Project Thundering Lightning: planning

Some time ago I got my hands on a Model King kit called Allison Thunderland, a '67 Thunderbird with an Allison engine in it. Of course I wanted the engine, not the Bird; the Allison was used in the P38 Lightning in WWII, and became a hit with a subset of the hot rod crowd in the early '50s.

Lately I acquired a '62 Thunderbird and it occurs to me that the Allison would fit right in there, in a mid-engine, cab-forward design replicating my earlier Project Starliner. So welcome to Project Thundering Lightning!



First was to design a cockpit to fit between the front wheel arches in the '62 where the 390 used to go. I rummaged through the boneyard and came up with a cockpit from a Dodge Stealth. (Years ago I cut up several of these Dodges, taking out the twin-turbo V6 for a range of hot rods, so the boneyard is full of bits from these AMT kits.)



The Starliner had a two-seater cockpit but this is not realistic at 1:1 because it leads to a very cramped footwell. The Lightning will therefore be a single-seater. The Dodge cockpit had a big slice taken out of it to fit in the available space (25 scale inches between the chassis rails). Note the vestigial rear seat from the Dodge will be removed once the firewall is in place.



I am now getting to the point where I will need to start cutting up T-bird bits. The radiator shroud will have to come off the body, and the cowl will need to be cut open to allow the seat to sit far enough back. An oblong opening in the hood. extending into the cowl, will be needed to fit the cockpit before the hood can be glued in permanently.





On the chassis, the engine crossmember will have to come out; the forward crossmember under the radiator will stay for structural reasons and the cockpit floor will get notched to fit. Finally the instrument binnacle will be retained from the T-bird but will have to be cut away from the rest of the dash. 

Stay tuned! the hacking and slashing has only just begun.

Citroen DS19: Complete (#9 for 2018)

This one went together so easily it was complete before I had time to write it up.



The Ebbro kit of this iconic French sedan is an excellent kit and very highly recommended. All parts went together with little or no fiddling. There was essentially no flash or scarf, and instructions were clear. Lots of well-made dowels and sockets ensured everything lined up just right the first time out.



The removable roof is a nice bonus and means two-tone paint is easy. I went for the navy blue roof over yellow as in the show car of 1955, although most production cars had a white roof. 




The car is remarkably advanced for 1955, with inboard disc brakes at the front, and a hydraulic system operating brakes, steering, suspension ride height as well as clutch transmission linkages. The four cylinder, restricted to about 75 horsepower due to French taxation rules, was placed front to back, with the transmission in front and the timing chain cover up against the firewall.



A mid-engine setup? The auxiliary drives were all off the rear of the engine above the differential and transmission.



The long engine bay has room for the spare tire ahead of the radiator.



With all the mechanical bits up front, and a simple twist axle for the rear, the interior has a completely flat floor. This is similar to the H van I built some time ago, also from Ebbro.



This picture shows how far back the engine is located.



A classic shape.



I recall seeing one around here regularly a number of years ago, a white one with zebra-skin covers over the upholstery. It was driven by a woman bearing more than a passing resemblance to Brigitte Bardot, and generally left a whiff of Gauloises behind it as it wafted by.



Turn signals in the corners of the roof are now a Thing, and are a Feature on my V60. I am very pleased with how this turned out, largely due to the kit being excellent. That being said, there are a couple of minor quibbles: First, the driveshafts, tie rod and front tires go on all at once at the end and this requires a major bit of fussing. Second, the rear view mirror is in the kit but not mentioned in the instructions ... be sure to put it on before mating interior floor pan to the body. Finally the hood doesn't quite close over the spare tire, perhaps because of a minor misalignment error on my part.



"Non, madame, ce n'est pas la boucherie Sanzot! Mile millions de mille sabords, le professeur Tournesol vient d'être kidnappé!"



There are a couple 2CVs and a 15 Légère on the shelf, along with a Renault 4L. Vive la différence!

Mercedes 300 SLR: complete (#8 for 2018)

This Revell kit is quite challenging. There is lots of scarf and flash, especially around ejector pins, with flaws sometimes larger than the part.





