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Showing results for tags 'tommy hamilton'.
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This is the second time I have built a replica for the Brown Bros GT350R. The first time was for the original driver - Tom Hamilton. That led to me decaling about 75 1/18 diecasts sold to collectors. There is a very real chance that the livery on the restored car was based on the decals I made up for Tommy's model because he asked me to leave off the name of the other driver who only raced the car once but his name always remained on the original along with Tom Hamilton. Although my initial intention was to do a relatively simple build, I ended up doing virtually all the modifications to make it quite accurate. The real car was not sold by Shelby to Brown Bros. until 1967 and was raced extensively for the next two years. Apparently its next incarnation was as a street racer with a lace panel paint job! ALTERATIONS & ADDITIONS BODY – Replaced molded wipers and door handles with separate ones from 64 Fairlane, removed emblems, front valance - covered round holes and cut in oval brake cooling openings, rear valance filled reverse light holes and added bumper mount holes, covered gas filler hole with thin styrene, made up R model side window frames, removed rear window trim, replaced grill with one from a stock 1966 GT350, added hood pins INTERIOR – dash modified by removing top pad, glove box door, radio and other surface detail, removed door panel upholstery and floor carpet detail, added slot for spare tire in rear bulkhead, added web belts for window raising & lowering, drilled out gauges and backed with reduced photo of actual gauges CHASSIS – Tubed rear wheelwells and narrowed rear track to get tires to fit within body, removed gas tank for separate painting, installed over rider traction bars ENGINE COMPARTMENT – Separated from body for separate painting, removed battery and platform, added an oil cooler ENGINE – Stock style chrome valve covers with extra breathers added PAINT – Tamiya Pure White over Racing White which does seem to give a bit of a Wimbledon White look DECALS - The side stripes by Fred Cady but the rest of the livery are my decals from art work done almost 20 years ago. The center stripes are metallic blue vinyl in keeping with the fact that back in the day Tommy Hamilton re-striped the car with reflective vinyl used on telephone booths.