. Here is my in-progress LSR car, c. 1938-41; a twin Cad V-16-engined semi-streamliner. Inspired byAb Jenkin's "Mormon Meteor" record holder with Duesenberg DOCH straight-eight, it has two V-16's, one driving the front, and the other the rear wheels, in theory. I kid my wife by calling it the "Catholic Comet" -- still waiting for her to laugh! It has a brass rod frame (never again: solder brass, not braze it!) the rear body from a melted-down Monogram Kurtiss Indy roadster (with 'way too many hours in it!) and the forward body from a Bic or Scripto gas fire lighter. I'm going to use those chrome tubular 'beads' from Michaels as tuned individual exhausts, and four updraft carbs per bank on the motors. The tubes work really well for small diameter dumps, and can be run full length, or cut into two useable sections with the old Mototool abrasive blade. I guess I'm going to have to use the wire rims from either R-R or Cad kits. Pretty simple build, with most detail unseen from the streamlining needed. In theory, the driver starts the car on battery, gets it moving on the rear-wheel engine, then cuts in the front direct-drive one via an in/out box. Low tech, for the thrifty 'thirties, right? Maybe cream pearl white, with royal purple stripes, and some gold, for the ecclesiatical theme? I'll post some WIP photos by springtime; lots of other irons in the fire, incl two apocryphal Harry A. Miller street roadsters based on R-R Mono roadster and Cad V-6 roadster bodies/frames. I made a reasonably typical (if not accurate) V-16 resin copy for the latter from an old Hawk M-B GP prewar car motor. The other will have a V-12 or V-16 scratch-built mill. Miller made the first 'mag wheels' on his TNT racers about 1916, and Bugatti copied them later, so by dint of a generous Canuck donor, I'm just using the die-cast Bug rims when I can find a bit bigger tires for them. Just realized my files are pdf; don't know why. Back when converted. Wick

Sorry to nag again, but does anyone have one Buick nailhead valve cover from the old AMT Trophy Series kits? I have a '61 Buick Special wagon kit I bought back then, and have it converted to a two-door panel-delivery; with the hood opened it needs this early Buick block to be right. I don't have a pic: it's 1/25, oc, and chrome with the vertical grooves and stud/bolt attachments of the early '50s Buicks, not the second gen from '63-up. Or was it '65? Still have some trading stuff, esp small parts Thanks! Wick

Tempest owner would like to find a 1961 Pontiac Tempest AMT 1/254-door sedan annual kit, or glue-bomb assembled car; object to convert to coupe (like my 1/1 alloy V-8 rarity) I can afford. Well, Mom always insisted 'you never know until you try!' I have one '61, an annual that I bought back that year, that I long ago converted to the Pontiac show-car 'Monte Carlo' roadster. (I also have a '62 convertible built as a LeMans I owned, an unbuilt '63 coupe, a conversion of a ragtop '63 to coupe, and a '63 421 'SuperDuty' or 'Powershift' factory race car 'interpretation' that I did in '63. I'm low on trading stuff to offer, but am willing to negotiate for compensation, if you have one to spare. Y-body Tempests/LeMans are kind of an obsession with me; I wrote the first/original history of the 1961-63 Tempest for SPECIAL INTEREST AUTOS Magazine (Hemmings) back in 1976 -- when most of the guys who designed or raced it were still available for interviews! Wick

Hey! I ain't overly proud of my rendition of Tempest from GTO kit -- done some time ago; I do better engines now -- but I wanted to get it knocked out. The 326 is easy to adapt from 389; virtually the same engine (same crankshaft for sure, long stroke/oversquare) and it was a torquer, even with the two-bbl carb. In those golden days it was 'two doors/three pedals, or no deal' for me; this had the old Chevy/Saginaw three-speed with the four-bolt side cover, not the great later all-synchro Saginaw box. Before PMD had the Saggy, it bought three-speeds from Ford, who innovated the feature (as far as I know, and I know quite a bit!) Trivia: the Saginaw box had a Borg-Warner planetary overdrive in the tail-shaft housing as an option, and it could be combined with a Saginaw 4-speed to make essentially an okie five-speed. Trivia X-2: the 1963 Tempest/LeMans iron V-8, the one that replaced my Buick 215 alloy version, was actually a 336-cu.in. mill, but GM edict forced PMD to downsize the bore in '64, for the first A-body intermediates! DeLorean, again. Making a credible grille was the hardest thing on this replica, and it only came off so-so, vs. pics of the 1/1 car. The thin aluminum trim from headlight to taillight was just thin styrene strip, but not really thin enough to reall replicate the original -- still, it serves. I know of no source for '326' fender callouts, nor 'TEMPEST' logo, etc. alas. Oh how I wish I could afford another '65 Tempest coupe, but now all are about the price of a GTO, according to my bro-in-law, who spent years wheeling and dealing GTO's and muscle cars for a living. My first car was a '55 Chevy Delray coupe (hot 265, etc -- even lakes pipes; another replica I'm working on -- in 1961, and both our kids came home from the hospital in a '55 210 sedan, restored by me,.; another ride that has priced itself out of sight. This is my '61 Tempest coupe, pre-LeMans, and former '62 LeMans ragtop (had the 4-bbl. slant four, easily kept up with CA freeway speeds!) which someone else restored. Just put a 4-bbl. on the 215, plus duals so it sounds pretty rasty. Not; has a PowerGlide adapted from the Corvair... My first article for SPECIAL INTEREST AUTOS Mag was on the Tempest history in 1976; could still interview the guys who built and raced it back then!! As mentioned, I'm buying a '67 Sprint OHC six (engine only, cheaply) which may just be a conversation piece in the shop... Ole' Wick

