DustyMojave

I was an SCCA Technical and Safety Inspector in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the era of the 1970 'Cuda that AFX is building a replica of here. Larger rear tires than fronts has been typical of most all road racing cars at least since World War 2 other than front wheel drive cars. This is to deal with the horsepower being transmitted through the rear tires. The front tires need to handle steering loads. But the rears handle more traction loads than the fronts. Thus slightly larger tires on the rear. The tire sizes for bias ply road race tires in the1960s and 70s seem rather odd and not very reflective of the actual sizes of the tires. So what you see above are the actual race tires and sizes, but don' t try to relate those sizes to street tires. But yes, the rear tires are normally larger overall than the fronts. The rules for Trans Am racing in the era limited the wheel size to a diameter of 14 or 15" and width of 8". Tire sizes were not specified in the rules. But body modifications to allow bigger tires were limited. Tires had to fit inside the only slightly modified stock fenders.

Sweet 26/7 on deuce rails Dennis! 28/29 cut down grille shell. Iron head V8 flat head, steel rims. Bigs 'n littles. This is the sort of car that "Rat Rodders" have been trying to imitate for many years but have no clue how to achieve. Shame that none of the model car companies have ever done a 26/27 roadster body. Touring, firetruck, Tudor, Sedan Delivery. But NEVER a Roadster!

While the Williams Bros roadster DOES have front brakes installed, it would also be correct to have no front brakes installed. This would NOT be good for a car still used for street hotrodding or even for drag racing. But El Mirage dry lake is 7 miles long and Bonneville even longer, and for the class, front brakes were not required. But those brakes are excellent for 1/25. Just so you guys know I'm not just spouting off from the back of my shorts here...I live within sight of El Mirage and the 1st race car I ever sat in was my dad's close friend Tom Beatty's belly tank in 1958. I've worked on a number of lakes cars over the decades. There was an SCTA meet a week ago.

A couple of things about this project since you are a self proclaimed rivet counter. 1st...The C6 should be plain bare aluminum as Ford delivered them and like the C6 I transplanted into my 1:1 '61 F100. The C6 and 428 Cobra Jet (as used in GT500s) came from a 1970 Cougar Eliminator. Black paint on the outside would be done by a rebuilder trying to make the trans LOOK fresh rebuilt. The oil pan on the trans should be black. 2nd...My 428 CJ never had a smog pump, and it came off a California car where smog regs have been the strictest in all of the US since smog regulations started. There are also no ports in the exhaust ports of the heads like seen on later FE Fords with smog pumps. Smog pumps were installed on later mid-70s vintage regular 428s like used in pickup trucks, station wagons, etc. So I would recommend to not fret about adding a smog pump. It DOES have double row pulleys on the alternator and water pump. In transplanting the 428CJ into the truck, I removed the power steering pump which used the forward belt, and put on a pair of identical belts to the original rear one it came with. I could post pics of my F100 with 428CJ if not for the Phototoilet debacle. PS: I did that conversion in the late 1970s. The Cougar had been wrecked in the front, but the only crash damage to the engine was it bent the stainless blades of the fan.

When BRE was racing their DAtsun 240Z and 510 sedans, I was an SCCA Cal Club Technical and Safety Inspector. I inspected their cars many times. I worked with BRE lead driver John Morton on a 67 Mustang Shelby Trans Am race car restoration a couple or 3 years ago. I posted pics of that in the 1:1 pics forum on here.With that as part of my motorsports background, I approve of the BRE paint scheme applied to a race prepped Nissan S13. I'm not real fond of the murdered-out wheels. Flat black wheels in flat black tires just become a visual dark blob that way. But they appear to fit well and I know that look is stylish and trendy.

