1970 Superbird, Pete Hamilton Talladega 500 Winner. Converted from Franklin Mint Richard Petty Superbird

[THarrison351]

This is a project I’ve thought about for several years. Wanting to acquire a derelict Franklin Mint Petty Superbird and convert it into a Pete Hamilton version. I’ve been watching eBay for the best candidate, and most were overpriced or too damaged for my needs. This popped up a few weeks ago with a decent BIN and reasonable shipping with only a broken wheel and dirtiness. The wheel was an easy enough fix, the spindle where the screw mounts the screw was a clean break. Disassembled the wheel and glued the broken stub back on the spindle. 
My memory is terrible and there used to be a lot of great information on Randy Ayer’s NASCAR model sight until his server crashed and most was lost. 
Things I researched to change from the Petty to Hamilton car. First off, I knew from an interview of Richard Petty that I'd read years ago about the Petty Museum Superbird which the Franklin Mint car was based on was inaccurate. It was a short track car that they attached a Superbird front clip, rear window plug, and wing. The car never ran a race as a Superbird. They also massaged some parts like the fender vents to make them more aerodynamic as he was updating the car with every new trick they could come up with.
 First, the most obvious(and since changed, but wrong color) thing is the slotted wheels. Those wheels didn’t come into use until the 1972 season with the conversion to disc brakes although you’ll see slot wheels on drum brake cars because these were the first race wheels specifically for NASCAR. They might even be lighter, due to not having two centers welded together on the solid wheels. I know they kept the brakes cooler. I used PPP wheels in place of the slot halves of the Mint assembly and it worked out ok. Superglue can be your friend. Second was the tires themselves. In the 1970 season, NASCAR Goodyear tires went from treaded to slicks. Richard Petty said something like he was afraid of the slicks because if someone so much as spit on the pavement you could spin out or something to that effect. You can see visibly on the outside of tire when they changed by the Goodyear lettering. The small letters are the treaded tires and the larger were the slicks. The Mint car comes with Goodyear Eagles print which started use in 1981 but the tires are treaded? Fortunately, a little acetone and some course sandpaper on the treads made them look a little more acceptable. Third, the exhaust exiting out the left side! Only the short track cars ran both pipes out the left side because the cars squatted to the right in the turns, and they’d scrape if they were on the right. I cut up the pipe from the right header and drilled a couple of new holes for it to fit in. It’s not perfect when viewed from the bottom, but it works. Fourth, no front spoiler! I built a chin spoiler out of thin aluminum to match as close as possible his Talladega wins. The Daytona win spoiler is interesting and complicated, but there’s no side windows in this replica so that version was out. Fifth, the hood pin. So many, including my own personal Petty Superbird are often missing these sad looking lumps of plastic imitating hood pins. This derelict diecast had all of them! I removed them, saving one for my Petty car. And replaced the missing pins with lovely photo-etched ones from Pro-Tech. Last and requiring the most work, was the removal of all the Petty Tampo printing. Fortunately, I’ve dealt with this in previous diecast conversions, so I knew lacquer thinner, and acetone would be no match. I did leave the hood cubic inch print, but all the rest came off. I had several collections of Hamilton decals to choose from, but they were so old that even with a coat of clear, they crumbled in the water. Power Slide and Mikes Decal’s bailed me out and what great decals they are. The red nose trapezoid to help the pit crews distinguish the cars was the only dilemma. I compared my Franklin Mint car to my other 1/24 Superbirds, and it’s nearly 3/16 wider at the nose. Not sure if this is a Mint anomaly or the Museum Superbird dimension. Anyways, I had to split that decal and paint the center. Tried and true Testers 1103 red bottle paint over flat white primer matched good enough. Some of the other decals were a compromise to scale, but close enough for my needs. I also discovered the passenger door handle cover decal or Tampo was never on the car. I looked at the seller’s pictures and it’s missing and there’s no evidence it ever was on it.
Last items: the seller didn’t disclose the car came from a smoker’s house. It reeked of cigarettes, and I didn’t notice in the pictures how yellowed the windows were. Even after polishing, they’re still yellow. I also added the missing upper radiator hose that all these cars came without. It’s not routed correctly, but it’s there. I would have added spark plug wires, but the engine was glued in so well I feared it would damage before I could remove it. The upper frame crash bars are in the way to drill the valve covers for wires. Icon diecast which produced the University of Racing Legends diecast used the Franklin Mint Petty diecast to clone the 1969 Charger 500s and Charger Daytonas. They created new body’s, but the chassis is almost untouched. I last read Icons were not planning to produce anymore cars until all their inventory was sold. I’m hoping because they produced the Chargers from the Petty molds, they can someday produce Superbirds!

Painted the black line like the Pettys did to make it look like the nose cone was separate

Painted the aero trim between the bumper and body. It's part of the chrome bumper on the standard diecast

I need to add the jack point guide marks

Don't know the reason, but Pete's number 40 was never centered on his cars

Corrected exhaust

All cleaned up and ready for modifications

As recieved from seller, dirt and all

Nice clean break

Incorrect exhaust

Car I tried to copy

I used this picture to figure out the spoiler

Teammates. You can see how yellow the windows are

[TooOld]

Great job converting to Hamilton's car , very well done !  Thanks for the info on changes you made , very interesting . 

[ChrisR]

Very nice!

[PappyD340]

Very nice indeed!

[Dave Van]

I did something like that with a RC2 die cast Superbird. It looks a LOT like the Mint Bird......same tooling or maybe cloned??? Thanks

[slusher]

Looks great!

