Kurtis Sports Car (Update 1/27/17)

[afx]

Windshield looks scale accurate and will be much stronger than you could achieve with plastic.

[RancheroSteve]

The Kurtis used a unibody chassis with '49 Ford suspension parts. Even though it is a body on frame car, the Revell'49 Mercury provided a decent starting point and it has detailed & separate components. After a lot of hacking and scrap plastic, I now have the basic chassis pan and interior platform:

I think I've overcome most of the big hurdles in this build - I can actually begin to finish and assemble it now!

[Phildaupho]

Great to see this very interesting project back on the workbench and I am sure the results will be worth waiting for.

[GerN]

Excellent work and perseverance.

[wisdonm]

Anything new on this?

[RancheroSteve]

Anything new on this?

Sorry - not lately. Real life has been taking too much of a bite out of my modelling time, but I haven't forgotten it! Hoping to get back to it soon.

[waynehulsey]

First time seeing this thread. Great project.

[Vietnam Vet67]

First cover car for Motor Trend magazine:http://www.motortrend.com/news/1949-kurtis-sport-car-drive/

[skipstitch]

Almost forgot about this build...  anything new?

[Pico]

Never seen this. Very interesting. Lets see more.

[RancheroSteve]

Thanks for asking, guys. This one got shuffled to the back of the bench for a while for various reasons, but I'm still plugging away at it. I should have an update sometime soon.

[RancheroSteve]

As promised, a little update: I shot some paint on the body so I could see what I've got. Still a few more things to fine tune, but it's getting closer. This is just a base coat; the final color will be some type of red.

[MeatMan]

Fantastic project. Great job!

[Richard Bartrop]

Looking good!

[alan barton]

This is scratch-building at its finest!  What a great achievement to get it this far.  Keep up the good work!

Cheers

Alan

[misterNNL]

There are two of these real1;1 size cars on the huge photo coverage of the Plymouth,Mi American Concours coverage on these forums by Howard Cohen.

[Joe Handley]

Wow, considering what you started with, that is amazing!

[RancheroSteve]

On 8/4/2019 at 8:16 AM, misterNNL said:

There are two of these real 1:1 size cars on the huge photo coverage of the Plymouth,Mi American Concours coverage on these forums by Howard Cohen.

Thanks. Great photos by Howard there, but those are actually Muntz Jets, the "stretched" version of the Kurtis.

[John Goschke]

Great work!

[John Goschke]

By way of inspiration here's a great vintage shot from the Kurtis shop (I think).  I really like the Halibrand wheels on this particular car!

[RancheroSteve]

50 minutes ago, John Goschke said:

By way of inspiration here's a great vintage shot from the Kurtis shop (I think).  I really like the Halibrand wheels on this particular car!

Thanks for that shot, John - don't believe I've seen that one before. I haven't made a decision on the wheels yet, but this adds another choice to the mix.

[afx]

Not exact but some similar options

HRM's Kidney Bean Halibrands

[RancheroSteve]

You may recall from my last post that I thought the body was getting close to being ready for paint - well, one step forward, two steps back as they say (or is it the other way around?). In any case, I looked at the body one day and realized there wasn't enough height to the rocker panels below the trim. Considering how far I'd come with this, I thought about leaving it as it was, but then I knew it would only continue to bother me, so I added some material and re-shaped it (compare with earlier shots in this thread to see the difference).

I also made badges from thin brass and added them to the hood and trunk - they'll get foiled and decaled. I also made some underhood bracing which you can't see here.

Just a lightly sanded mist coat over primer here - hoping to have some real paint on soon!

[skipstitch]

I love this... thanks for the update!

 

[RancheroSteve]

Only six years down the road, it's painted!

Patiently putting it aside for a couple of weeks to harden.