Stock Car Models with a Canadian flavour

[Rod McLeod]

Since I often can't get to races and I'm also far from home one of the things I do is build models and draw the artwork for decals that let others that have more time than me build them.

Over the last year or so I've done 5 sheets for what Bobby Allison called the ugliest stock car in America referring to Mike Miller's Dairyland Transport Olds Cutlass Salon. Two of these have been Canadian cars from the 1979 season.

This one was driven by Randy Slack and is based on how it looked oa rare appearance at Sunset.


Another car that was there that day was Wayne Keeling's Buick version. My friend Mark Jeffries did the awsome build on this one.


Lui Sarracini's uncle is Rocco DiCarlo who owned Flamboro and then bought Pincecrest so Lui grew up around both those tracks. When he started work on a generic Dodge Coronet I knew I had to draw up some Howie Scannell decals for him. This one was a Flamboro LM championship car.


This is another in progress model of Lui's of one of the coolest early 70s car ever. Current Sunset Thunder driver Ken Wiesbrod drove this Corvette at Pinecrest:


I've got more builds to share if anyone is interested and more underway. I know at least one other board member who has promised to contribute. Anyone else still play with little cars ?

[Mark Blocksdorf]

Well, that other member would be me.   Rod has done some amazing work with decals - my work has involved hand painting the sponsor logos.  This isn't as good a process for sure, but until recently the technology to make the decals has been cost prohibitive.

Since Rod has specified "Canadian", I'll stick with those ones.  I hope the owners/drivers don't mind me posting these...


Glenn Watson's 2002 Championship Winning "Red Rocket" Pontiac Grand Prix Challenger












Jeff Dunford's 1995 Barrie Speedway Buick Regal Sportsman

[Mark Blocksdorf]

Jr Hanley's MGD T-Bird (1993 or 1994)







If anyone has a photo of the real thing, I'd love even a small one.


A work in progress:  Tom Gough's 2002 Barrie Speedway Challenger







Also check out http://www.ovaltrackmodels.com/ - lots of great work there.

[Rod McLeod]

Mark: Thanks for joining the party. That Tom Gough car really deserves to be finished it looks very cool so far.

There is an old printer technology that is out of manufacture that is capable of printing white and at very high resolution. It can also do gold and silver foil but not flourescents. It was a niche product and a little fussy so it didn't catch on but it was a big hit with hobby users. The artwork is done in scale using a graphics program like Corel Draw or Adobe Illustrator and then printed on decal paper. You can use Inkjet or colour laser printers but these produce a much thinner result and they don't print white. Well technically there is now a colour laser that will print white but it is around $5,000 and I keep hoping it will come down in price. My printing partner has three of these printers and does all the production work being very careful to try and keep it alive as long as possible.

My time constraints keep me from accepting any custom jobs. I am frantically trying to get the family racing collection built before the technology goes away.

The car modeling hobby is struggling to survive into the next generation because the kids have stopped building and the WalMarts have stopped stocking so the industry is redefining itself. There is a huge cottage industry and aftermarket out there for everyhing from decals, to bodies to almost any part you can think of including most of the different kinds of racing wheels used from the 50s to now.

Here are a few of the family collection so far starting with the 1966 Ford that raced at Barrie and Sunset in 1968:


The 1974 Barrie LLM champion that also ran at Westgate.

The model has the wrong bodystyle for the 66 Chevelle 300 but there is a resin body available that I may do a rebuild with.


My favourite so far the 1975 season Westgate 69 Chevelle.


Here is Keith's rookie car, a Buick Skylark from the 1984 season in the Barrie 6-Cylinder class racing against guys like Garry Reynolds, Allan Inglis and Bayside's Ron Kelly.

[SpencerLewis]

that Wayne Keeling buick is simply remarkable...

[Joe Hamilton]

Those models are incredible.
I started doing some die cast cars for the Cascar and now NCATS teams, and I quickly learned that I suck at model building, so I went for the inexpensive die cast cars at Zellers or Walmart, removed the decals and made my own "canadian" version.
The teams really love them, and I've done quite a few now.
My newest version is the Scott Steckly 22 Tow Truck in a Box car.

