1962 Mid Engined Scarab by Mike Sells

The history of the Scarabs is well documented in "Scarab" by Preston Lerner (out of print) and I highly recommend it if you're interested in any of the cars they built and raced in the mid 50's and early 60's. A small private but extremely professional team eventually forced out of the business for tax reasons, they were very successful with the early cars if rather less so as time went on. All of the cars were finely crafted and beautifully turned out and the mid-engine car was no exception. It was created to compete in the newly formed USSRC professional racing series which evolved into the Cam Am events. Originally powered by a small block Buick engine, it was underpowered from the start. Passed on to the Mecom racing team, upgraded with a larger Traco Olds and driven by A. J. Foyt, it won several races when he was able to keep it on the track. It's now owned by Augie Pabst and continues to be driven, hard, in vintage racing events. It still looks marvelous and goes very well indeed.

The model is one made by Lucky in several forms: as a built-up spring motor floor racer and as a model kit (same car, unassembled) re-packaged and sold in the U.S. by UPC. This was the built-up version and has many, many miles on it. Originally made in Hong Kong in the mid '60's, I bought it from a Frenchman at the London International Toy Show in December of 1998, then brought it home with me to North Dakota for re-construction. It's traveled ¾ of the way around the world and isn't even a slot car! After disassembly, the chassis plate from a Monogram Cooper was fitted to the body with a styrene sheet and rod cockpit added on top. The only body modification was adding 0.040" styrene strip inside the front wheel openings to make them somewhat smaller. The original kit seats are correct for this car but the attached cockpit panels were cut off, leaving just the seat portion.

Wheels are modified Scalextric Cooper units while the tires are Monogram slot car parts. Modest suspension detailing was added to the base plate with parts from an Airfix Porsche 917; the exhaust pipes are aluminum tubing. The carb set up is almost identical to that on the previously described Nickey McLaren but only the intakes are visible through the rear deck openings. The roll bar is styrene 1/16" rod.

Paint is Duplicolor auto touchup spray paint (Neon metallic blue) as it matches the original Scarab color pretty well. I scanned the painted body full-size, then printed it out for use as a pattern in cutting the white decal film nose strips.

The dash was created in styrene sheet using the photo etched Ricambi parts as a pattern. Holes were drilled in the dash plate and copy machine reduced instrument decals placed behind them. Numbers are reduced from the Ricambi decal sheet on plain white circles; the gold "Scarab" logos are from the original Ricambi sheet.

It's a very plain color scheme in today's terms but those were simpler times - it matches the car as raced the first time at Palm Beach in 1962, driven by Scarab team owner Lance Reventlov. John Bacon casts fiberglass resin copies of this body as well if you want to try one yourself. The later versions had open and flared rear wheels as tires got wider so one of those may make a more aggressive and efficient slot car.