[Toys4Don2]

Absolutely awesome looking conversion. Really like the front spoiler. 

[Dave Van]

I checked my RC2 die cast Superbird and it looks exactly like the one shown. Wonder what the story is on that? Where is the tooling now??

[THarrison351]

On 12/6/2022 at 3:58 AM, TooOld said:

Great job converting to Hamilton's car , very well done !  Thanks for the info on changes you made , very interesting . 

Thanks Bob! I appreciate the compliments!

On 12/8/2022 at 7:41 AM, ChrisR said:

Very nice!

Thank you Chris!

On 12/10/2022 at 7:01 PM, PappyD340 said:

Very nice indeed!

Thanks Larry!

On 12/10/2022 at 7:48 PM, Dave Van said:

I did something like that with a RC2 die cast Superbird. It looks a LOT like the Mint Bird......same tooling or maybe cloned??? Thanks

I agree Dave! I'm thinking Racing Champions took the Franklin Mint Superbird and made some simplifications for cost and manufacturing cuts. It's clear they come from the same design.

On 12/10/2022 at 8:55 PM, slusher said:

Looks great!

Thank you Mr. Slusher!

On 12/11/2022 at 6:26 PM, Toys4Don2 said:

Absolutely awesome looking conversion. Really like the front spoiler. 

Thanks Don! I'm pretty happy the way it turned out too! It took several cardboard templates to get the template correct.

On 12/14/2022 at 12:53 PM, Dave Van said:

I checked my RC2 die cast Superbird and it looks exactly like the one shown. Wonder what the story is on that? Where is the tooling now??

Dave as far as I know about the Franklin Mint tooling, Icon has that and they used it for the University of Racing Legends 1969 Charger 500s and Charger Daytonas. They created new tooling for the bodies and modified the chassis to fit. The chassis on the Charger 500s is almost exactly duplicated including the incorrect exhaust. On the Daytonas they have the correct dual side pipes. I wish they had corrected the wheels too. Not sure if Round 2 has the tooling from the RC2 Superbirds. Does your RC2 Superbird have diecast chassis or a plastic chassis? Also, on the Racing Champions cars I've seen the front nose intakes appear to be cast with chassis

[Gramps46]

Simply outstanding outcome and the attention to the details really paid off Tim.

[1959scudetto]

Very well done conversion, Tim - outstanding work in adressing all the necessary details for turning the "Museum model" into an excellent replica of the real racer.

It sometimes can be hard to get all the information you need (restored race cars or replicas are never correct)

[Johnny Canuck]

Great job, Tim! I have three Petty #43 Superbird diecasts. One regular Racing Champions, one black chrome Racing Champions (elite level quality) and one Franklin Mint. The Franklin is destined for conversion to the Hamilton car.

The Racing Champions brand, in general, was never a high end product. But they did themselves proud with this car and the black chrome car is superbly wired, plumbed and detailed under the hood and along the chassis. 

Bang on about the incorrect wheels and exhaust layout, flaws which plague both brands. And both feature treaded tires. The Franklin hood pins are better than the molded bumps on the RC cars, but you've made an even better choice with your selection.

A mild beef with the Powerslide decal sheet is that the drop shadow and key lines for the door and roof numbers are not a dark enough shade of blue. They certainly appeared black in many pictures taken back then and were printed in black in many a Petty kit decal sheet and early diecast. According to Petty folklore, the lines and shadows were most likely a deep shade of navy blue. Powerslide has opted for a lighter shade, almost a royal blue, and it does not look right.

What did you end up using to remove the original decals? The Franklin shade of blue matches well with other cars in my Petty collection, both diecast and built kits so I'd prefer not to have to strip and re-paint the body.

 

[THarrison351]

19 hours ago, Johnny Canuck said:

Great job, Tim! I have three Petty #43 Superbird diecasts. One regular Racing Champions, one black chrome Racing Champions (elite level quality) and one Franklin Mint. The Franklin is destined for conversion to the Hamilton car.

The Racing Champions brand, in general, was never a high end product. But they did themselves proud with this car and the black chrome car is superbly wired, plumbed and detailed under the hood and along the chassis. 

Bang on about the incorrect wheels and exhaust layout, flaws which plague both brands. And both feature treaded tires. The Franklin hood pins are better than the molded bumps on the RC cars, but you've made an even better choice with your selection.

A mild beef with the Powerslide decal sheet is that the drop shadow and key lines for the door and roof numbers are not a dark enough shade of blue. They certainly appeared black in many pictures taken back then and were printed in black in many a Petty kit decal sheet and early diecast. According to Petty folklore, the lines and shadows were most likely a deep shade of navy blue. Powerslide has opted for a lighter shade, almost a royal blue, and it does not look right.

What did you end up using to remove the original decals? The Franklin shade of blue matches well with other cars in my Petty collection, both diecast and built kits so I'd prefer not to have to strip and re-paint the body.

Thanks! You're correct about the the decals blue color, but that's what's available. I believe it's close to the same dark blue they used on the chassis parts and wheels and somewhere I read it was called equipment blue, but I've also read Kyle Petty called it Ford dark blue. I used the same thing I've always used for tampo prints and that's cotton balls and acetone. You have to be careful because it does remove some base paint. Edges will become bare if worked hard. I've tried non-acetone nail polish remover too. It works, it's slow, expensive comparatively, and in the end will remove some base paint.

[Johnny Canuck]

Thanks Tim. Acetone is definitely tricky but can have the right effect if used properly.