In some cases the road draft tube was used that late. My brother's 56 Ford Wagon 292 had the road draft tube which came out of the engine near the distibutor and down alongside the bellhousing. My 61 F100 292 had no road draft and had a PCV. The valve covers on mine looked very much like those on the hot rod with Hilborn injection above, but without the add-on aluminum trim. My brother's had the oil filter with the bolt through the middle, but he converted it to a spin-on. Mine came with the spin-on.. His was front sump, mine was rear sump. His had dual exhaust, mine was single with a crossover pipe from the front of the right manifold to the front of the left. My F100 292 died in the mid 70s. Timing chain jumped a couple of teeth. At the time, I couldn't find rreplacement parts to rebuild it. No timing chain, no rod bearings, no valve springs, etc. I was calling all over the country talking to T-Bird restoration guys. When I would ask if they had parts for the Y-Blocks, they would answer "No, but if you find any, we'll pay you a finder's fee!" After hearing that many times, I put a 428 Cobra Jet out of a 1970 Cougar Eliminator in the truck. It's still there, but way overdue for a rebuild.

Today I responded to a PM about this thread and I needed to look back at it to see what I had posted before. In doing so, I saw a couple of things which I feel I had not made clear earlier. - The grille is the stock Mustang mesh and chome/aluminum surround. That mesh is rectangle shaped openings about 1/2" high X 1" across. That would translate to about .020" x .040" openings for the rivet counters who might want to photoetch it. The material between the openings is about 1/16" thick, which would be .0025" in scale. - In th ephotos, the car has a battery cut-off switch on the right side of the cowl (red handle). These were required for SCCA racing a few years later. They also contribute to safety in racing now. So it is not original and if you are building a model of the car as it was raced (or more likely, a model of Jerry Titus' Team Terlingua Mustang), the switch should not be there. - The white paint on this car is Ford Wimbledon White. This is correct inside the trunk, under the belly and outside. Inside the grille area was semi-gloss black like the interior and engine compartment. ALL of the Shelby trans Am 67 Mustangs came from Ford's San Jose California Assembly plant in Wimbledon White like most GT350s. The orange on the stripe and numbers was added by the Shelby shop crew due to the delivery of the car having been held up somehow and Shelby had them paint it by way of apology to Fred. Like the Terlingua yellow color, someone from the shop was sent down to the local paint shop to get some bright orange. In person, it looks rather like 1960s Chevy engine orange, but a bit less red. Roll bar is gloss black. - The Hurst shifter got a standard pyramid boot with a chrome retainer flange. - The seat belts are black 5-point with 3" lap belt and 2" shoulder harness and crotch straps. Hook type latch. Shoulder belts fasten to the upper cross bar of the roll bar. - Wheels and tires should be the American Racing Torque Thrust D provided in the Revell late 60s Corvette race cars and Deuce hot rods with the tires that come with those wheels. Paint the spokes flat steel metallic. - The rear spring leaves are much narrower than stockto allow more tire clearance. - Front disc brakes were Galaxy, same as on the GT350R. The restoration got Stainless Steel brand brakes for better service, but they look very much like the originals. I said above that stock dashboards were required, I meant the dash structure and top, but the face where the intruments fit could be and was changed. 5 gauges with the Tach in the center were installed by the Shelby crew in an aluminum panel.

Hey Jeff, If I build one of the Moebius Ford F100s, it'll be an offroad race truck. Late 70s/early 80s vintage Class 8. More suited to the Offroad Models Forum or the old DRM. Like: or

Timing is everything. My next door neighbor had 4 of them last week. He sold 3 and kept 1. Then yesterday, he left to move to another state. But having worked on 2 of them for him, and having had a company S-10 pickup in the 90s, I can provide some info. - The frame itself, a-arms, rear axle, oil pan, etc is painted standard GM 30% reduced gloss black (semi-gloss). - The bottom of the body shell is medium gray primer with body paint overspray at the edges fading to bare primer in the center tunnel. Unless of course, the body has an under-coating. 2 of the neighbor's did, and 2 did not. And this is in the Southern California Desert. - Gas tank is bright galvanized, straps frame black. - Exhaust tubing is galvanized with visible seam dark along the tube. Muffler and catalytic converter also appear galvanized.

