Jump to content
Model Cars Magazine Forum

1963 Galaxie light weight


Recommended Posts

Hi everyone.

I've never built a big American car before and as my display cabinet is packed wall to wall with 1980's/90's touring cars I figured it's time too diversify my building experience and go big.

The story of the light weight Galaxies is well known so I won't go into that here but wealthy Englishman Sir Gawaine Baillie bought his touring car spec version over to Australia to have a bit of fun with a view to sell the car off once the fun was over. As you would expect it was fast but brake failure was a common problem and it wasn't all that competitive. Local driver John Raeburn got to drive it in the Australian Touring Car Championship race at Sandown in 1965. He qualified on the front row but was only able to finish fifth. This is the version I decided to build.

Obviously it's the AMT kit with the Starliner chassis conversion and my own 3d printed interior (except for the dash). The front seats are a close enough representation of the racing seats used at the time, I designed and 3d printed them myself along with the door panels and window cranks, the rollcage , gear stick,pedals and the tacho. I added rear 1/4 side windows. I also made new tail light lenses to replace the very strange kit parts. Many other mods were made here and there. The chrome was redone with SMS hyperchrome. The paint is Tamiya racing white that I lightened with pure white. The decals are printed by custom hobby decals from my own artwork. I opted not to do the engine and glued the bonnet shut.

JPUUmn.jpg
mP1hNF.jpg
GYdUQe.jpg
vVGmhx.jpg
Q5pTzM.jpg

fIK2ww.jpg
whPrxB.jpg
X94cRT.jpg
croiJA.jpg

 

It was a bit of a challenge getting the slightly warped Starliner chassis to sit nicely under the equally warped Galaxie body but I got there in the end and I'm happy with the result.

Thanks

Cheers

ShawnS

 

  • Like 12
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Very interesting, Shawn. So, this was a really real stock car racer from the 60's. Excellent job replicating it. Surprised it actually ran as good as it did against the competition the owner chose to race against.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wonderful build and it's always fun to get the story of the real car this replica is based on. These were big performers on the NASCAR scene but it's hard to imagine it could compere in road racing. John Raeburn must have been a really good driver.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, MarkJ said:

Very interesting, Shawn. So, this was a really real stock car racer from the 60's. Excellent job replicating it. Surprised it actually ran as good as it did against the competition the owner chose to race against.

 

16 hours ago, Pierre Rivard said:

Wonderful build and it's always fun to get the story of the real car this replica is based on. These were big performers on the NASCAR scene but it's hard to imagine it could compere in road racing. John Raeburn must have been a really good driver.

 

Thanks guys, The big Gals had some success in the UK so they definitely had potential but the nature of Australia's long straights/hard stops type of circuits meant that the brakes became mush after a couple of laps and the pure speed from all that horsepower ultimately came to nothing.   

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...