80' Malibu Slot Car

[BTK]

I know some aren't fans of slot cars and I respect that, but I personally enjoy a slot car more than a normal model car. The hobby has made a real resurgence in my neck of the woods and a few of us including myself are really into "no-bar" slot cars. Basically, the car has no wheelie bar(s) and just gives a little more realism to it all.

Anyways, I bought this car from Bandit Resins probably 3-4 years ago and it was quite expensive. I won't put Bandit down as I know a lot of you have bought plenty of quality products and have seen some cars that look perfect. Mine just wasn't in the shape I thought it should be for the price, lesson learned. It's been painted/stripped about 6 times now and has always been a slot car. I've been lurking on this forum for a while now and thanks to reading the Tips/Tricks and many different project threads, I thought I'd give it a shot at making this car really slick.

No one makes an 80' and that's what my 1:1 is, so I recently bought an 80' El Camino promo to cut up. The downside to the promo is that I'll have to figure out how to match the rear bumper in the malibu kit to the chrome El Camino kit. I had looked into cutting the core support forward off and swap, but it would be hard to match as I don't have much experience with splicing two together. So I plan on cutting them at the doorline and work on the roof since the flat panel and door line would be easier to hide the seam.

Enough blabbering, I've stripped them down. Hopefully get the measurements and start cutting tomorrow. Thanks for looking!

-Skylar.

[Austin T]

That's pretty cool,great little conversion you got there. I've always kinda wanted to make a slot car before but no one in the middle TN region has a track from 1/24th scale if I remember correctly.

[mikemodeler]

Find a Revell '80 Chevy Citation kit, the body is very similar to a Malibu and will make your conversion much easier!

[Tom Geiger]

I think it would be much easier just to swap the noses on the two cars. Cut the bodies at the front of the door. Keep the A pillars with the doors. If the Elkie body is a promo, the hood should be molded in and that would be half the battle. It back up the splices with some sheet plastic glued into the inside of the body, especially since it would be a slot car and subject to crashes.