Grand National 1980 Mustang

Alright, so I've been haunting this place for long enough now and figured it's about time to start posting something...................... and why not start with my current build!!
I have always held a certain fascination with all things speedway and the Australian sedan racing that happened in the 1970's at long forgotten places like Tralee, Claremont and Liverpool Speedway is what i favor most. In the 70's sedan racing in Australia was arguably king, and the drivers were gods.......... Men like Granville Anderson, David House, Barry Graham and Paul Ash were all legend drivers of the time and the latter two gained fame at probably the most famous Australian bitumen sedan race of them all, The Marlborough Grand National.


This is Paul Ash's car from around 75'

With this in mind (and a swag of my dads old speedway racing newspapers) i have decided to build a Grand national speedway car based sometime around 1980 - 1981 that would have competed in the Marlborough. Im am not one hundred percent sure but i believe that it was around 81-82 that they ripped up the tarmac at Liverpool and reverted to dirt.

I have started with a Revell 1980 Mustang turbo and monograms valvoline #6 T-bird Nascar.





I have already started to cut down the chassis for the Nascar to fit the body of the mustang. The idea is to use most of the Nascar insides and the body of the Mustang.

As soon as i can figure out my phone camera i will post some more pics. Let me know what you think

yeah get some pic's up mate

another Speedway nut

Can't wait to see this one come together

This is looking like a good project - hope to see some pics soon.

Many times I went to Tracey's Speedway in Maribyrnong (Melbourne) during the mid fifties, and watched some great speedcar and motorbike racing. Top guns from the USA would always be there to challenge the local boys, and it would be on for young and old. Tracey's closed down in 1964 but I can still hear those engines roar.

finally got my bloody camera working, sorry about the quality of the pics its not a very good camera...

Okay so far i have started hacking the chassis to fit the body. It has been narrowed and shortened , i have also moved the gearbox tunnel back. Will be scratch building the fuel tank and rear pan area.



Next up i have started to radius (not sure if that's the right word) the wheel arches to fit in mush larger rubber as well as filling in all the holes in the body

I have also made a start on the engine but i will post pics when it's further along

Hey Goose.
That red Revell plastic is by far the worst i've ever encountered when it comes to bleed through.
Someone (who was either Paul or Bryce) told me Tamiya primer will prevent it happening but i've not tried yet (not that I doubt it, I just can't confirm its true). I do know that every single primer or undercoat I had at the time went pink. Including some that were supposed to provide a barrier.

I'm guessing you're not using the turbo 4 banger in the build.

zenrat wrote:Hey Goose.
That red Revell plastic is by far the worst i've ever encountered when it comes to bleed through.
Someone (who was either Paul or Bryce) told me Tamiya primer will prevent it happening but i've not tried yet (not that I doubt it, I just can't confirm its true). I do know that every single primer or undercoat I had at the time went pink. Including some that were supposed to provide a barrier.

If you do light coats with Tamiya gray primer it will cover well, if you need it primered in white spray it over the gray! HTH. I wouldn't even bother with trying any other brand as Tamiya is the bees knees!!

Thanks for the comments guys.
Paul - I just started using the tamiya undercoat and thus far it has worked pretty good, i will be eventually painting the car red and white so this should be the ultimate test!!.

Zenrat - No i won't be using the four banger. Instead i have opted for a healthy Small bock Ford Nascar block with Sprincar injection.

I hvae all but finished the re-sizing of the chassis and the engine needs four more plug wires to be done. I will hopfully be able to post some pics before i pack up and move house this weekend.