Mercedes 300SL Gullwing. Converting the classic Tomy static kit into a slot car by Mark Gussin

Tomy's Mercedes Benz 300SL Gullwing kit is truely one of the best 1/32nd scale kits ever available. It has opening gullwing doors, opening hood, full engine detail, metal and photoetched parts. I've had the kit for years and thought that it was about time I converted it into a slot car. The challenge was to keep the doors opening, the interior and some engine detail. Can it be done? As I am writing this I have no idea!

I started the project in two areas. I had decided to use the MRRC chassis but this had to be lengthened. An easy job described well by Scott Smith in the blue sidebar. The more challenging area was the wheels. The kit has rubber tyres which I wanted to use and excellent plastic wheels. As usual with static kits the method of mounting the wheels to the axle was weak and inaccurate. Scratching around for ideas I came up with an aluminium wheel with the outer rim removed (by dremel tool it was easy). This is then glued into the back of the static kit wheel. Not only does it work it also looks smart.

The next step was mounting the bodyshell. The MRRC chassis has two mounting points behind the front wheels, I wanted to reuse these and add one at the back. For mounting posts I used plastic tubing with metal screw-fixings (like the ones Revell used in their kits). The front two came inside the engine compartment but with a lot of trouble I managed to incorporate them with the engine area bulkhead and sides. I did have to modify the cut out in the bulkhead to allow enough space for the for the slot car motor. The rear mounting post was quite straightforward.

The other consideration for this conversion is the need for a longer driveshaft (the standard MRRC motor/driveshaft is now too short). A FLY Viper motor should be the same motor, with the necessary longer driveshaft. Now--what to do...the motor with shaft is too long for my pinion press(es). Ahah--Craftsman 3/16" nutdriver to the rescue. The shaft on these is hollowed out for a ways up and the portion that engages the nut will JUST fit over the FLY pinion. Place the opposite end of the shaft down against a hard surface so you don't drive the shaft through the motor, support everything more or less vertically, then gently tap the end of the driver with a hammer or mallet. After you cut the excess off the shaft ( make sure you leave enough past the end of the pinion to reach in to centre the crown gear) you can fine-tune pinion position with a pinion puller.

Next step was to glue in the hinges for the gullwing doors which is just as per the kit. I am now tackling the interior. Cutting away the transmission tunnel to allow more space for the working drive shaft. And that's where we are at the moment! Keep a look out for the next update!

Update #1. Though I had started with the interior I decided to progress the painting of the bodyshell to move the project on. Having seen pictures of the John Fitch car at the Mille Miglia in 1955, I thought black would look impressive. So black it is. All the mold lines, though feint were smoothed out and then a primer coat was applied. I've lost count of the number of colour coats I've applied but the finish is now to my satisfaction. I use 1:1 car acrylic paints (hence the need for the primer coat) because you get an excellent end result. I have also made up some decals for the number 417 (handpainted on the real car in the 195 Mille Miglia) and the different number plate.

The wheels were also painted and the hub caps glued on. The hubcaps are not strictly as per the Mille Miglia car but they were too good to leave off! They will require some further (enamel) painting as they should not be all chrome. I'll do this at the very end though.

Update #2. The number decals have now been applied and one final coat of clear lacquer. The paint now looks superb. I use aerosol paints and my recomendation is to warm the room up where you are painting (in my case the shed!) and warm the aerosol paint up in a bowl of warm water.

So at long last some of the chrome and etches are installed. What a kit! I've yet to do the glass but that will be done only after the paint is absolutely hard.

Update #3. The glass was installed, so it was then down to fitting the interior. Various mods were made to accomodate the full interior as per the annotations to the adjacent picture. The transmission tunnnel had to be raised and cut back. The two seats also had a bit cut out so they would fit again. A gap had to be made to clear the gearing but strip styrene was used to disguise this area (as also can be seen in the picture).

The dashboard was made to fit onto the interior rather that directly into the bodyshell. This should also help when fitting the driver! So now it looks the business, the driver needs to be done and I'm going to see if I can include any engine detail.

Update #4. So the next step should be driver done, maybe some motor detail and a few more twidly bits added and then finished. Wrong I'm afraid! I had a paint problem, a serious paint problem or to be more precise a lacquer problem. I think what happened is the black colour coat must have expanded slightly when drying and this caused the lacquer to crack. It did this gradually over 24 hours so it went from fabulous looking slot car to ghastly looking slot car. So do I pretend everything is great and move onto the next project? No. I removed all of the glass, the chrome and etches, smoothed the bodyshell down with 800 grade wet and dry paper and then started painting all over again. This time it will get no lacquer coat! So much for my recomendations above on how to paint slot cars! In reality I think I should have allowed more time for the black colour coat to dry really, really hard. I'll let you know how I get on!!

John Fitch in the Mercedes Benz 300SL Gullwing that came 5th overall in the 1955 Mille Miglia

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