1/24 Vintage Modified Falcon: Butch LaFrance '10 Pins'

[Vintage 1/24]

Thanks for the positive comments...

I have this one almost finished - just have to get the details done.

Modifieds were always changing, sometimes almost from race to race - so it can be a challenge to capture a specific moment in time. I thought the following paint scheme was kind of a 'classic' arrangement for the 'Ten Pins' - probably from around 1970 as it raced at Islip Speedway.

REFERENCE PHOTO OF THE TEN PINS -




I am drawing up the decals using Adobe Illustrator on the Mac, and printing to a CMYK Laser Printer using Papilio decal paper.

DRAWING UP CUSTOM DECALS -


Making custom decals makes it possible to create models of obscure and local cars that would never be replicated otherwise...

[OldDogMotorsports]

Great stuff,being an OL TIMER and being at the dirt tracks back in the 60s it realy brings back the memories of the falcons with 300 cube 6 bangers on alky and the chevy 2 (novas) with the 250cube 6 bangers on alky going head ta head in tha local bullrings,yep great stuff Vintage keep on bringin tha memories back!

[SpeedyNH]

gee, i don't see the brass pan hanging under the real car! lol

nice work- amazing what you can do with a womp-womp chassis! and to think that for all those years i just ran 'em semi-stock in Hudson with a little fudged offset. (they saw the motor right away and copied that, but never caught on to moving over the flag hole.)
speedy

[HomeRacingWorld]

Outstanding work as usual.

[Vintage 1/24]

Well, right after the Holidays, I finally finished this one up!
It just took a while to get the pics taken and posted.

THE TEN PINS -





One of the fun things about 'rolling your own' decals is little touches can be added - like this "Newins Ford" deck lid emblem and authentic 1961 Ford trunk medallion...

NEWINS FORD, BAY SHORE NY -





Butch LaFrance ran out of East Islip NY, and campaigned his 327 Chevy Powered 1961 Falcon Modified at Islip Speedway Saturday nights - Definitely a regular at the track, but never really a top contender.

BUTCH LAFRANCE, FALCON MODIFIED -





I was able to get the chassis 'sort of' sorted on my home track and fine tuned it a little bit.

BARE NAKED BRASS -





Last week I went over to South Shore Speedway, a private oval in Patchogue, NY and got to turn about 100 laps in the bullring - and the chassis worked pretty well...

READY TO RUN -





Again - the Ten Pins was not a big winner or top contender - but the name/number '10 Pins' caught my attention as a young kid spectating in the stands, and I just didn't have an early Falcon in my Islip Speedway Modified 'collection' so I thought it would be a good subject to tackle.

THINKING ABOUT FRIED CHICKEN -





In the late 60s Kentucky Fried Chicken was still fairly new to Long Island. A local East Islip guy had acquired a franchise located in the town of Lindenhurst, and I guess he thought a good way to advertise would be on the side of a loud small block powered Islip Speedway Modified!

THE COLONEL -





Anyway - The chassis design has a lot of promise but it is probably inherently too fragile to turn laps in anger Friday Nights in the private 'underground network' of home track ovals here on Long Island.

Thats why I have *another car* on my bench that will be built - next up...

[Vintage 1/24]

I saw something like this discussed in the scratch building section; a method for building roll cages etc.

I never mentioned it, but I had used a different approach building the cage on this Islip Speedway Falcon Modified.

At one point there was a product made for do-it-yourself roll cage builders. It was even carried in the old Auto World catalog. It was called PLAS-T-ROD.



BUILD YOR OWN ROLL CAGES, HEADERS... -



I think I had seen some once, and I seem to remember it being a wire reinforced plastic tube - who knows - maybe it was just some kid of insulated single strand electrical wire?

Anyway here is what I did here. I just put a thin brass rod inside a smallish diameter styrene tube.



ROD IN TUBE -



Simple enough and these are pretty much off the shelf common items.



CUSTOM ROLL CAGE -



The nice part is how ever you bend it, the tube retains that bent shape. You can even leave a little brass rod exposed and 'pin' it into another roll bar with a small hole bored out with the tip of an exacto knife - and a dab of glue makes it look like a welded bead - sometimes things just work out!