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...

Bullitt in 1:32 coming soon

I blogged last year about the two Bullitt cars I had bought.  Someone else has bought them and used them to create a stop-motion 1:32 slot car version of the famous San Francisco chase scene from Bullitt.  The final version has been awaited for some time - the first YouTube trailer said February 2011...

...but now there's a much more cinematic trailer...

Stutz Blackhawk - Part 2: Rolling Chassis

The bespoke chassis comes flat and needs bending into shape.

A few minutes with some pliers and installing the motor, pick-up guide and axles, and you get this.

The wheels are a little more complicated.  They need to be primed and then painted, and then fitted with two different painted inserts to represent the inner and outer sets of spokes on wire wheels.  With a metal spinner cap in place (quickly buzzed over with the Dremel tool to make it shine), they look like this.

With all four wheels fitted, I took the rolling chassis for a quick spin around the track.  The motor isn't too fast, which feels right for a vintage car.  Next step the body.

Stutz Blackhawk - Part 1: Introduction

Andy bought me a slot car kit for Christmas.  Kieron thinks I've crossed a line by moving into building my own cars but I just see this as like building Airfix kits, but with the bonus of having something to play with rather than just display at the end of it.

There are a surprisingly number of small companies who sell resin bodies to make slot cars from, and many provide chassis and wheels and other bits to make it a running car.

Andy chose me a Stutz Blackhawk, an American car from the 1920s similar to a British Bentley.  Here's a  real version that still takes part in historic races:

Here's what the finished kit could look like:

And here's what it looked like when it arrived:

Clockwise from top left - the body, wheel inserts, motor and chassis, wheels, tyres, transfers, chrome bits like windshield and radiator.

A Stutz Blackhawk Special was also driven by Frank Lockhart, who is a bit of a legend in American racing, in a bid for the land speed record in 1928.

Sadly, in his second run back up Daytona Beach a tyre was cut, probably on seashell, causing a fatal crash.  A replica of the car has been built in the US:

I've started the build on this car and acquired a Bentley kit too so I'll be blogging on how it goes.

Andy has also bought himself a Stutz kit, but this one based on the Jones Special which raced at Indianopolis in 1930: