gami8630 Posted July 2 Posted July 2 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. 9
Shark Posted July 2 Posted July 2 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.
gami8630 Posted July 6 Author Posted July 6 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 Posted July 6 Author Posted July 6 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.
gami8630 Posted July 6 Author Posted July 6 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.
gami8630 Posted July 7 Author Posted July 7 23 hours ago, slusher said: Beautifully done! Thank you for the compliments
Jim N Posted Friday at 05:46 PM Posted Friday at 05:46 PM Looks great! You did a great job mating the two car bodies.
gami8630 Posted Monday at 03:10 PM Author Posted Monday at 03:10 PM On 7/12/2025 at 2:46 AM, Jim N said: Looks great! You did a great job mating the two car bodies. On 7/12/2025 at 10:24 AM, Dragline said: Extremely well done. Thank you both for the replies. It took a lot of work to modify the body, but I managed to finish it. 1
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