Andy's 50th Birthday car

I bought a brand new Spirit model of a VW Golf in Jagermeister livery, and then proceeded to take it apart and strip everything off it, including wing mirrors, windscreen wipers, petrol cap and lights.

I resprayed the car in French Blue over a grey undercoat, and repainted the figures in their orange overalls so that the driver was in blue and the co-driver in pink.  I also painted the roll cage.

I numbered the car with 50 on the bonnet and doors, and added the driver and co-driver names to the top of the windshield.

A personalised number plate...

...and the car was completed.  A special edition of 1!

The Flying Squad's Mini?

The companion to the rally Cooper is this Morris Mini in police livery.

A few years back, during the GB Wales Rally, the police rather unsportingly put up speed traps between the stages to catch unwary competitors and spectators.  In (dis)honour of that event, this police Mini can chase the rally version around my track.

I found this photo of an original version.  I can't imagine suspects were routinely held in the back!

The Flying Finn's Mini

The first of a pair of original Minis from Scalextric is this 1966 Morris Mini Cooper S which won the Monte Carlo Rally in 1967 driven by Rauno Aaltonen, the "Flying Finn".  A tiny yet highly detailed model:

The real car is now at the Heritage Motor Centre at Gaydon and here's a photo I took of it a few years ago:

And here's the real thing in action:

Aaltonen's son now runs an ice driving school and has a replica of the Mini Cooper - see it in action here or embedded below.

Z-Cars- 1:1 and 1:32 scales

I waved goodbye to the Lotus today but said hello to a 2006 Nissan 350Z Roadster GT.  Specification includes: 300 bhp 3.5 litre V6, azure blue metallic paintwork, charcoal leather seats, electric hood, electric heated seats, air conditioning, 18" Rays alloys, Brembo brakes, cruise control, 7 speaker Bose music system.  And yes, I am rather fond of it already ;-)

Nobody makes a 350Z Roadster as a slot car but several manufacturers make versions of the Coupe.  I wondered about attempting a conversion with a cheap Scalextric model but in the end went for a rally version from Powerslot, which has the same base blue paintwork as my car.

It arrived a few days before the real one.  Another nicely detailed model that drives very swiftly with moderate magnatraction so the back end gets out nicely on the corners.

4.5 Litre 'Birkin' Bentley

Tim Birkin was one of the racing drivers known as the "Bentley Boys" in the 1920s.  Birkin added an Amhurst Villiers supercharger to a 4.5 litre Bentley fitted with a slim body, an offset single seat and a large streamlined radiator cowling.

This car captured the outright lap record at Brooklands at the 1930 Easter meeting when it lapped at 135.33 mph. The car used a gallon of fuel every 59 seconds and it developed 240 bhp.

So this is my choice as the racing partner for the Stutz Blackhawk, against which it historically competed at Le Mans.  Like the Stutz, this is a kit from Penelope Pitlane and comes with the resin body, metal chassis and small parts, motor, and running gear.

With the body cleaned up and the chassis put together, it looks like this:

When it raced at Brooklands, the car was painted red but I found out that it was originally painted French Blue - not a colour usually associated with British racing cars - so I thought I'd paint it that colour instead.  First the undercoat in grey:

And then the French Blue, using Humbrol's gloss spray acrylic paint:

I then painted up the chassis parts, fitted the fuel caps, exhaust, supercharger and windscreen, and put it all together.

Tim Birkin apparently wore a blue scarf with white spots when racing:

And here's a view of the supercharger which made this the "Blower Bentley".  W.O. Bentley was hostile to forced induction and believed that "to supercharge a Bentley engine was to pervert its design and corrupt its performance."  He refused to allow the engine to be modified to incorporate the compressor, which was therefore placed at the end of the crankshaft, in front of the radiator - which didn't help the understeer!

So now I have two Penelope Pitlane models ready to be raced:

Pull over and put your hands where I can see them

A while back, I blogged about a police car I'd bought to chase the General Lee around the track.

A great car but it niggled me that the red light on top was just for how.  So I re-wired it!  Maplin sell a flashing LED for a quid which operates up to 14V.  My layout runs at 16V so a bit of O Level physics with Ohm's Law suggested if I stuck a 200 ohm resistor in series with the LED, it should drop the voltage enough to avoid it blowing.  It works - kind of.  It flashes away when I test it but on the track itself it's pretty much constantly on.  But I guess that's better than nothing.

In the photo, the car is sat on my latest contraption - a little test bed made from a cut up piece of track with a 9V battery box soldered to the rails.  A nice quick way of testing a car and portable enough that I can stick it in my back pocket next time I go to a Swapmeet to test second-hand cars before buying them.

I also bought another police car cheap on eBay last week - a twenty-five year old Rover SD1.  Someone had already replaced the tyres on it, so I just oiled and greased it, and cleaned up the paint work to get it back in good condition.  It's lost its wing mirrors but still has its bumpers and the transfers are perfect.  It has a working flashing light but the siren doesn't work any more.  I've wondered about trying to fix that but suspect it get a bit annoying after just a few laps!

Stutz Blackhawk - Part 3: Completed

The Stutz is now complete.  There were a number of metal pieces to polish up with the Dremel, like the radiator below.

The grille was washed in black before putting the transfer on, and then superglued to the body.  The body was sprayed black, and the leather straps, seats, dashboard and supercharger painted with acrylics.

The body was then fixed to the chassis and the painted driver fixed in the driving seat, with the steering wheel fixed last in his hands.  Also fitted to the car are headlights, a petrol cap, Stutz step-plates, a windscreen folded flat onto the bonnet, and a small windshield in front of the driver.

The finished car...

Although it's now in the display cabinet, this has been built to be raced.  Here's the car on the track where it performs rather well.  It doesn't run fast but it's smooth and the lack of magnets means it gets the rear end out nicely on the corners.  Now to build something of similar vintage to race against it...