Ed Roth's Surfite

[unclescott58]

Here's a build I did a year or two, ago. You'll notice I did one thing a little different from what I've seen other people do with this kit. The feet and hand sticking out of the tiki hut, I painted green. I figured by the size and shape of those feet, we are not looking at a normal human being in there. I figured it has to be Rat Fink! Hence the green feet and hand.

Edited December 3, 2017 by unclescott58

[Tom Geiger]

The Tiki Hut is my favorite part of the kit.

A little trivia.  Back when I got back into models close to 30 years ago, this was a big money kit. It had been issued only once and never reissued.  R&R even did a resin copy.  Then it was reissued and I got a few.  Yippie.

Back then the trivia was that the kit was only issued once, and then pulled off the market when Ed Roth was associated with Hells Angels, and that wasn't the image Revell wanted to sell to youngsters.  I met Bob Paeth at GSL and I asked him about the kit and this story.  He replied, "Heck no, it was never reissued because it didn't sell!" I guess kids just weren't into this little Mini Cooper powered bug!  So ignore the Hells Angels story.

Bob said that the Tiki Hut came about because the Surfite was so small that it didn't fill the standard size kit box, and that people may think they didn't get good value.  So they came up with this extra, basically to fill the box. 

 

[unclescott58]

Just as I was surprised over the positive response I've seen on my posting of my '67 Falcon. I surprised over the lack of response to this. I thought a lot more people would interested in seeing it. And I was pretty proud over how both the car and the tiki hut turned out. Tom responded. But, only to tell us how much he liked these kits in general. With no comment on whether he liked mine or not? Is the kit that boring? Or did I do a bad job on it? Why has this one been ignored? 

[DumpyDan]

Looks good, had one years ago when they were rare and sold it for a stupid amount.  Couldn't resist selling it.

[El Caballo]

Cool, everything Roth is neat-o.

[Phildaupho]

I think you did a fabulous job with all aspects of your build. I am especially impressed with your Roth figure. The Surfite was a very cool design for its day. I can imagine a seat version being a contemporary urban computer.

[unclescott58]

44 minutes ago, Phildaupho said:

I think you did a fabulous job with all aspects of your build. I am especially impressed with your Roth figure. The Surfite was a very cool design for its day. I can imagine a seat version being a contemporary urban computer.

Thanks. But, the Roth figure came in the kit prepainted. So I can take no credit for that. Other than choosing which decal to place on his t-shirt. Everything else I did. 

[Johnt671]

I picked one up at Ollies a few months ago. I haven't opened the box so thanks for posting the pictures.

[ChrisBcritter]

Nice clean build! I know some of the old Revell show cars can be fiddly to assemble; any issues with this one? And can we see a shot of the drivetrain from underneath, or is it enclosed?

[unclescott58]

48 minutes ago, ChrisBcritter said:

Nice clean build! I know some of the old Revell show cars can be fiddly to assemble; any issues with this one? And can we see a shot of the drivetrain from underneath, or is it enclosed?

Tough to see anything once the car is together. It's not too bad of a build. A lot less "fiddly" and easier to build than Roth's Mysterion. The starter fell out after the kit was completed. I haven't looked too close. But at casual glance, I'll not sure if I can reinstall it, or if anybody would really notice that it's missing. After bringing it to one MCCM (Model Car Club of Minnesota) meeting, I decided to glue the hood in place. It kept falling into the body, and really did let you see much anyway. This was before the starter fell out. Beyond that, it's pretty good. Fun to learn about how the original Mini suspension worked. Which this kit got me curious to learn more about. 

[ChrisBcritter]

Thanks! The Mini underpinnings are what interested me too. Always trying to think of some use for odd parts like that.

[unclescott58]

5 minutes ago, ChrisBcritter said:

Thanks! The Mini underpinnings are what interested me too. Always trying to think of some use for odd parts like that.

I heard about the original Minis having rubber springs, but I just couldn't grasp on to that concept until I saw the drawing above. And then again, I never really researched into it until I was building Roth's Surfite. Quite ingenious. 

[unclescott58]

Oh! And Surfite model has a fairly accurate depiction of the Mini's suspension. Revell did a good job on that. 

[wisdonm]

That is the dry suspension. The Mini also used a wet suspension. The system used fluid displacer units fitted to each wheel. The front and rear units were connected so that the front and rear nearside form one connected pair and the front and rear offside form another connected pair.  The units were made from sheet-steel and rubber. Each unit consisted of an upper and lower chamber housing containing a diaphragm, reinforced by nylon, and a compressed conical rubber spring. The units were filled with a mixture of alcohol, water and additives to prevent corrosion. A valve in the top of the fluid separating chamber replaced the conventional damper of other systems. When either wheel on one side of the car hit a bump in the road, the fluid was displaced and caused the unit on the other wheel to react. In this way a bump at the front made the rear of the car rise to a corresponding height and the car always remained level. As weird as this sounds this suspension was also used on a few Indy race cars.

[RAMBENNA]

awesome love it , nice job