As I once told Hot Rod Magazine, when they V-8 swapped an early Z: "You junked the best part of the car!" The L-series engines are built of superior stuff; almost ipossible to blow one up if kept to 7K-rpms and in good condition internally. Another quote, from about 1970, from one of the car mags (got it somewhere) testing the then new Chevy Z-28 and Datsun 240Z: "They're both haulers, but we'd expect the Chevy to drop a valve before the Datsun." Go 3.1-L with a stroked/bored L28 (280Z block) using a Nissan Diesel crank and rods, add Webers X3, and the usual good stuff, and hang on! Much lighter up front -- and in total -- and somewhat better mileage... if that is important at this point. OC, even a BBC fits the engine bay, and with modest induction, the hood will still close! Just sayin' Ole' Wick

Gene, Thanks! I love early Z-Cars, saddened by the prospect of having to sell my '71 restomod (with less than 500 miles on the complete re-do!) but 'Life's what happens..." My old (80) eyes tell me my cars look pretty good, but when the true details are brought out in photos, the truth dawns... and it is disappointing. You can't see 'em, but the valve covers (BBC) have tiny Datsun decals on them. Nissan 454? Race 64 is oc, the opposite of Brock/Morton's C/Prod champ from the Revell kit. Wick

I have hundreds of pounds, literally, of many old 1/1 mag titles, most of which I've read cover to cover -- and with great satisfaction! My MCM and SC shelf is only about 18-inches, however, which I regret. I was going to buy some Spotlite model books, the small-format ones, at a swap recently, until I saw the prices! My gosh! Worth it, possibly, but not in my budget. Yep, my old brain organizes best with pages, even when dog-eared and held together with Scotch tape (the mags, I mean -- though my wife wonders about the brain part... Wick

First, kudos to contributor Trent Christian for the neat conversion idea, and the very spiffy build; congrats! I did the GTO to Tempest conversion about 5-6 years ago to depict a favorite ride I had about 1967, before the Draft caught me in mid crazy youth, a '65 Tempest Custom 2-dr hardtop (326 base motor and 3-speed stick -- of course!) which I loved.* I'm always shocked at how mediocre my builds look in photos; guess that's reality, vs. my octogenarian eyes, huh? That year had a separate base model that didn't share the Lemans/GTO grille configuration; it looked (meant to, oc) cheaper -- but was still nice enough. My conversion wasn't hard under the hood; just build-down the Goat powerplant, and go with a single exhaust, etc. The 1965-65 basic models had a distinctive chrome (aluminum, actually) molding strip that ran over the fenders and door where the LeMans/GTO had a pinstripe, etc. and hard to get 'thin' enough! I just scribed a rectangle around the hood scoop, and filled the gap. Ironically, I lost it, had to make a replacement from scratch; found the original -- and then gave the repro to a fellow forum member who solicited one! Kismet! I wondered: were the Sprint/Tempest tail lights different from the LeMans that year? All the pics I've seen of Sprints have the base-line fan-shaped lens, etc. Also, I wondered if he mistook the windshield-washer cannister for an overflow reservoir? And is it the brake master-cylinder vacuum booster housing he names 'the brake drum'? I obviously had the same fit issue with the front grille/headlight/bumper assembly in my kit; not exemplary! Included are two shots of the 1/1 Poncho, plus my Ducati Scrambler from 1968 I hope he contributes more innovative builds, and keeps up the good research. The pics show engine compartment and interior detail to die for! Wick *Also done my first car, 1955 Chevy Delray rod in 1961, and 1951 Ford Club Coupe from 1964 -- I was a real throw-back, I guess! Cheap to keep!

