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I needed a race safety truck for my slot car racetrack so I found a cheap ($5) 1/32 scale die-cast 1950's Ford pickup and converted it into a race-ready safety truck. It's just a static model, I did not convert it into an actual slot truck. The Safety Truck adds just a little bit realism on my slot car track. The safety workers are from a Marx toy set that were called NASA workers. I will restyle them to look like race track safety personnel. The jack and part of the fire extinguisher are from an old Scalextric pit box set. The light bar is from a rally slot car. The broom is cobbled together from bits of wood and a slice of foam sheet. The gas can is a rectangular piece from an electrical board with some wire insulation for the filler neck. The hose in the truck bed is some insulated wire with a scrounged metal fitting on the end that I thought looked like a hose end. Balsa wood push bars were added to the front and rear bumpers. The race flags are made from bits of stiff wire with shiny paper flags in red, green, yellow, black and white. The truck is getting pretty full of safety gear. Our safety truck is now nearing completion. Now we need to hire some workers to operate the truck. The truck is pretty much ready to go but the new crew members are still a little bit up in the air while their uniforms get the finishing touch. They don't look too happy right now. The safety crew members are finally on the job. Ready for action at the highest point of Overlook Raceway Park. The no. 38 Mustang is leading the no. 88 Camaro as they fly by the Safety Truck and crew.

I bought a cheap ($5) 1/32 VW bus toy and converted it into a broadcast van for my slot race course. I took the toy apart and then added bits and pieces of plastic, wire, odds and ends from the inside of an old laptop and stereo receiver and ended up with this van. The satellite dish is a clear plastic suction cup painted flat white. The interior control center is cobbled together from more odds and ends from all over my basement. The broadcast van is now in place next to the TV tower behind the hairpin curve at Overlook Raceway Park, my basement slot car track.

A couple of pics of a heavily modified pre-war Lionel 225E 2-6-2 into a Pacific 4-6-2 based on the Canadian Pacific #2317. The tender is scratch built with modified Lionel trucks.

This started life as a nicely moulded but crudely painted (and in many places not painted) Mondo die-cast. I stripped all the paint, and detail-painted the nicely detailed black plastic parts for the interior and engine. I still need to add some chrome badges and scripts, but that may take a while since I'm still working on how to do it! bestest, M.