Goodness it has taken a while for this slot car project to happen!  I have been aware of the six wheel Pat Clancy Special for some time and always wanted to model and enter it for the annual Marconi Slot Car Proxy Race; but gathering information together proved quite difficult. I was then told that Bill Clidinst had drawn the car in 1:24^th scale.  I got a copy via a friend in the U.S.A. which meant I knew the wheelbase(s!) etc and was able to reduce the plan down to 1/32^nd scale.  I had just contacted the archives at Indianapolis to get more photo reference but then Vintage Motorsport produced an excellent article about the car and more reference was no longer necessary.  So I had a drawing and some picture reference; all I had to do was build it!  This turned out to be a lot easier said than done.

Mac Pinches who produces those wonderful Pre-add bodyshells did a fabulous job carving one out of balsa for me. When I received it I realised just how little room there was for the motor and gearing arrangement (the challenge!). 

The driver’s area is very deeply cut which also created a strength issue.  Some areas of the balsa were going to be very thin indeed and I was concerned about it breaking up.  So I decided to cast the bodyshell in resin which would be stronger and more suitable to grind very thinly in certain areas.  Before I did the casting I added quite a bit of detail, this included the cowl for the windshield, the seating which spills over onto the body, and the driver’s torso.  The benefit of this was to beef up the strength of the bodyshell in a much-needed area.  So once these were done and pin details were added, I cast it in silicone and produced a slush-mold of the bodyshell.  Now we were getting somewhere; I thought!

The four rear wheels of this car are the driven wheels, a problem in itself in a slot car is getting suitable drive to all of these.  The bodyshell is also quite narrow so an upright motor configuration was the only possibility.  I pondered over all sorts of alternative drive arrangements including direct drive to the rear wheels and a pulley and belt arrangement to get drive back to the middle axle (inadequate space). Using gears to do this had a much greater problem of inadequate space.  Drive to the middle axle then a gearing or pulley and belt arrangement to the rear axle (possibility).  The last option was drive to the middle axle with another drive shaft between that and the rear axles.  This would have been very difficult to align, as there was so little space. 

I ended up opting for driving the middle axle in the normal inline way then gear driving the rear axle.  I used a Slot.it crown gear with a brass spur gear soldered to it.  I had to adopt this approach to get the gearing in the middle of the very confined space and to align with the motor. With a brass spur gear on the rear axle I linked the two axles using the wider (pink) Parma spur gear. It took some considerable amount of alignment and a test chassis but at last it worked.

The final chassis is a very solid thing, not really designed for speed, more for holding it all together!  I used the Sakastu trailing type of guid as there is no overhang of the bodyshell at the front.  All the while I was adding bits to the chassis I kept having to grind bits out of the inside of the bodyshell to make room.

Whilst still determined to finish this off I got fed up with the car and left it for a few months.  Then the Marconi race date loomed up and so I started to do more work on it again.  I had the wheels made by Chas Keeling who did his usual wonderful job.  Tyres were and are a problem.  I’d originally used some old SCD rubber tyres on ½” aluminium hubs.  The wheels I had made were 9/16”.  I had hoped to use silicone tyres but it didn’t work out.  The driven wheels are too close together, silicone is prone to ballooning if the tyres are not very well stuck down so I ended up sticking with the SCD rubber ones.  The real car used one of the first sets of alloy wheels for cars so I polished up the slot car wheels after smoothing out the corners.  With the centre spinner detail they look superb.  Car paint rubbing compound (T-cut here in the UK) is superb for polishing aluminium.

So we were now getting somewhere!  The bodyshell was painted, decal artwork done in Coraldraw and printed using the trusty Alps printer.  The exhaust pipe was made from aluminium with a resin manifold.  The remaining beautification was done and the end result is pretty different.  The real car creator reckoned the six wheels would be an advantage in cornering; knowing how well his trucks cornered.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the 1/32^nd scale version handles a bit like a truck!  I’ve added a little lead at the front to keep the nose down but this car will go to California with no testing!   We’ll see how it fairs!  I imagine there may be problems if the track isn’t flat with differential adhesion but adding sprung suspension, and differentials would be useful and steering at the front would have also been good but it would have driven me mad trying to get it all in!

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