1961 Indy Roadster

[curt raitz]

A good friend gave me 3 vacuum form bodies and 4 AMT Watson Roadster kits to build for him. He had seen the roadsters run back in the early 60's and was partial to those with the laid-over offy's and didn't care which version I did.

Awhile back I had built a Jim Hurtubise piloted Maserati Bird cage for him, so the Demler Spl roadster that Jim drove in the 1961 Indy 500 was a very good candidate. Only problem was - no decals were available for this car, luckily the Demler Spl that ran in 1960 was at the Monterey Historics this year. Took a lot of photos of this car and used the photos to create decals.

Having never built the AMT Watson kit before, I built the 1st one straight out of the box using the Indycal decals for the Ken Paul Spl.

So here is my 1st attempt at building a laid-over offy roadster.

Working with clear vacuum form plastic is not a lot of fun and getting it to wrap around the Watson chassis was a real challenge. Laying over the offy engine was fairly simple, scratchbuilt the intake mainfold, added aftermarket velocity stacks, stole an exhaust manifold from parts box, exhaust pipe is polished aluminum tubing, opened up engine bonnet - hinging it with a small piano hinge, scratchbuilt rollcage and added small tailfin.

I used MM's 2 part lacquer Daytona Yellow for color, applied decals and covered with a coat of MM's Ultra Clearcoat.

My next subject will be the Konstant Hot Spl...have the Fred Cady Decals for that roadster.

[Raul_Perez]

And I thought that building resin kits were a pain!!!

Great job, Curt!!

[Kribblig]

That's looking fine. Slot bodies are great way to get models unavailable elsewhere even if they're a pita. Are the wheels and tires from the Watson kit?

Trevor

[MarkJ]

Excellent work!! It is so cool to create a replica of something that actually existed. Great job on the decals . Have you ever built one of the Novi's that ran back in the early 60's?

[curt raitz]

That's looking fine. Slot bodies are great way to get models unavailable elsewhere even if they're a pita. Are the wheels and tires from the Watson kit?

Trevor

Trevor...the wheels are from the Watson kit (de-chromed and painted).

The tires are "Firestone - Big & Littles" from Perry's Resin in Canada

cannot remember where "Firestone" decals came from

[Raul_Perez]

Who's that mystery man in the avitar? It looks like Clark Kent...

[ismaelg]

Curt,

Your efforts really paid off. Beautiful work. Thanks for sharing! I love those historical Indy racers.

Thanks,