1972 Bobby Allison Southern 500 winning Coke Chevy

[MarkJ]

I just had to add some very small amounts of putty to the front of the hood and I think I will be through with the front of the build. now it's on to the fairing around the front of the sail panels and adding the rear spoiler in the correct location. After that I can think about painting again. 

[Nacho Z]

Sitting here in my sunroom with a cup of coffee and just went through this entire thread.  I’m loving your thoroughness on all aspects of this build.  After all of my years in this hobby I still get impatient and find that I have to slow myself down.  Your attention to detail is admirable!  I’m looking forward to seeing your next update.

[MarkJ]

5 hours ago, Nacho Z said:

Sitting here in my sunroom with a cup of coffee and just went through this entire thread.  I’m loving your thoroughness on all aspects of this build.  After all of my years in this hobby I still get impatient and find that I have to slow myself down.  Your attention to detail is admirable!  I’m looking forward to seeing your next update.

Thank you so much, John. It just bugs me when a kit could be engineered correctly, and it doesn't get done by the model maker. Thanks again.

[Kevinjr26]

Nice front end work! I mean rebuild of the front end 

Edited May 11 by Kevinjr26

[slusher]

Real nice work filling in those 72 turn signals. My dad had a 72 he bought at Nickey Chevrolet. 

[MarkJ]

17 hours ago, Kevinjr26 said:

Nice front end work! I mean rebuild of the front end 

Thanks, Kevin. It's still not quite right but I need to move on and not make this into another Camaro build. At least the hood seals to grille.

 

11 hours ago, slusher said:

Real nice work filling in those 72 turn signals. My dad had a 72 he bought at Nickey Chevrolet. 

Thanks, Carl. I always wanted a 70 through 72 Monte Carlo with a 454 back then, used of course. I found a 70 in north Houston and as I was driving up to the guys house, I see it pulling away. I stopped and the guy told me he had just sold it. I can't remember what the selling price was, but I was prepared to go higher with the cash I had on me.  I ended up later buying a brand new 78 Monte Carlo which was a total dud of a car. It was the first year of the downsized version. Had a 305 in it and so much pollution equipment on it, it could hardly get out of its own way. We were actually buying it for my wife to drive. I had a 76 Laguna S-3 with a 350 2 barrel carb which was also a dud. But it looked real racy because that was what they used in Nascar back then till Nascar outlawed it because of the aero dynamic nose. Then GM drivers switched to The Olds Cutlass and the big Monte Carlo.

[MarkJ]

Started adding fairing at the front of the sail panels to keep air from getting in and causing the back glass to act as a parachute so to speak. A lot of Nascar racers did this to make the cars more aerodynamic. Also added the rear spoiler.

[MarkJ]

I had to add some tubing to the top of the tubes on the front of the body where the pins on the chassis slide in to attach the body to the frame. The kit comes with very short tubes that will not fit the front bumper when trying to attach body, bumper, and frame together. I then did a total mockup to see if everything will fit well when I try to assemble this model together. i need to finish the fairing at the quarter glass area and work some more on grille to body and hood to body fit before I can start painting. I have decided that I need to prime at least the body before painting.

[MarkJ]

Added some material to the front of the build to shore up some gaps here and there and finished the fairing at the quarter glasses. I can't tell if the fairing is raw aluminum or body color gold. Thats the trouble with captured you tube video photos. The colors get washed out a bit.

[MarkJ]

I found a photo of the car at the rebel race in the spring and the fairing appears to be body color gold, so it was probably still gold by the time they got to September.

[MarkJ]

I found another captured image from the Southern 500 video itself. This one shows that the fairing is probably raw aluminum not painted at all.

[Belugawrx]

Nice work so far Mark

Looks like the aluminium continues right up to the A pillars on the top edge of the door

[MarkJ]

3 hours ago, Belugawrx said:

Nice work so far Mark

Looks like the aluminium continues right up to the A pillars on the top edge of the door

Yes, Bruce. On that car it does for sure. On the Southern 500 car, I'm not so sure. I'm working on the roll cage to see how much room I have to add some more fairing to the a-pillar. The door number on your photo is not the same font as the Southern 500 car. I wish I had a better picture of the real roll cage and the bars where they start and end. the kit cage is not very accurate from what I can tell so far. But I might just leave it that way instead of guess.

