Home Racing World

The year was 1982, I was ready for a new modified 'cuz the old one had 4 years on it....
My buddy had a backyard garage where he & his brother built the occasional dirt car for friends & customers.
He had a couple successful late models & one or two center steer cars running in the neighborhood.
I talked him into building a left-hand-bias late model chassis from the firewall back & a straight axle modified from there forward. :D
I ran coil-overs up front & a mono-leaf rear with coil-over helpers.
Rules said you had to have a stock windshield opening & all steel body.
I wanted to build a Monza Town Coupe but none were to be found in the scrap yards.
Cut an old Dodge roof up (stock windshield opening) then myself & a sheet metal shop buddy hand-built the rest of the body.
Took it to yet another body shop owner buddy & a little bondo & yellow paint finished it off.
Like Smokey says.."They didn't say you couldn't" :shhh:
I did all the lettering myself & we built a 355 inch Chevy small block with some second hand aluminum heads & 180 degree headers
from an ASA buddy who didn't need them anymore. Those headers only lasted one season....Nobody told us how incredibly HOT that
makes the interior on a sultry July evening in the Midwest. :oops:
My budget was awfully small, so it took help from friends & a "do it yourself program" if I wanted to race.
Never did tell anybody it wasn't a Monza or that I snuck in a few tempered aluminum panels liberated from the Bell Telephone garage
where I was working...... :?
The picture shows a windshield, but that was only for one track that required it. Most nights just a screen.
I cut it from some lexan, also liberated from "Ma Bell". It was tinted, but free.....We never used a tinted windshield at night again. :doh:



So here's my version....
I used one of my resin cast chassis with a Jaws motor, Pro-Track wheels, home-cast resin tires, Parma guide, Big Mama Braid & Parma gears.



Staying true to the 1:1, I cut the roof from a scrap-pile casting & formed the rest of the body from sheet styrene
& bondo & a little yellow paint from Ace Hardware.
Printed the "stickers" onto white vinyl & covered with 2 coats of Ace Hardware clear.

Very nice, love your work!!!

Nice car and very good representation of the 1:1
Without doubt you are the master of scratch built modified cars :music-rockout:

Mr Strangebrew - the only thing I can see that's missing is a 'sponsorship' decal from the phone company.

Very nice work indeed.

Great story and reproduction. As cool as it gets!

Nice story and awesome car. The story certainly brought back memories of late nights in the shop.

While the "dirt" stuff really doesn't do it for me,.....a nice build is a always nice build.....well done. :clap:

Cheers
Chris Walker

Great build and story!!!!!!!!!!!

I've looked at this thread several times now and it's occurred to me that if you built that reproduction modified pretty much from scratch, I could do the same for a Grant King car.

Is the body cast resin or a creation from styrene? I'm thinking about doing something like this as my after Thanksgiving project.

The top of the roof & windshield opening
are cut from a resin casting off the scrap pile.
Everything else is from 20, 30, & 40 mil styrene
sheet. I keep different thicknesses around
depending on how much it needs to be bent.
I use small styrene angle behind some joints
to help join 90 degree pieces sometimes.
I use a heat gun from the craft store to bend some
pieces. A duck bill vice grip & various round
pencils/pens etc used with the heat gun form
the "non-flat" pieces. I usually put everything
together with CA glue. I use 5 minute
epoxy behind some pieces after gluing at the
stress points like "side panel meets roof"
I file & sand all the joints then cover with auto
body skim coat. then sand & repeat. I put more
than a couple heavy primer coats to fill small
imperfections.....then color.
The chassis I made from styrene pieces, then I did
make a mold to cast it in resin.
All it takes is PATIENCE, sandpaper, various files,
a Dremel & some Xacto knives.
ESPECIALLY the PATIENCE part.
Hope that helps....

Story is fantastic and the build of equal status!!

Always try to get in the mind set I am driving this car, with no real idea at all what it is really like.

Yet you know exactly how this would have felt like, so very cool!!

Dundee Denny

Would you be able to post more pictures of the chassis? With the white plastic piece over the motor I can't see how you position it. And, what size motor it that?

Years ago I built a bunch of chassis out of styrene for modified cars. They are still running today and compete evenly with brass and steel chassis cars on my oval. The bottom 'plate' is sheet styrene and the frame rails are rectangular stock placed 3/4" apart so a regular can style motor fits snuggly between them. I JB Weld a steel guide tongue on the front. Problems I've had include getting the motor shaft and rear axle center evenly aligned, rear axle placement, and getting both axles parallel with each other and perpendicular with the center line of the chassis. Those are the main reasons I used cut up Parma chassis on later builds.

My modified builds all use a 3 1/4" wheelbase and max 2 5/8" rear track. What dimensions do you use?

Thanks.

FYI - strangebrew answered my questions in a PM and now I'm inspired to follow his lead and build some retro Grant King modified cars. I've never been a racer but have been to hundreds of short track races where King cars where the main competition. I rooted against them at first when they were dominating at my Saturday night track, but they also inspired other builders to get creative to keep up.

Now that I have my sights on a fall/winter project, what are others going to be doing?

Snicker Snicker um a modified :banana-dance: