The Alfa Romeo 156 My entry for The Tasmanian Tiger World Proxy Touring Car Race (!) by Mark Gussin
Another Proxy race, another country! This time Australia, or Tasmania to be more precise and hosted by Slot Car enthusiasts Phil Kalbfell and Dave Bantoff who chose 1995-2000 Touring cars as the class. I am not especially keen on tin top racing mainly because I can see all of this type of car on the streets every day. However, this racing is close and sometimes spectacular which I am sure will be the case when translated into slot cars. So I thought I'd have a go. I decided to use the Proslot Alfa 156 but the first problem was choosing a car with an attractive colour scheme to model. Surprise, surprise most racing Alfas are red; with stickers on! Searching the net I found only one car with an imaginative colour scheme but it was an Alfa 155 raced by Dave Auger in the Australian Touring Car Championship. No problem(!), I used his scheme and put it onto the Proslot 156. Here's how I built up the car:

Above are two pictures of Dave Auger's Alfa Romeo 155 car as raced in the Australian Touring Car Championship. The inspiration for it all.

Below is the Proslot Alfa Romeo 156 dismantled into it's key elements, bodyshell, chassis, windshield and interior.
After sanding off the tampo printed decals the bodyshell was painted yellow and once this was dry, masked off and the black sides painted. The picture on the right shows the painted body on the Proslot chassis.

In parallel to this I started assembling the chassis. I designed it on the PC using Coraldraw, printed it out and stuck the plan to the piece of brass plate to be used for the chassis. I then cut the brass out to the stuck-on template design. It worked well. I also used a jig, aluminium wheel blanks, a proper soldering iron and the correct solder. The results were not pretty but a great deal better than previous attempts.

Meanwhile I was also making up the decals using coraldraw and an Alps printer. To celebrate the event I put together this number decal which is similar to Dave Auger's car but this time titled Tasmanian Tiger Proxy World Touring Car Race and with the tiger logo lifted from Phil's web site.

Applying the decals to the bodyshell it all started to look like something.

Now I haven't mentioned my friend Pete Sardella yet. Pete knows a great deal about designing and racing slot cars at the highest level. He has also built me a fantastic chassis which will be the subject of another article soon. I designed the chassis but Pete, who lives half way around the globe from me, would be sent e-mail messages like "how do you solder?", "What type of solder should you use?", "How do you balance the car". He has always been a brilliant help no matter how mundane the question was. Thanks Pete. If the car goes well, praise the designer/builder (me) and construction consultant (Pete); if it doesn't blame the designer/builder (just me)!!
So I put it together with piano wires connecting the rear axle U-bracket and the front chassis plate. But the thing didn't flex at all. Not one bit. I wrote to Pete about it and he implied that the wire I used would have been better served holding up a suspension bridge rather than enable my slot chassis to have a modicum of flex. After much soul searching I changed it to much thinner gauge wire. And now it flexes. I also added up and down stops for the side panels and body fixing places.

So I could now start to put the chassis all together. I have used Proslot's Evo 3 motor, Parma guide, Parma 8/27 gearing. I should also mention Chas Keeling of SCD who supplied the front delrin wheels and rear aluminium/sponge wheels, also the rear U-bracket, various bits and lots of advice. Thanks Chas.

Wheels were the Proslot wheels but cut down. The fronts being different to the rears as the rears need no rim as they fit into the aluminium rims.

The windshield was replaced with a vacuumed version done by Graham Windle and the interior used parts of the Proslot car's interior and plasticard. I'd have liked to vacuum this too but time didn't permit.
So there it is. We'll have to see how it performs against stiff opposition but whatever, it was great fun to do.

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