1969 Mercury Cyclone 'W-nose' - Bobby Allison's coke machine

[gami8630]

This car is the 1969 Mercury Cyclone of the Hallman Moody team, which Bobby Allison drove to seven wins from the midway point of the 1971 NASCAR Winston Cup Series.

For the previous two years, Bobby Allison had competed in a Dodge Charger Daytona in the four-car “Aero Warriors” competition between Ford, Mercury, Dodge, and Plymouth.
However, for safety reasons, the engine displacement of the “Aero Warriors,” which competed in high-speed battles, was limited to 305 cu.in. in 1971, which was virtually a ban on the use of the "Aero Warriors.

Bobby Allison switched to a Charger without the huge nose cone and high wing, but the aerodynamics were not as good as he had hoped, so he switched mid-season to the Hallman-Moody team's 1969 Mercury Cyclone.

The base kit is the “Mercury Cyclone Spoiler II” from POLAR LIGHTS, which was re-released by ROUND 2 in 2018 with the addition of new Bobby Allison decals.
However, the car Bobby Allison drove was not the “Mercury Cyclone Spoiler II” from “Aero Warriors,” but a 1969 Mercury Cyclone commonly known as the “W-Nose,” so the first half of the body had to be modified.

At first, I was going to combine the resin W-Nose Cyclone body I had already purchased with the chassis of the kit, but the resin body was not in good shape from the A-pillar to the rear.
So I decided to use the resin body from the front edge of the door to the front and the kit body to the rear. I cut each body at the front edge of the door and combined the two hoddies into one body.
It took some careful crafting, but I think I was able to combine them fairly well.

After the body was modified, the position and shape of the fueling port was changed, and the height of the rear spoiler was reduced.

For the chassis, the front frame and hoop were shortened and modified to fit the body modified to W-Nose, and the front suspension tension rod mounting area was modified based on AMT's GEN4 Thunderbird chassis.

The body was primed with Tamiya Super Surfacer (gray), Fine Surfacer (white), and TS-13 Clear, then sprayed with TS-49 Bright Red and TS-21 Gold, overcoated with TS-13 Clear, and then applied the kit decals.

Near completion, I made a mistake and scratched the front edge of the roof, which I repaired and repainted, but unfortunately, I could not repair it beautifully.

 

[Shark]

Excellent job, as always. Lots of folks bash the Polar Lights kits, but I happen to like them, you can use them on so many different cars.

[Mike 1017]

Nice

[PappyD340]

Great looking build!

[Ben269]

Nice job grafting the front end on there, this turned out nice.  

[ChrisR]

Very nice.

[gami8630]

On 7/2/2025 at 9:19 PM, Shark said:

Excellent job, as always. Lots of folks bash the Polar Lights kits, but I happen to like them, you can use them on so many different cars.

Thanks for the reply.
When converting a production car kit to a NASCAR race car, the parts from the POLAR LIGHTS kit are very helpful.

[gami8630]

On 7/2/2025 at 10:10 PM, Mike 1017 said:

Nice

 

On 7/5/2025 at 8:36 PM, PappyD340 said:

Great looking build!

 

1 hour ago, ChrisR said:

Very nice.

Thank you all for the compliments.
Your replies are always very, very encouraging.

[slusher]

Beautifully done!

[gami8630]

19 hours ago, Ben269 said:

Nice job grafting the front end on there, this turned out nice.  

Thanks for the replies.
Combining multiple kit bodies into one body is risky, but very motivating when done well.
By the way, making one body from two pieces is called “Nicoichi” in Japanese.