Curtis Turner's 1960 Ford Falcon

[Leo64]

A lot of you have seen my friend Curt Raitz's builds of the Curtis Turner cars that he raced in, mostly NASCAR and USAC & he even did a Pikes Peak car.  I've help Curt out with some decals for a few of the builds when there isn't a decal sheet available.  While doing some research for some of the decal sheets, I found a couple of cars that Curtis raced in that Curt didn't know about.  The models Curt has built have been sent to the Curtis Turner Museum, so I thought I would have a little fun and build one of the cars I found out about.  Back in 1960 when the big 3 automakers introduced the sport compact cars, Bill France decided to invite them to compete at the Daytona Race.  Curtis Turner was asked to race on of the Ford Falcon cars entered.  I found a few black & white pics of the car (mostly after he had rolled the car) so when I decided to build the car there was some guess at what the colors where.  The info I found said the cars were taken off the showroom floor, modified slightly and then went racing, so looking at colors from 1960 it looked like the car was probably Belmont Blue, so I ordered some paint from Scalefinishes.  I found a resin 1960 Ford Falcon body, used the AMT 1960 Ford Ranchero model kit, some parts from the spare parts box and made up the decal sheet for the build.  I gave the finished model to Curt, and he has sent it to the museum.

[Pierre Rivard]

Beautifully done Steve. You revived a little piece of history that could have easily been forgotten.

Well done!

[espo]

Great looking build. Not many remember when NASCAR had the compact cars racing. I remember seeing one of the races on the old Wide World of Sports TV programs from Daytona Beach. As I recall the Valent's were the class of the field.  

[slusher]

Excellent work!

[sflam123]

This is certainly one you don't see modeled very often (if EVER)!!   You did a fantastic job1

[ChrisBcritter]

On 7/21/2022 at 10:41 AM, espo said:

 As I recall the Valent's were the class of the field.  

Yep - the Hyper-Pak Valiants pretty much mopped the floor with everyone else. If the series had hung on a couple more years it might have been interesting to see how the V8 Falcons would have fared against the V8 Tempest, F-85 and Special.

Back to Falcons - This was one of my eBay finds several years ago; a '61 painted up as Joe Weatherly's ride:

I detect a pattern here?

Edited July 23, 2022 by ChrisBcritter

[ChrisR]

Looks great!!

[ewetwo]

Nicely done.

 

[Zippi]

Nice looking Falcon.  That car back in the day would have kicked butt with a 260 in the business end.

[TarheelRick]

Some very nice builds. Part of NASCAR history that has been pretty much forgotten.  From the pictures of the 1:1's it appears they had trouble staying upright.

[PappyD340]

Looks great, well done!

[Reegs]

Correct, Espo, Valiants dominated, taking 1st through 7th.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Among my favorite builds are models of historic race cars. This is great.    

[Reegs]

NASCAR inline 6s. Who'da thunk it?  

[Phildaupho]

Always great to see models of Falcons especially race cars

[curt raitz]

Stevie, you finally bit the bullet and joined the forum. Curtis Turners Falcon came out really nice. I hope to get that Mustang you started finished as soon I wrap up the Lynx2 car for Mark.

[Jim B]

Great looking Falcon.  Never knew about this NASCAR class.

[Leo64]

10 hours ago, curt raitz said:

Stevie, you finally bit the bullet and joined the forum. Curtis Turners Falcon came out really nice. I hope to get that Mustang you started finished as soon I wrap up the Lynx2 car for Mark.

I signed up awhile back, and replied to a few posts, but just haven't posted any pics of my builds till now.  Haven't had a chance to work on any new builds for awhile, but hope to be able to start working on something soon.  I figured you would be able to finally get the Curtis Turner Mustang finished a lot sooner than I could.  Just finished the decal sheet for John, and hope to finish up the Multi Maverick decals for him soon & also do up the Corvette SR-2 decals for you & Andy also.

[ewetwo]

Nice build.

[Street Rod]

Very good build!