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Hi everyone,

Some of you already know that Ive been talking about this track like forever. I first posted about it on the old forum, yeah that long ago. Im a slacker, no excuses, time to get this thing done. Ive wanted to build a track based from the move American Graffiti for many years now. Last year I drew up some plans & built the tables for the track. Then life got in the way & have been working on my house. Nothing changed, still working on the house but I need a vacation from it! This track is not for everyone, I get that. I wanted something different, that is not so much focused on racing to win, but just a fun track to drive on. My wife sort of came up with the idea of a 50's track. She is keen to work on the scenery so that makes it more enjoyable to work on something together. Over the past year I have been collecting diorama bits & pieces & have already made a few things from scratch. Ive got loads of cool pieces, carhops, vending machines, burger trays, Menu speaker signs, even Fonzie!

The other reason it has not progressed any further is I want to make sure I get it right. I keep coming up with new ideas etc. So heres my track tables. I wanted it to look like furniture & also match the era of American Graffiti. This is built from MDF, Pine & some wheels from the hardware store. The door hinges & handles are NOS from the 50's.













So this track is going to be highly detailed, maybe more of a diorama track. What I want to capture is the cruising down the streets at night. So the track will have loads of buildings & loads of lights, traffic lights etc. Ive only got a small space to work with so Im going to do the best with the space I have. The plan is to extend it in the future when this part is finished. The other reason for the holdup with progress is Mels Diner. Basically the whole track revolves around Mels Diner. So this diner needs to be right. Originally I just drew up the track & made do with a small space for the diner. When I heard Moebius was releasing Mels Diner in a 1/87 model kit I decided to hold off doing any further on my track, so I can see how big the diner is. 2 months later I got the kit. I scaled it up from 1/87 to 1/25. Just the round portion of the diner was 850mm in 1/25 scale, freakin huge. I never realised how big it was. So that kind of turned me off for a few months. So I have come up with the idea to scale the size down but retain the height of a true 1/25 scale building. Its ended up being about 1/43 in width. Yeah wish I had the room but this will work just as well.

Heres a rough template of mels diner I did with paper to see how its going to work.







Im reworking my track design tonight so I will hold off posting a pic of that until I have revised it. If Im happy with my design Ill be routing this weekend. If not the following weekend has been reserved for routing. Cant wait! Stay toned.

Greg, I have waited forever for this one to start - Slacker!

Can't wait to see it, and these photos are only teasing me. This is one of my favorite movies as we've talked and I am totally excited to see this start to take shape.

BTW - Just last week, I again attempted to watch the sequel - More American Graffiti. I couldn't do it. I got about an hour in and turned it off. It has none of the charm or character of the original, even with the cast.

It's about time this track surfaced again. Don't know how long ago it was that I saw the rough plan. Good to see it still on the bubble.

It is so easy to forget just how bulky buildings really are. But the solution looks suitable.

Really looking forward to seeing it take shape.

I thought you would like the slacker part David :) I just finished drawing up my final plans so Im good to go. I agree More American Graff was not even in the same league. Yeah Lynne I was so suprised when I worked out the actual size of the building in scale. It was going to take up basically 1/3rd of my track, thats just the building. So just working with my space.

BTW: I finally watched American Graffiti a couple of weeks ago.

Looking forward to seeing your scenary. Of particular interest is Suzanne Somers in her 57 Thunderbird!

how many lanes? with all the hot spots from the movie this could be huge, I love the idea, keep us posted

Fantastic!

Looking very cool....I think every car guy (girl) loved that movie. I will be interested to see how you yank the back axle out from under the cop car :lol: Keep us posted!

Nicely done so far Greg. I look forward to seeing the collection of period cars.

Those cupboards must be one of the poshest starts a slot track ever had.
Looking forward to seeing the track go down.

David.

Thanks for the response. I really wasnt expecting alot of interest in this as its not your standard race track. Its certainly going to be different. I just finished the track design last night, I still need to finish a few minor touches on it but I have enough to get it drawn up on the MDF. The track is going to be run on the AC2 car system. Its 2 lanes but really 4 if you know what ac2car is all about. There is 2 car per lane & each car has a choise of 2 directions to go. You can either choose to cruise past the diner, or around the back of the diner to the service station. Its a little confusing to explain so Ill get a pic of the design up over the weekend.

Due to space restraints I wish I could feature all the great parts of the movie in the track but that will be hard to do. The plan is to finish the scenery as much as I can, then maybe in the future extend the track & ad in some more. My track design will be easy to extend this the way I have it designed. I did this on purpose. It will almost be like adding to the city.

Yes I can guarantee Susanne Somers will be cruisin in her T-bird. I have a model kit of her car ready to paint. Just need a lusious blonde for the drivers seat.

The pulling the axle out of the copcar, Hmmm, I was debating with my wife about that. I have free'd up some space for a small car yard so, yeah the Pharoahs will be pulling the axle out of the copcar. Its a 1961 Ford Galaxie 4dr sedan. I had planned on using a 1957 Plymouth 4dr sedan for this as I have this kit to make a copcar with but I think I need to get a Ford.

Toads Vespa! yeah Im planning on Toad to run his Vespa into the trash can out the front of the diner. Ive noticed that Tamiya has a Campus friends 5 figure set with a 50-S Vespa in it. If anyone has this Vespa & are interested in selling it, please let me know. Ive been looking for it for a while at a decent price.

There will be a hotrod shop on the track. Im going to call it Milners speed shop.

ANyway stay tuned, I cant think of anything else at this stage. Turning computer off & drawing it up on MDF now!

Glad you still have the oval! This is going to be epic! I can't wait to see this thing happening. One of my all-time favorite movies and just too cool.

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