[MarkJ]

The pins at the front of the chassis that go into the tubes at the front to hold everything together are just the right size for sliding in and out easily. I have decided to add a little styrene material right at the end of the travel of the pin and make it increasingly fatter so when the chassis is put together right at the end of the travel the pins will get tight in the tube and hold everything together tightly without having to glue it. I should still be able to take it back apart by prying with a small screwdriver. I will just make it snug so its tight without getting too tight which could become a problem if I'm not really ready to actually install chassis to body. I'm having to mock the fit a lot on this thing to get it right.  

[Volzfan59]

As always Mark, your attention to detail and realism is second to none. I’m really enjoying this as Monte Carlo’s (up to 1977) are one of my favorite 1:1 cars. Made for a great looking race car too!

[MarkJ]

On 5/16/2025 at 9:16 AM, Volzfan59 said:

As always Mark, your attention to detail and realism is second to none. I’m really enjoying this as Monte Carlo’s (up to 1977) are one of my favorite 1:1 cars. Made for a great looking race car too!

Thank you, Steve. I always appreciate your takes on the builds. I too really like the Monte Carlo as a race car especially the gen 1 from 1970 to 1972. Did you know that only about 3 or 4 Gen 1 Monte Carlos competed in the 1972 season and none of them were 1972 Monte Carlos. They were Bobby Allison, Coo Coo Marlin, Fred Lorenzen and Buck Baker.

[Belugawrx]

On 5/16/2025 at 9:01 AM, MarkJ said:

Yes, Bruce. On that car it does for sure. On the Southern 500 car, I'm not so sure. I'm working on the roll cage to see how much room I have to add some more fairing to the a-pillar. The door number on your photo is not the same font as the Southern 500 car. I wish I had a better picture of the real roll cage and the bars where they start and end. the kit cage is not very accurate from what I can tell so far. But I might just leave it that way instead of guess.

Oops thats the one he ran in Michigan

[MarkJ]

2 hours ago, Belugawrx said:

Oops thats the one he ran in Michigan

Yes, the car seemed to change a lot from race to race or maybe they had a two or three car fleet but I kind of doubt that. I'm actually thinking the car he had all year was actually the same car Charlie 
Glotzchbach used in the 71 season. They just kept working on it and hoping they never had a bad wreck in it that would have forced a new car to be built but I don't think he actually had one of those even though he had many fender-to-fender battles with King Richard all season long at the short tracks.

[MarkJ]

I believe I'm finally finished with the front of the build as far as building goes. Now it's time for primer and paint. That adding material to the front pins makes the parts all hold together tightly but I'm still able to take it back apart. Of course, I will glue it at final assembly.

[Belugawrx]

Thats my favorite part, cleaning all the seam lines on a roll cage.....NOT!!

[MarkJ]

1 hour ago, Belugawrx said:

Thats my favorite part, cleaning all the seam lines on a roll cage.....NOT!!

Bruce, you and me both. Plus, they made the bars too fat throughout the whole cage. But I don't think I want to scratch build a cage just to fix that. I think I know how the cage is supposed to look so I just need to add one bar to do that and live with the fat bars everywhere else. It's like they padded the bars on the right side of the car which wasn't done in real life. There was no reason to pad the bars at the right window. 

[MarkJ]

I was trying to use the kit cage but try as I might it's not going to look good at all. If you look at the box art on the kit box if you build it the way you would end up doing there is way too big a gap between the cage and the roof. I will do a scratch-built cage like I always do. Plus, the bars are just too thick and there are too many compared to the actual car I'm doing. But I'm not doing anything under the hood except a scratch-built air cleaner. I have no ref pictures under the hood at all and basically the air cleaner I'm not even sure about except know it's not like the one that comes in the kit. It has dual snorkels going to the firewall kind of like the Junior Johnson 63 chevy had. But it only had one snorkel

Edited Monday at 01:06 PM by MarkJ

[Volzfan59]

Mark, I agree with you about the roll cages in that kit and also the Lennie Pond era Chevelle kits. They are entirely to thick and my pet peeve, a cage that doesn’t go to the roof!

[slusher]

Mark, so you are going to build a roll cage?

[Kevinjr26]

looking good the window deflectors are awesome!