I love it! While Mavericks have been dissed badly for decades as a 1970s economy car, the truth is that the chassis is pure 69-70 Mustang! They were just a slightly shorter wheelbase. The body styling looks GREAT to me. I have a project to build an SCCA A/Sedan race car phantom based on a Johan ProStock kit. Ford never registered the Maverick with SCCA for the same reasons the later Falcons were not and why the Chevy Nova after '65 was not. Corporate Brass didn't want competition for their pet babies, the Mustang and the Camaro. But with a shorter wheelbase in a slightly lighter chassis and the same 302 V8 and suspension, a Maverick would have been the ticket for twisty courses like Laguna Seca and Lime Rock. The aero is probably at least as good as the Mustang. As I'm not real keen on the Johan rendering of the chassis for the Maverick and Comet, I'm modifying an AMT 67 Mustang chassis to fit. I've professionally restored Vintage Trans Am race Mustangs in 1:1 scale, and was a Tech Inspector for SCCA when they were being raced new, I know how to build a race car out of a Mustang Chassis. Regarding this car tho...The plates are Brazilian...eg - not USA. In USA, 1974 versions were required to have the massive ugly "5mph" bumpers. This car has the early 1973 and earlier smaller and vastly prettier bumpers. So it is either a US 1973 or earlier, or a non-US delivery car, or it has been modified to retrofit the early bumpers. It's OK - I like it far more this way. As Mavericks were built and sold in Brazil from 73-79, I presume this one is a 1974 model year Brazilian Delivery car, and thus the early style bumpers. The American Insurance industry caused laws to be written to require bumpers to withstand an impact of 5mph with no damage from 1974 on, because a great many collisions occur at that speed or less and were costing insurance companies a lot of money. So bumpers became huge and ugly and cost many times as much to repair as before. The whole deal back-fired in the insurance companies' faces...and bank accounts. And the requirements were quietly backed down later on in the 1980s.

I too noticed the Mopar bed with "BUICK" script. Nicely done anyway. When I was a kid the family had a 53 Buick Special Straight 8. The suspension was SOOO bad, it needed a tug boat to control it. Not that it was worn out, it just handled like a barge without a rudder. Dad improved it a little by replacing the 90 wt. gear oil in the lever shocks with STP Oil Treatment. I know they got better, but it's only 2 years. The DeSoto looks pretty cool. Does it have a Dodge bed? The Ford would look a whole lot better in a different color. The Corvette is nicely done, but why? It makes so much less sense than the others.

Last time I saw the Tony Foti LAPD Camaro 1:1, it was living in my neighborhood in the desert north of LA and re-painted blue. The owner (IIRC) was also running an Alcohol Funny Car. You've pretty much all seen the neighborhood on TV a zillion times as there are a few Movie studio facilities in the area which are some of the busiest filming locations on the planet. If you see Joshua trees, old gas stations in the desert, rocky desert hills with snow capped mountains in the distance, it was probably almost certainly here. Ads, movies, music videos, magazine stills, porno, etc. From Arnold and the Connors kid getting guns from an underground desert stash to Jeep ads, to Britney Spears, to Bank ads, to Quentin Tarantino Biker flicks, to Jamie Presley, to......whatever. You just don't see the homes in the camera views.

Cool Stuff!!

That one I worked on was the same thing as the Team Terlingua cars. Built by Shelby in a group of about 25 Mustangs pulled from the San Jose California Ford plant. The team used 4 of those for themselves (one of which Jerry Titus rolled and destroyed). This one was bought new by a Shelby Team driver, Fred Sutherland, who won the regional B Prod Championship the previous year with his 289 Cobra. He recently bought it again as a rusted-out hulk less engine.. Took a lot of work to restore it. Find more pics here: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=67624

The elliptical lights on the gray '58 Baja are from my German delivery 1965. They are the same as the 2 new Revell kits have, as you can see from the posts above. The flat bottom lights on the green 1973 US car above (taillights are not original to that Bug) are exactly the same housing and lens as my set of 1968 lights in the garage except for the 2 holes on the side of the housing for the side reflector lens, which shows the lights came off a 71 or 72. No difference in size. It appears to me that these are the lights that the Revell kits should have, being 1968 sedan and 1970 convertible, regardless of market. I believe those side reflectors were required on US delivery Bugs and may not have been found on Bugs in other countries. US delivery Bugs 1973-1979 got bigger tail lights. I have a set here that were original on a 1974. But they are rather bigger than 72s.

