Resurrecting Revell ASA racers

[THarrison351]

Back in the '80s and '90s it was great to watch and build oval track race cars. The networks and cable were broadcasting all sorts of racing every weekend and even Thursday nights!  Revell released three ASA '89 Camaros and they had small block V-8s or V-6s depending on the driver. Then they released two Thunderbirds in 1990 with V-6s. Also, they came with either Wide -5 or ten hole racing wheels so you could mix and match those if you wanted.  Finally, most cars had Goodyear tires, but at least one had Hoosiers to make it interesting. I bought and built all of these when they came out and unfortunately sprayed all of them with Testors enamel clear coat. So they have a nice yellow tint after 30 years. I believe these haven't seen the light of day since about 1997.  Surprisingly, they were complete except the #84 was missing the fuel filler piece. Fortunately the Thunderbirds come with them on the chrome tree, but the filler is molded in the body so I had two extra. Bits and pieces had come loose on all of them and they were all dirty inside and out. I took them apart and washed them out. I'm not sure what these were exposed to, but the interior upper surfaces are all oxidized and faded. All the dust and in one case cobweb and dead spider are gone. I polished the bodies and even they had something that was difficult to remove. I also dropped the chassis of the Superflo (Darrell Waltrip Camaro) and fortunately parts broke only at glue joints. There was one thing I forgot to add. They all come with the most horrible version of a window net I've ever seen, hence why none are installed. Plus the cars are at rest without drivers, so the nets would be down anyways. So, here we go.

Jeff Neal #5 Zerex 1990 Thunderbird. The rear firewall was loose and the fuel cell was out. Apparently I did some detailing on this because it has a wired distributor and braided hoses to the oil cooler.

 

Picture doesn't do it justice, but it's all back together and clean

Butch Miller #52 SAI Lane Automotive 1989 Camaro. Nothing was really physically wrong with this one, just filthy and one suspension point on the rear suspension had come loose. Obviously, this is the one with the Hoosier tires.

I wish there was way to bleach the yellow out of these.

Darrell Waltrip #17 Powerflo 1989 Camaro. This one started out only needing the air cleaner cover glued on, a couple of rear suspension points re-glued, and of course dirty.

Well, everything was going ok until I was drying the chassis after washing. I was holding the car by the dash when it just disconnected from the rest of the chassis and hit my soft rubberized floor, but it didn't. My chair won't roll on the floor so I have one of those hard plastic mats. This was the result. It was repairable.

Turned out ok for me. It's strange, I'm not a Darrell Waltrip fan, but I have six 1/24 scale model cars from him. Besides my favorite three drivers from over the years, I have more cars of his than any other single driver.

Tom Jones "The Zero Hero" #0 Fel-Pro 1990 Thunderbird. The rear suspension was completely loose on this one and it's dirty too.

All cleaned up and ready to display!

Bob Seneker #84 Pro-Am Leasing 1989 Camaro. This model was dropped once a long time ago. I remember the fuel filler was never recovered and for some reason I never fished one out of my spare parts, even though I had two. So, other than cleaning and the missing fuel filler, this car has some chips in the paint from when it was dropped twenty odd years ago.

Can't remember why this has Wide-5 wheels instead of regular ten hole wheels like what is in the picture. 

This is a couple of model kits (ASA Camaro and Thunderbird) that I'd like to see someone (JR Salvinos?) release them again with new graphics or even new bodies. They were easy to build and looked pretty good when complete. All five ready for the shelf!

My next group of victims to repair! The Miata is the worst because the windshield is crushed.

Edited September 11, 2020 by THarrison351

[afx]

Nice work on the ASA cars.  I would like to see them reissued as well.

[bbowser]

 Thursday night thunder on ESPN!  Those were the days.  Great group of cars you have, even after 30 years they look great.

[Phildaupho]

Thanks for posting your ASA projects. I have one of the #84 kits of which I was very pleased with what's in the box. It can obviously be built into a very nice model.

[THarrison351]

Thanks everyone! ESPN was great to auto racing back in the day along with TNN. I don't have cable anymore, it's what I can hear on MRN/PRN and see on the goofy NASCAR app. Crate engines (all chevy) killed ASA and I'm expecting ARCA will die soon since they have crate (all chevy) engines too. The trucks went to crate (all chevy) engines last year and they seem to be OK, but I'm not holding my breath.

Edited September 12, 2020 by THarrison351

[Gramps46]

Nice trip down memory lane Tim.  Thanks for posting.

[PappyD340]

Nice group!

[randyc]

When these were current, I was doing graphics on local race cars.  The chassis in these closely resmebles what hte dirt super lates were running at the time.  I'm sure there are guys that can poiint out all the differences, but they were close.   I saved a bunch of the Goodyear dirt track style tires, but never managed to actually build one that way.  

The wide fives were great - more stuff to build local cars...

I think I bou ght the Senneker car, but wanted so many parts out of it for other things that I eventually put a tarp over it in my garage diorama.  It lived there for years and I actually sold it that way in the last couple years.   

This would be a great kit to reissue I would think - lots of possibilities.  

[Run8Racing]

I have all the kits, but never built one. Found a seller on Ebay that has decals for a different Butch Miller, Joe Shear, and Dick Trickle Camaros. Hoping to find Mark Martin Camaro and T-bird decals. Can still find the kits here and there and they don't have the prices of the older MPC Super Stockers... yet !!!

[slusher]

nice collection..

[Silver Foxx]

Nice work re doing these , they look great , built a couple of these myself , nice detailed kits and fun to build .