Still need the rims/tires, if anyone has them surplus. Still have some trade parts. Wick

I should have that part; I used the Merc grille to make a Kustom. Doesn[t look like you found one? Let me know. Wick

I have a '62 -- I believe -- front grille unused but back in '62 I removed the 'chrome' from the bumper upright blades thinking it would be more subtle... good taste in a 16 year old? Might have the wheel covers, too. Your's if you want 'em. Eventually (60 years later) i built my kit into a sorta' Bonneville racer called 'Big BIrd' -- bright yellow, Cat V-16 Diesel, one racing seat, twin-turbos in trunk, etc. I used the 'Styline' front and rear pans from AMT; wish I had some pics of it! Wick

I need to take some of the Caddies! The '59 won second in DC at IPMS in '23. These Z photos are not too good, but... Wick

Great photos! Yep, I suspect when they re-engineered their cases, they took pains to make sure flanges were substantial. Blowers, of so many types and designs, are a whole other story in rodding. Never owned one, myself, but most could say that. My wife's (late) cousin Jerry had a Graham or Frenzel centrifugal mounted to work on his 21-stud flat motor, but to my knowledge never got it going. It was to be the secret weapon in his '34 coupe to knock off my PowerPak /55 Delray coupe, for the glory of Ford. Lot's of Fords did that, but not his -- of course pitting a 265 against a 390FE (or Robert Hight's* 413) was not a way to top street honors in our tiny town (closer to OR and NV than CA, we always claimed!) but you're only 17 once! Ah, the memories! I got to see Mick's Challenger at a car show, after his sad demise. Interviewed him once, on the 421 Tempest SD racers of '63. Wick *Funny car driver Robert Hight's uncle, and name sake. He had a '62 Sport Fury 361-B that could beat me too, after second gear.

On the other hand, there is a photo in an old hot rod book of an 'unpruned' 6-71 front mounted on a 90-deg. angle (so is the crank drive for it) with the intake facing forward, and the big rectangular 'blow' side aft into an awkward looking fabricated manifold, Enderle injectors, as I recall. Old hemi, as I recall -- and that's not easy! I'll find it asap. A one-off; too many right angles probably. The Potvin front drives were very popular, too; seems like everyone thought it was the future with blowers. Even the nutty sports-racer Bocar used it with SBC. Viz, the AMT 'Double-Dragster' kit. The twin-engined rail was modeled on 'Double Trouble' I think, with Dragmaster frame, etc. I don't know what the old man did with the Borg-Warner huffer; not too large. Who remembers the GMC 5-73 (??) Wick

Big improvement! I've done a number of DC remods: Maisto '58 and 59 Caddies to kustoms, '53 Studebaker coupe with scrached McCulloch in a diorama, Burrago 280Z Tom Daniels (to doorslammer) and like them -- despite limitations -- because I can glass-bead the metal for new paint, etc. and the often larger scale is easier for 80-year old me to handle -- and see! Oh, also a Maisto 240Z painted like my 1/1 car, Honda silver, and autographed by Pete Brock, John Morton, restorer Steve Pettersen, and my Humble self, as author of 'How to Restore Your Datsun Z-Car' (1990, and still in print!) though it was a bugger to reassemble, and like most DC modifications, hard to find scale rims for, really. Wick

Not to belabor a topic, but it's an interesting one; viz the Car Craft article by Lang. I wondered, though, if pruning the original down was a great idea as fuel loads and probably pressures increased in the slingshot era? By the time the rear-engined diggers had taken over, weren't the race sanctioners requiring safety straps on blower/injector assemblies to prevent 'popping' the stuff when the bypass valve couldn't handle a backfire under full pressure? Seems like the flanged GMC would be tethered to the manifold better... but maybe I'm all wet. Bench racing... ahh! Wick

Great pic; custom blower case, etc. is really distinctive! I used to like Never-Dull, but after spiffing up the cam cover and intakes on my 240Z, I find that getting the residue off takes too long (what you don't catch reappears when the metal heats up, like driving to our local concours yesterday -- embarrassing, kept hood shut!) I may go back to 0000 steel-wool and some polish. Oh well... I tried to simulate Dow 7 on a belled-intake (through the radiator bulkhead on the Z, for 'ram' air...) with paint; luckily I kept it subtle -- and flat. Bobbed the air filter horn and used a Spectre kit hose and adapter; looks and sounds pretty good. Any suppliers of your knowledge sell a Dow 7 paint that looks okay? Right; lots of builders use something that makes it look like Metalflake in scale. Wick