Cheetahs are very pretty cars. Don Edmunds did an awesome job on the body. But they were never close to being a production automobile like the Cobras were and so could never race in the same class. They were usually beaten by much smaller engined Cobras running in the Production class anyway. As it was they had to race against the mid-engine race cars like Coopers and Chaparrals and never really stood a chance. There wasn't a competitive front engine car racing against the mid-engine sport racers until the 1980s when the Ford Mustang GTP was running. Then again later the Panoz LMP-1. Interestingly, those both used Ford engines. Mini Exotics used to include directions for building a chassis for the Cheetah body using pieces from the AMT Mercedes 300 SL Gull Wing Coupe kit. It would be great if Revell were to do a Cheetah like their C5R and C6R kits. Original Cheetah production ceased after a fire burned the Bill Thomas Race Cars shop down including the body molds and chassis jigs. There is a company building new Cheetahs now though with official approval from Bill Thomas Race Cars. So if a model is tough, just buy a full scale one.

Did a search (manual as well as search engine) for those CBPs and did not find them. Got some links?

Regarding the tail lights, I cannot speak as an authority on European lights of 1968 and later vintage, but for US delivery cars, the tail lights are 1961-1967 vintage. Note that I got these photos from the links above and with no intent to step on anyone's copyrights, I have included photos already introduced to this forum by someone else for the purposes of discussion. 1965 elliptical lights on the left gray Baja Bug. And 1968 - 1972 tail lights for US delivery have square bottoms as seen in this photo of a pair of US 1970 lights on the green BajaBug. The gray one is my Baja Bug.

That's a very nice Terlingua Mustang. Last year I worked on a restoration of a 1:1 scale 67 Shelby Trans Am Mustang. NO It's NOT a GT350 or a GT500, It's a Notchback like this one, but it was built by Shelby for Trans Am Racing. 289 engine with dual Holley 4bbls. Do you have build threads on these 2 models?

I'd also like to note that in looking at parts views of both kits, I DO NOT see any representation of a rear firewall, although the panel over the front foot well is present, even though it will not be visible in the assembled model, and the engine hood will open to view the engine and the strange opening around it. Edit: Oops!!!! I was passing over one of the images and I now see they both have a rear firewall. Not exactly detailed or in any way attempting to be a model of the full scale firewall, but it IS there.

Looking at the Convertible parts images: - As noted by the German reviewer, the box art incorrectly shows a 71-72 model Super Beetle or in the European term, "1302". The body shown in the parts views is a Model 151, Deluxe LHD Convertible -70 Convertible kit is a swingaxle. This is wrong as even ALL German home market convertibles were "Deluxe" and thus would have IRS, not the cheap model swingaxle - The 2 dashes included, RHD and LHD are both padded, which is correct for the Model 151 of 1970 year model - The fan shroud for the engine is incorrectly a "doghouse" shroud with the larger oil cooler in a bulge of the fan shroud on the firewall side. US market Bugs got this in the 1971 year model. My father, as a VW Field Service Engineer in 1969 and 70 worked on testing this feature which was developed to deal with added cooling demand on the recently introduced larger displacement engines of the time and trouble with overheating cylinder number 3 due to air flow blockage and preheating from the earlier style oil cooler. Road testing was done with prototypes under hot summertime desert conditions on Highway 15 on the long grade "north" from the little town of Baker, California. This feature is appreciated for other VW models. I have one on my 58 Baja Bug. It will not be visible when the body is on the chassis of the model. There is a lot else on the engine which will be difficult to deal with for Baja Bugs and dune buggies and other applications where the engine is exposed. - The transaxle is rather poorly done and looks toy-like. - The front axle is also poorly done and toy-like. - A separate trunk lid with no trunk interior or hinges is rather bizarre. This engine and trans in an Imai by Foxer looks good! for a 40hp 1200cc