Flash on the chrome bits had been chromed so there was no way to take it off without having to paint or rechromed. And I could have spent a lot more time tidying up the various bits.



Doors close poorly, and the hood not at all. Fit of various components is a bit of a guessing game, and the locating pins and sockets are not very well defined.



Quite the family resemblance, although the engines are very different.



The Tamiya 300 SL remains the gold standard. Still this is an excellent addition to the '50s Mercedes shelf.



It will be interesting to see whether the SLS, which came in the same box, is as challenging.

Mercedes 300 SLR: Interior and chassis

The chassis sure has some idiosyncrasies. Enormous inboard front drum brakes require driveshafts to connect them to the wheels, but can be bigger than the wheels would allow. They also reduce unsprung weight substantially. Cooling, however, might not have been ideal as the radiator is immediately in front of the drums.



The view from the rear highlights just how far over the engine is tipped. One would expect this would be needed with a typical prewar long stroke motor, but the motor was apparently square at 78 x 78 mm, having been expanded from the oversquare (76 x 68.8 mm) 2.5 litre GP engine.



I mentioned the driver having to straddle the clutch housing; the driveshaft runs under the seat and between the left side inboard rear drum and the lower swing axle control arm.



The transmission was at the rear under the gas tank, and appears to include a mechanical fuel pump driven off the back of it. As this is likely the location of the remote starter motor in the race version, one could expect the transmission input shaft to reach all the way to here.



Interior shots show the pedal arrangement on either side of the tunnel, with a partition designed to keep the passenger's left foot off the throttle. Or maybe the brake ... Uhlenhaut had a reputation for being somewhat fearless, and some race cars of that period did have a central throttle.



High, wide sills cover the tubular frame through the cockpit area, as in the 300 SL, and are the reason for the gull wing doors. De Lorean went for gull wing doors, too, but in that case the chassis, consisting of a Lotus-designed backbone system, did not make them essential.



The interior, as befits a car built for the director of engineering of Mercedes Banz, is snug but well trimmed in red and plaid. The plaid is surprising. Was Uhlenhaut of Scottish descent, perhaps? He was born in London, and his father appears to have been posted there by a German bank, but Wikipedia says his wife, Hilda Brice, was English, not Scottish.

The next bits will be tricky as the 'birdcage' chassis is not well modeled forward of the cockpit, and the floor pan is slightly twisted in  this location where it is not strengthened by the 3D superstructure. Glue and clamps will be required to get the cockpit to sit flat and to pull the frame straight. Stay tuned!

Mercedes 300 SLR: Planning

As a way of further avoiding dealing with the Auto Union, and as followup to the successful 190 SL and 300 SL builds, I decided to tackle the 300 SLR.

 



First off, the kit I obtained was a gift set, which also includes a kit of the newer Mercedes SLS AMG and some paint and glue. The box is enormous, and the bits had been thrashing about in there for some time, so there was some damage to more delicate components -- in particular, one of the rear hubs, molded in one piece with the chassis floor, had snapped off. However, it was cheaper on eBay than kits of the 300 SLR alone, with the extra kit of the SLS as a bonus, so worth it. (I have also ordered a similar kit of the BMW 507 and i8, also cheaper than a kit of just the 507, which is what I really wanted).





Second, the SLR may appear to differ only slightly from the SL, but make no mistake: this is a completely different car. The GP-derived straight 8, with two cams and desmodromic actuation of the valves, is leaned way over on its right side, where the sedan-derived six in the SL is leaned over to the driver's side.



The driveshaft runs under the driver's seat to the rear-mounted transmission, and forces the driver to straddle the clutch casing. The final drive is a swing axle with inboard drum brakes; there are also inboard drum brakes at the front, necessitating front driveshafts even in the absence of FWD. What a complex beast, with a mix of state-of-the-art and just plain old-fashioned choices that required lots of fine-tuning to get it right. Mercedes kept building swing axles until the demise of the so-called W108 series in 1972, and while they were a special low-pivot design intended to minimise the usual problems with a swing axle, it highlights how the company could be traditional in many ways.