The only problem is I'm still using Charger cars, as the Avenger is a COT die cast, and they usually cost a fortune.


I posted a bunch of my cars here:
http://www.pbase.com/joe_h/diecast&page=all
Most are older versions, or the "test" version (to see that everything works out) and the newer ones, I basically haven't taken pictures of. I don't know if Jason White is on this board, but I did a bunch of the A&W cars for him this past season, maybe he can post a pic of one.

You can see on some that one work around of the printing white issue is that I use white decal waterslide paper. The white almost covers any paint underneath, but I'm getting better at doing most of the work in the decal itself, rather than trying to paint the entire car to match. Of course, for something like the 22 car, the car all being one colour (white) really helps!!

I've also done a few haulers for some teams, again using the 1/64 scale Nascar haulers and doing them up to match the NCATS team haulers.

joe h

[Mark Blocksdorf]

Those look great Joe!  Thanks for posting those.  I've seen that white waterslide paper as well - will need to get some the next time around.

There is another option for white - it is a dry transfer system using a laser printer and laminator (http://www.pulsarprofx.com/).  Here is a link to a thread at an RC forum (http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=753177) with basically the same as my thoughts on the system - it holds a lot of promise, but the final stage is flaky (literally).  When you can get this to work, it works awesome (since there's no "framing" like with waterslide).

Here's my most recent one using waterslide on the doors and the above dry transfer on the windshield decal:









The windshield took three tries...the issue is keeping all the letters in place on the mylar sheet.  If you read that link above, you'll see what I mean.

[Rod McLeod]

Joe your diecasts look great. The picture didn't show up for me but I followed the link.

I only buit a couple of CASCAR models, here' s JR's rookie car.



Dave Whitlock's Avenue Intrepid.

[Adam Jones]

I have a friend that would like to get some made. How much does it cost for you to make them Joe? and how can he get in contact with you to make him some? They look great u do a awsom job.

[Joe Hamilton]

Adam, send me a pm and I will forward my email to you.
The hardest part of doing them now adays is actually getting the cars. Most stores used to carry lots of the cheap ones, but not anymore. Everything is either real expensive, or are COT versions.

joe h

[Randy Peer]

There's lots of old stock plastic models on E-Bay. Be prepared for some headaches with cross-border shipping though!
Doug

Hi Doug, I've bought quite a few on Ebay. lol.

I don't have any problems with cross border shipping? I always get them sent up by USPS First Class Mail (cheapest), I try to avoid couriers, that's when you pay thru the nose, but USPS is pretty reasonable and I haven't even paid any tax on items for over a year now, maybe 2 years, come to think about it? If you ever buy anything out of Europe, my experience is a good one there too, I've bought quite a few items out of England, Germany and Belgium, and so far I've found their shipping faster than the US?

If you do go with a courier, you'll end up paying all the taxes plus they charge an outrageous Customs Brokerage Fee.

My experience is, some of the old models are getting big bucks these days though!

I have to say guys, you all have done a fantastic job on your models, I only wish I was half as good! This is a great thread.

[Mark Blocksdorf]

Yup, as the kids would say USPS First Class Mail "FTW".

The older models are definitely getting more money, but keep an eye out for re-releases of some of the older ones.  Especially if you are a builder, not a collector.

[lui Sarracini]

   Hi all..I'm lui..Rods posted sum of my builds with his decals... Thought i'd contribute sum more builds
of George Pringles 66 nova from Flamboro ....

  George pringles 67 Camaro Latemodel at Pinecrest... Still under construction..

  Howie Scannell's 71 Plymouth GTX Latemodel..

  These models all have Scratch built Full roll cages in them...

Lui.

[Bill Johnson]

Holy cow, i`m running out to store to buy a kit!..Brings back great memories of my kit building days!...

[Paul Mcilroy]

Lui that 66 nova looks like real car.

You did very nice job there.