While the Revell 69-70 Shelby GT500 was tooled from the same original Master as the Revell 69 Mach I and the Monogram 70 Boss 429 and 302, the Revell kits were all done in 1/25 scale and the Monograms in 1/24 scale. The front fenders and nose on all of them other than the Shelby has never been right.Still, I hope the convertible tool is an insert or additional small tool and that the sportroof body cavity has not been altered to the convertible. I hate when model companies wreck what they have in order to make something new.

I had a 1965 German delivery Bug. It was bought new by a guy in SoCal. It was bought through a VW promotion called a "Fly and Drive Vacation". You went to your local US VW Dealer and order your new VW Beetle. Then travel arrangements were made for a trip to Europe through the dealer at the same time. They offered great discounts on the travel as you were buying the travel through a large volume deal instead of one person buying a package. In a couple of weeks to a month, you would fly to Frankfurt Germany, where someone was waiting to meet you with your brand new Bug. You then drove around wherever you had made arrangements to visit in Europe in your new car. When you were done, you returned to Frankfurt airport and turned your Bug over to the VW people and got on the airplane to come home to the US. Meanwhile, your Bug got packed up to come over by ship with the rest of the new Bugs being delivered to your area of the US. It would arrive at your dealer in 2-3 weeks and get prepped for you just like any other brand new Bug arriving for any other customer. The car was a German delivery car with the features that distinguished it as such. Like mine had 3-point seat belts and a locking steering column, features not found on US-spec Bugs until the 1968 year model. But as it was being sent to the US, it had US DOT lights. And since ALL Bugs delivered to the US since the beginning were "Deluxe" model, it had US features like chrome trim strips on the sides and around the windows and bumper over-riders. In the 1970s, I had a customer who had recently retired from the US Air Force. He had been stationed in Germany for several years. He had a 1967 Bug he bought new in Germany and brought home with him when he retired. It was a 1967 Deluxe and was a 1500 12 volt, but had headlights like US 6-Volt 1966 and earlier Bugs but with H-4 Halogen bulbs and different lenses than US. Like my '65, it had a locking steering column too. Also like my '65, it had a rounded triangle etched aluminum badge on the right front 1/4 panel indicating that it was a German-market car. Regarding swing-axle vs IRS, VW built swing axle bugs until the very end in 2003. Unless one bought a Deluxe or Super Beetle (1302 or 1303 for the English market), you still got swing axle. and 1300cc. Kinda strange that last part since it cost VW the same to build a 1600 as a 1300. Free horsepower it would seem. But since many countries tax a car based on the displacement of the engine, most people after an economy car would still buy a 1300cc. I'm going to want a number of these kits. Both Sedan and Convertible. But I'm not inclined to build stock versions. I will build Baja Bugs and Class 11 off road racers.

Actually there are some guys who were meeting at Autobooks on Magnolia a while back Steve. I don't know if they still do. That's where I picked up my 1st model kit in 1960. Dale King, my wife's cousin Henry Gonzalez and Charles Fox are a few of the guys. I live up in the Antelope Valley so it's a little far for me to come down for a model club meeting, but I have before. You could connect with Dale and Charles at the Yahoo GPMA group or stop by the shop and ask about it.

Welcome Paul. My old neighbor was from Slovakia. He lived since the 1940s in the Los Angeles, California area. I do not remember the name of the town he was from. I have owned some Hondas too. But I have lots of Volkswagens. Like my 1958 Type 1 Baja Bug.