Ace-Garageguy

Slingshot. Mickey Thompson is widely credited for originating and popularizing the design with the driver behind the rear axle, allowing maximum engine setback for the most possible weight transfer under acceleration. And one of its chief advantages was the severely narrowed rear axle, which helped limit the tendency of cars to self-steer if they had unequal traction on the rear tires. The term "rail job" was applied to the earliest stripped down cars that were nothing but frame rails, engines, and running gear. The term expanded to encompass anything similar, including "slingshot" cars. Thompson's own words: “It was late 1954 that I decided to build a radically new type of dragster. For years everyone in the sport had been making noises about traction, weight transfer and about getting as much of the weight of the vehicle as possible concentrated on its rear driving tires. As the whole sport learned to get more and more horsepower from its engines, the need for greater traction became even greater. Gradually the idea took shape. The big obstacle was keeping the driver between the engine and the rear axle. This required a drive shaft of a certain length, which pushed the engine forward by that amount. Now if you would place the driver behind the rear axle you could couple the engine-transmission assembly directly to it and you would really have the main weight of the vehicle focused on the driving wheels.” “There was another problem to traction and that was the amount of rubber on the ground. If you could double the area of rubber on the pavement, you could probably transmit almost double the horsepower to the road before the wheels would spin. That is when I went to dual rear wheels and everybody laughed at my "Truck", but I got the results I'd hoped for. Then I went to the A-1 Tire Company and talked them into building moulds for the first recap wide-tread slicks, which I seemed to have invented. This paid off some more. One of the biggest factors limiting dragster performance in those days was directional stability-the things were just desperately hard to keep going in a straight line. I felt that this could be helped by approaching as closely as possible to a three-wheel configuration with the front wheels very wide apart and the rear wheels just as close together as the width of the driver's body would allow. So I built a dragster that way. As it gradually took shape, the result of all these ideas made me the butt of jokes all over southern California. But funny thing was that it ran and one day a Santa Anna hot rodder Leroy Neumeyer said to me, ‘You know what that beast reminds me of, Mick? A slingshot. You know, the way the driver sits back there like a rock in a slingshot.’" That was the name that stuck and the configuration proved to be so successful, so unbeatable, that within a couple of years it became the standard of the sport.

I'm in Ga. We were among the earliest of states to begin reopening 3 weeks ago, amid much derogatory and fear-mongering rhetoric in the media. Our new case count continues to decline as more and more businesses open and things begin to look somewhat normal. Make of that what you will. I've been working full time, business-as-usual (not from home) since I got back from Az in the middle of March, when this whole mess broke wide open. A National Park near me reopened parking lots and trails last week, and I was able to go for a 3 hour hike yesterday.

WOW. And I'm green with envy.

Unless it's a virgin in the box with everything intact, I say have at it. I have a very few models that qualify as "collectible" and that I have zero intention of building, but a whole lot of rare and unusual kits that will be heavily modded. Far as real cars go, I've wanted a '30-'31 Ford coupe hot-rod for decades. I came across a very nice older restoration-to-original for decent money a few months back. But as rare as these things are relatively unmolested, I just didn't have the heart to buy it to hack up. On the other hand, if it had had a nice body but was a generally crapp car otherwise, I would have jumped it in a heartbeat.

Sounds like Gary's a Karen.

You just gotta love a place that lists "SR-71 Blackbird parts" on its website.

Sorry. Answered this one.

Yup. See the other post.

I'd pretty much bet the farm it's a 2X4 carb manifold, with a fabbed big 2-pot mechanical injection system. Not too hard to do in reality. Stu Hilborn introduced his mechanical FI in 1948. By the time the car in this post was built, it was a popular and well understood setup, with other manufacturers doing similar things. So Hilborn or similar guts adapted to fabricated throttle bodies would have been straightforward. Big 2-pot systems were widely seen on blown drag engines too, so the only real trick would be throttle linkage and machining the bodies and butterflies. This is an Offenhauser FE 2X4 manifold. EDIT: Yup. FORD FE 427 SHELBY COBRA GALAXIE HIGH RISE ORIGINAL 2X4 INTAKE MANIFOLD Note how tall the rib at the rear carb-mount corner of the Ford manifold is. Compare that to the manifold in your photo. I think we have a winner.

And speaking on that a little more...though it's been some time since I worked on the thing and took dimensions from a real one, I'm reasonably sure the hood and front fenders and wheelbase (120"-122" for Pontiac, 115" or 116" for Chevy) are considerably longer on the Pontiac. The Poncho was still running an optional straight-eight in '53-'54, and all that engine length had to go somewhere.

I've seen those used on older builds, but big fat Borgesons are what I usually run these days. I'm doing a real '66 big block Chevelle at the moment, and had to relocate and rotate the steering rack, completely redesign the steering shaft and UJ locations, put an eyeball in the firewall, and rebuild the headers on the driver's side...because the original builder didn't get any of it right.

One of the easiest units to work with comes from the AMT Phantom Vickie. It assembles on its own crossmember, which can be fairly easily adapted to just about any chassis...

On a real car, all it usually takes is a couple of universal joints and a mid-shaft support bearing...but it can be a real nightmare, particularly if the car builder didn't take it into consideration early in the setup.

https://www.spotmodel.com/index.php?manufacturers_id=99 Yup. Good luck. I've had a shipment from Japan stuck in limbo for over a month now.

I've been working on exactly that off and on for a couple years now. The acetate promo I bought was kinda krispy when I got it, and during subsequent gentle handling, first it broke into several large chunks, and then essentially turned to dust. The die-cast bumpers are OK however, and I've been reworking them (and the grille) into accurate plugs suitable for casting from. Probably not going to bother with the intricate side trim, but the chrome streaks down the center are so much signature Pontiac, it's got to have 'em.

There were 2-door and 4-door promos in about 1/25 scale. But beware. I bought a 4-door made from acetate, and it has disintegrated to dust. The shots below show the above-referenced rear fender differences. And shrinkage and warping are almost universal.

Man...that Sterling dump is a beautiful old truck too. I'll certainly be watching for your build thread.

Yup. There are also some that look to be the same at first glance, but aren't. I just went through a long involved process coming up with a set of "big-n'-littles" of just the right visual stagger for a 1/24 Ferrari 250 GTO hotrod. I ended up using 1/24 and 1/25 tires, and mixed scale wheels with some meat added to the rear (1/25) rims to get the right diameter to fit the 1/24 tires...and had to slightly open up the front (1/25) tires to accept the 1/24 rims of the same design, but with a different depth and offset.

I do it all the time. As I'm sure you're aware, real tires come in many different rolling diameters and aspect ratios for the same nominal size wheel. By mixing nominal scales, you can often get just exactly the look you want, and represent a tire or wheel in a diameter that's not available in the nominal scale you're working in. But it's important to be aware of your measurements and scale, as mentioned above. This 1/25 model uses rear tires from a 1/24 kit to correctly represent a much taller rear tire than the front, both on scale 16" rims.

Basically, it's the soap-on-the-mirror effect. It breaks the surface tension of the water droplets that condense on the glass, and the water sheets rather than forming fog. Wiping a bathroom mirror with a little soap will inhibit fogging, so it's easier to shave when you get out of a hot shower. Same principle, and it works on the inside of car windows too.

Pretty cool. Great prices. I need a Caudron for my 1/32 race-plane collection, and I'm always up for any version of the CCKW.

Thanks Joe. I appreciate that detail kit info. I had no idea that existed.

Thanks. Would the later AMT Diamond Reo chassis be at all appropriate?