Yes, that 1950 Le Mans car that had the aerodynamic qualities of an apartment block!

The fibreglass body was modified by grinding out the original, rather crude driver and after filling and painting, replacing him with "resin man" (see the MGA article). The cowls where the windscreen go were also ground down as the real car had a kind of framework arrangement. This was made up using modelling plastic extrusions.

Chassis mounting posts were added in the same way as I did the Jaguar XK120. Whilst on the subject of chassis I used a second-hand Riko (Monogram style) brass chassis. You don't have to worry about wheel inserts as they are covered. This car's long wheelbase lent itself to competition slot racing in the sixties so any number of chassis could be used, even some for 1:24th cars would fit..

The body was painted white, masked, then the blue was added. A great source of reference was the Motor Racing Replica News magazine # 5 (Sept/Oct 1991). This also provided the number decal drawings which were reduced, transferred to decal sheet and applied.

Going around the track it looks a bit incongruous but I love it.

Cunningham C4RK - 1952 Le Mans

This nostalgia raceways body is absolutely superb but to do it justice, as for a lot of fibreglass bodies, it needs to be worked correctly, for reasons I will explain later.

I have actually seen the real 1:1 car at the Goodwood Festival of Speed and wish I had realised what it was then as I would have taken a number of photographs rather than just the one shown below. Isn't it a brute though!?

To construct the slot car this time I used an old BMW chassis (no connection with the car maker). This brass chassis was available in the mid sixties from a company called BMW who resided in Wimbledon, England. I believe the chassis originates from Japan but don't know the manufacturer.

Wheel and tyre choice was important for this car as the full size version is very purposefull looking so I wanted to capture that. MRRC diamond patern tyres were chosen fitted onto regular revell aluminium wheels. Inserts were resin done in the same way described elsewhere in these pages.Knock-offs were Detail Masters again.

Body mounting was done by using round plastic tubing at the front, suitably reinforced. At the back I made a plastic "shelf" which I super-glued then fillered for extra strength. Once this was dry I mounted the small lengths of tubing with fixings onto the chassis. Fitted and then glued.

Now to preparing these fibreglass bodies. I find that it is essential to cut the wheel arches out virtually where indicated then mount the chassis. With the chassis plus wheels in place (but no guide) I check for spacing between tyre and wheel arch. Try and make it even; marking with a pencil where more needs to be taken off and/or filling if necessary but do it carefully. This is a laborious process but is worth it in the results.

This car is a coupe and removing the windows is a very delicate process indeed. I ended up breaking the roof pillar but easily replaced it with plastic strut. I added the side pillars this way.

The body was painted in the usual way using bare metal foil to mask the stripe, The windscreen joint strips were done by using line decals, the numbers were photocopied onto decal sheet as described before.

The interior was made of plasticard, not a flat piece though but stepped. Improvisation is necessary here. The little man was the resin version I used on the MGA but with a different head.

So there you have it!