LUKE'57

Sometimes the transition of power goes easily and sometimes it's a little rocky. Sometimes when the "young Turks" flex their muscles, the old Bull Elephant just isn't ready to go quietly into that dark night. Looks like Tiny and ol' Handsome Harry are workin' out a little territorial dispute for the groove in front of the home crowd. "This groove....err....town ain't big enough for the both of us."

I wanted a retractable back in the day, then I found out just how hard those 27 solenoids that make the magic were to keep functioning. BTW, I'll bet your brother in law's '57's were bigger than this one.

Not to worry, we've still got to load the tool box, tires and the cooler. We'll get'er winched down good and tight before we roll out, Few things worse that being passed by your own racecar, coming up on an intersection, that rolled off the trailer. I built that trailer with a section of the AMT Haulaway Trailer kit and some plastic strips I cut. Thanks for the compliments on it, I've used it a lot of years now and, though I've got several others, I still like it best.

In the Spring a young man's fancy turns to LEFT TURNS!!! Saddle up boys, it's time to swap a little paint and play wrinkle fender.

........he couldn't wait until Christmas to bring this one over. I love it! And it was built just like the real cars back in the day, before you could just buy the pieces and stick'em together. He was browsing the model "junk yard" up at Earl's Speed & Custom in Gaffney, just like we used to do the real ones, when a new tool '57 Be Air caught his eye. Just like the old school racers, he loaded up the body and hauled it back home, stripped and gutted it and started on a cage. One of the much maligned ERTL Winston Cup kits, some paint, a little imagination aong with some serious "back yard engineering" and this masterpiece was ready for the lettering brush. Just like the real one, it even carries an "orphan" front bumpver from a '57 Ford. I like to think it made it run faster. LOL To paraphrase the credit card commercial- Salvage yard body-$4.......ERTL stock car kit-$4..........Fantastic $8 one of a kind late model sportsman car-PRICELESS! Everybody should have a kid brother as wonderful as I do.

Just getting in from a late night "delivery" and figured I'd stop off and see a lady friend for breakfast. She shot this pic of me and my "light delivery" vehicle. (if you call 250 gallons light.LOL) An older build of my car from hight school that I wanted to share. Something from me with no numbers on the doors, go figure.

Thank you Bernard. Wonder if the time is right (look how many posts on this thread ) to post the entire card set here? Maybe about three cards to the post?

Don't forget that fake wall with the swing up door to the back room so I can sneak in and unload the 'shine. That is simply beautiful work from all angles and I can't wait to see it finished. Got an extra stall for rent?

Off hand, I'd say about 40 ways from SIDEWAYS!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey Larry, didn't know you were so close by. I went to my first race (dirt, naturally) in '58 or so just up the road from you at Lancaster Speedway. I worked the sign in shack in the early seventies issuing pit passes and started taking pictures as the track photographer in '76. I was the first track photographer for Chester Speedway when Paul Campbell built it in the early eighties and now my son is gonna be the new track photographer this season at the newly rebuilt I-77 (Chester) Speedway and, something entirely new for me, I'm gonna give being the new announcer a whirl. You need to come see us. Car show with test and tune April 4 and the first race, the season opening "Pete Mosely Memorial Race" on the 18th.

Aw, you people are crazy. You just don't know what you're talking about. The cars nowadays look just like the street versions. Just look. The drivers are very brave and talented and adaptable to new track conditions. The bodies have been refined down to the essence of the street driven counterpart with no outragous modifications needed from the factory stock version. The trucks that transport the race cars are a show unto themselves and both advertise the sponsor and promote the racing series wherever they go. The cars are now even as far as bodywork goes with none having any advantage as to shape or size. The racing is neat and clean with none of the on track mayhem that personifies the other riff raff like short track Saturday nite racing. And most importantly, they're working hard on finding a way to honor their heritage in a tasteful way. Oh, wait. I seem to have gotten the present day parade of sponsors billboards confused with real racing from back in the day. It's all those glue fumes from building REAL racecars driven by REAL race car drivers from back in the day I guess. I guess what I'm really trying to say, with my tongue stuck firmly in cheek, is- What took you guys so long to get here? I've been waiting for ya'll to figure this real racing thing out for ever so long. Pull up a drink crate and have an RC and a Moon Pie and do some bench racing with me and I'll share some stories and films that you just ain't gonna believe. The line for tickets to my "Way Back Machine" can be purchased from Mr. Peabody in bulk, just give the money to his boy Sherman. If you're not old enough to know what I'm talking about, just ask any of us of guys with the Autolite t-shirts with the Luckies rolled up in the sleeves and we'll be glad to fill you in and sign you up for membership in the Darkside, the pull is strong. Welcome to Echoes of Thunder, Stay as long as you like and like it as long as you stay.

Sorry, I thought you wanted pictures of hairpin turns. THe movie was filmed around Asheville NC in the heart of the Smokey Mountains and the roads are anything but straight. Try Googleing LeMans a Nurburgring for some hairpins.

Mountain drifting???? Around here we call it whiskey tripping or whiskey runnin'. Get you a copy of Robert Mitchum's movie "Thunder Road" and you will have all the ideas you can shake a differential at. Here's a link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5W2BrKilOQ...feature=related

Because to win at Daytona, Pomona, Monte Carlo, Indy and LeMans, that little "one size fits all" orange engine just wouldn't have gotten the job done! And I AM a Ford fan.

Thanks Mark, here's the "mate" to it in black, Smokey's ride for Herb Thomas, also from the early Revell kit. There's more "welding" on the body than there is on the roll cage. LOL

No Slim, this is a '56. The '55 and '57 in the opening "everything" kits were hardtops and only the '56 was a post car. I used to cut the roof, cowl and top of the quarter panels off the '56 in one piece to add to the '55 with the '56 doors to make the '55 post cars that were running at our tracks back then and even some with just the '55 front sheet metal because that's the way they built some of the real cars around here too. Did away with thoe big bulky head light area and the heavy wrap around cast pot metal parking light housings on the '56 that would leave a huge gap in the fender when you took'em out.

Try some of the slot car suppliers for the vinyl pressure sensitive decals, just like the real ones only smaller.

Sorry, but scale is important to me as I use this stuff for "interaction" with other models and it needs to be at least reasonably close to the correct size.

That thing looks slick enough to have rolled out an old friend of mine's shop up in Arden NC. Ever hear of Banjo's Performancenter? He would have been proud to claim that little Chevy. Really nice work.

Wow, that thang shore is purty. You'uns wouldn't wanna mix it up a little, short track style, would ya? Wanna play a little wrinkle fender, dirt track style?

You are more than welcome Ismael, that resizing thing was a happy accident as I just sized it down a couple of steps to make it easy to upload.

I scanned it and then resized it so it wouldn't be such a large file and would load quicker. I'm on dial up and try to be considerate like that for others. All I did was copy and post as a favor. If I had known it would be this much trouble I would just have sent it to Ismeal instead of trying to share it. I'll know better next time.

I was just thinking it looks a little small to me too. I'm around the real thing several times a day and one of those foreign jobs shouldn't look as big as a full size Chevy van on the back of it. At 1/2 inch equals a foot or 1mm (IIRC) equals a foot, how long is the bed in 1/1 feet?

You are more than welcome, my friend. It's not often that an ol' redneck race car builder like me can help out here and I was more than happy to do so.

Ismael, here's the link for the pics. I posted them this way so that anyone else that was interested could also get them. Hope this is what you needed. http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v69/mitchum/paper%20wasp/