Ace-Garageguy

Original Minis rolled on 10" rims. 12" was a common aftermarket "performance" upgrade. Bear that in mind when you're looking for rolling stock. A 10" wheel is about 3/8 of an inch OD...at the tire mounting bead...(approx. 10mm) in 1/25 scale.

These prices seem pretty intelligently reasonable when you consider a Beanie Baby was on eBay for $500,000 a few years back. Yup, half a million bucks.

^^^ Yeah baby, now we're talkin'.

I hope more folks chime in. There's a guy who did some really stunning work using a programmable cutter that cut precise shapes from sheet styrene, and another member here, comp1839, does spectacular work in larger scales, like this...

with road kill

Agreed. Looks great.

Maybe just for you.

with raw oysters

Though this model is NOT a gasser, it's close in general concept, and the overall design goals of the builders of a car like this would be very similar to guys building gassers back in the dim recesses of time. Getting maximum "weight-transfer" towards the rear under acceleration is Job 1, especially necessary where the width and rubber compounds of the slicks available then made them considerably less-sticky than what we're used to today. Contrary to widely popular opinion these days, the normal at-rest stance of a period gasser WAS NOT the nose-to-the-sky attitude in evidence in so many "nostalgia" cars, both real and model. Despite a FEW period photos to the contrary, the VAST MAJORITY of real in-period gassers sat LEVEL at rest, and only developed the extreme nose-high attitude during launch. Again, this is not my "opinion". It is a simple FACT that can be verified by anyone researching period class rules, and photographs of cars FROM THE ERA. One of the reasons the Stone-Woods-Cook Willys gasser became so famous is because of it's great and consistent ability to "hook up". The guys who put the car together were wizards who hit on a magic combination, and I've been studying it to use on this build. My interest in the SWC chassis setup began many years ago, but it's surfaced again because the leaf springs I fabbed for this build won't support the car's weight. I'm going to have to take that load with the shocks, and started scrounging through kits to see what I could find that's appropriate. I happened to look in the vintage Revell SWC Willys kit, and wouldn't choo know, I remembered a few things. Though there's never really been any in-depth engineering analysis of the SWC car's setup published (as far as I know), Revell got things pretty righteous back in those days, and the shocks in the kit add to an interesting story. The rear end of the SWC Willys gasser was set up pretty "loose", on quarter-elliptic springs that allowed the body to move quite freely up and down relative to the axle. Side-to-side motion was controlled by a simple Panhard bar, and axle torque-reaction during acceleration was controlled by long traction bars that also worked as "lift bars", very effectively raising the front of the car as the rear tended to squat on the softish springs. Smallish shocks at the rear prevented that end of the body from rising again quickly, while much larger shocks at the front tended to hold the nose high after those springs unloaded at launch. NOTE: The American term "shock absorbers" leads to much misunderstanding of what these parts actually do. The British term "dampers" is accurate, as they "damp" out excessive "boingity-boingity-boingity" as the springs try to oscillate after they're displaced. They do NOT absorb shock, nor do they add to the car's static spring-rate (unless they're specifically designed to do so, gas-filled or coil-over units). Old drag racing guys will remember that, before you could just buy everything out of catalogs (like 90/10 shocks), we'd routinely use worn-out shocks that were much stiffer in one direction than the other to get exactly this kind of car control (or hack them open, change the valving, and fill 'em with STP...) and this general combination of damping front-to-rear is largely responsible for the characteristic appearance of gassers maintaining the nose-high attitude well down the 1/4 mile, though they'd usually settle to level at the end. Anyhaps...I found some loose but clean Revell SWC Willys gasser parts hiding out in a mess of other miscellaneous bits I've never sorted, and as the rear end and lift bars in this thing are already based on Revell SWC Willys gluebomb parts, I'll be using the fronts, suitably modified to fit this build, and rears of a size similar to what was under that end of that car as well. Happy trails. PS. There will be a test on this material at the end of the semester.

Just tried it again...copied this directly from the page: Matt Bacon cannot receive messages.

A brain.

Because there's just no shortage of stupid...a sad reality in evidence everywhere, more so every day.

for green-haired screaming

or anyone else

"Matt Bacon cannot receive messages"

of any value

politicians stuffed with

where chipmunks developed

from planet Arrakis

and a sailor

and musty books

And here's one that's REALLY impressive...

full of lawyers

Here's a couple of threads with a little scratchin' going on...

Glad you think it's an idea you can use. The grippers on the hood itself are a little large and klugey, as they were proof-of-concept, just to see if the idea would work like I thought it would. With more care, they could be made considerably smaller...not quite appearing in-scale, but less obtrusive. Still, they don't show when the car is assembled, or unless the hood is upside-down, and the flanges on the body that DO show can easily (and correctly) represent panels added to the body shell that would carry 1/4 turn (Dzus) fastener receptacles.