My step-dad had trucks, and we had a lot of misc equipment around; one piece was a Borg-Warner built Roots blower that had a 'trimmed' case from the factory, as I believe after thirty or forty years past. He'd seen such a supercharger used to 'blow' grain through a tube at an elevator such as he ran, and bought it to try and build a similar device. Somewhere I have an ad from an old Mechanix Illustrated or similar mag advertising these as surplus equipment. Never seem one on a hot rod, though. It seems like the trimmed case era was mostly late fifties? Thx for the insights. Wick

Upon release, I bought this kit, and my bro bought the Ivo 'Showboat' dragster; they defeated us! Wonderful kit, but so complex (as were the original subjects!!) and too fiddley for impatient teen-agers in the early 'sixties! Anyone who builds the 'Challenger' is an artiste! Go, Bill! I still have bits and pieces of both cars in my parts drawers; don't think at 80 I'm up for a rematch, tho! Just swapped a generous forum member for a Mono 'Sizzler' kit, partially assembled but tasty, that is distracting me from my 1/1 duties now; doing the Bantam coupe body as a twin-SBC stormer, and putting the hemi in my old 'Green Hornet' chassis to revive it. The blown Olds will be handed down to an old Lindberg duece roadster kit. I bought a pretty decent 'Hornet' assembled kit at a 1/1 swap meet (a great place to find very modestly priced models cars stuff, I've found !) and am going to polish it up as a restoration to go with the other 1/24 diggers I have. The 'trimmed' GMC 6/71 on the 'Hornet' is one of the few I've found to resin-cast from; most Jimmy blowers in kits have the full mounting-flange ribs. Seems like ones with ribs/mounts trimmed were used mostly on street rod cars, for looks, back in the early days. Bill is the olde speed equipment guru; what's his take? BTW, the valve covers on the Long John dragster just fit the Sizzler hemi heads, likewise the unique header. Easy to drill out the ends of the plug-wire looms and run wires from mag. I'm filling their recesses on the 2-piece body, and cutting a hole up top to run a 1/24 Offy four, very period piece! Wick

Yep, I wrote the "How to Restore Your Datsun Z-Car" manual in the mid-eighties, published in 1990, and still in print, now by Car Tech. My original 240Z, bought while at Ft. Sam Houston, TX, was the subject of the restoration step-by-step, and was repurchased by NISSAN USA in 1995. (They gave $12K for it, now probably worth $75K, at least!) They wanted it because they had discontinued the 300ZX sports cars, and had an L.A. shop refurbishing about two dozen early Z's and selling them as new, with 12-month warranty, etc. I don't know if they re-serialed them or not; mostly the dealers who got them held onto them until they could go to auction, and the big market value. My HLS3547 was 'Japanese Racing Green' which is best replicated with 'Mack Truck Green' I found, with a saddle tan interior; I restored it using the black interior I wanted in the first place. My '71 restomod Z is silver ('03 Honda color, my first experience with base/clear paint) with black; the "20th Anniversary ZX adjustable buckets, using R-R Connoly black leather, and full carpet where the 'unborn lizard-hide' diamond-pattern vinyl was on the trans tunnel, etc. It has a Hobrecht roll-bar, L28 and steel-stynchro 5-speed, 280Z rear discs, and about two pages of other goodies I always wanted. Alas: my poor wife has fibromyalgia and osteo; can't stand the Tokiko shock/spring tied-down suspension ride (it handles like on rails, but is choppy and abrupt!) and I need to sell it. I know of a lot of Japanese cars that were collectable before the 1969-deubut 240Z, the Toyota 2000GT is probably the nicest one. However, it was the Z-Car that finally made the North American market take Japanese cars seriously, and 'Japan Inc.' stormed through the stick-in-the-mud American market like a katana! Sorry that GM/Ford/MoPar let that happen; I was hoping that Pontiac would be allowed to release their Banshee sports car, and I could have bought American, after all. It was a package I would have loved, with the SOHC-6 with Q-Jet, and good 4-speed. (I'm getting one of those motors next week, btw -- hope I can adapt it to a B-W T-5 five-speed! Any other Z questions; I'd love to discuss them! I have five unbuilt Z-kits in 1/5, and the big Tamaiya ZG kit which I want to convert to RHD and a stock nose. Are those replica Hayashi 8-spoke resin wheels back in production yet? Ole' Wick