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Posted

Curtis Turner won 11 races in the 1957 NASCAR Convertible Division.

He drove a Supercharged 1957 Ford Fairlane Convertible owned  by Pete DePaolo.

This is a model of the car he drove. I used the body from the AMT Fairlane w/hardtop removed. All the other bits are from the Revell Fireball Roberts 1957 Ford.

Paint is from Scalefinishes, Wimbledon White and Coral Sand.

Decals are from Slot Car Fever, but the number decals were much too large. I scanned and reduced to the correct size and printed my own set. 

I created a buck for making the tonneau cover. I soaked a paper towel in thinned down white glue and laid over the buck. After it was dry, I trimmed and painted it flat white.

DSC_0893_Fotor-vi.jpg

DSC_0895_Fotor-vi.jpg

DSC_0896_Fotor-vi.jpg

DSC_0897_Fotor-vi.jpg

DSC_0898_Fotor-vi.jpg

DSC_0901_Fotor-vi.jpg

DSC_0902_Fotor-vi.jpg

DSC_0905_Fotor-vi.jpg

DSC_0906_Fotor-vi.jpg

Thanx for lookin'...

Posted

Beautiful job!  Many folks are unaware of the convertible division back then.  It's my understanding that many cars had the roof adapted to bolt on so the same car could run both divisions.

Posted
11 hours ago, '70 Grande said:

Excellent build! Looks just right! I'm curious what the large holes in the trunk lid accomplished... any idea?

I was wondering just what they were for as well, but they were there.

 

Posted (edited)
11 hours ago, '70 Grande said:

Excellent build! Looks just right! I'm curious what the large holes in the trunk lid accomplished... any idea?

To let out any built up air pressure in the trunk. That's why the  tonneau cover covers as much of the interior as possible so as to prevent any air from being trapped inside the car and causing drag.

Edited by Vietnam Vet67
addition of info.
  • 4 months later...
Posted (edited)
On 3/23/2020 at 3:18 PM, bbowser said:

Beautiful job!  Many folks are unaware of the convertible division back then.  It's my understanding that many cars had the roof adapted to bolt on so the same car could run both divisions.

The Zipper-Tops!  The most famous ones were probably the Holman-Moody '59 T-Birds, but there were others.  Petty Engineering ran a '57 Olds with a removable roof, IIRC.  Here's a fun article about the Convertible Division, with lots of pix for inspiration.

https://www.macsmotorcitygarage.com/the-great-age-of-convertible-racing-in-nascar/

Edited by Mike999
omit
Posted (edited)
5 hours ago, hack-n-whack said:

Real nice conversion. Just wondering if all the racers deleted their sun visors to save a bit of weight?

No sun visors visible in that link I posted above.  Deleting them was probably a safety factor, to make sure they didn't fly out of the car and onto the track. Looking at some of the close-up shots, it looks like they also could have interfered with the roll bar mountings. 

While looking thru the photos, I found that Petty "Zipper-Top" Olds:

Richard-Petty-43-1957-Oldsmobile-Daytona-1959-.jpg

Edited by Mike999
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