Fiat Competition Coupe for 1st Annual TRaK Autorama

I just got this resin radically chopped Fiat Competition Coupe from Fremont Resins off of eBay. It will be  the basis vor my entry in the Competition class of the 1st annual Autorama contest over on the TRaK board ending on December 31st. I've already built one Fiat Competition coupe but the body was more moderate than this one. This body is clearly based on the second, more radically version of Pete Millar's (yes, of DragToon's fame) Chicken Coupe which he built using the body from, and the help of, Eddie Potter and his Sudden Death fuel competition coupe. A first look at the body shows a lot needs to be done to get it to where I'll want it. Here's the resin body as I received it (photos from Fremont's eBay listing):

One of the things besides the body design that appealed to me was the wheel tubs. Unfortunately they are slightly undersized to the body wheel opening. Also I checked the wheel tub assembly with both of my go-to FED chassis, the 147" wheelbase Ramchargers dragster and the Ivo/Too Much 200"+ wheelbase digger. The Ramchargers chassis is my favorite - I prefer the moderately long wheelbase and the radically low legs-under stance. The Ivo chassis is a little long and lacks the near-perfect proportions of a circa 1964 Fuel FED. Unfortunately the space between the wheel tubs is acrtually too narrow for either chassis. So the wheel tubs will have to be cut apart and the tub sections molded to the coupe body. Also, I plan to fill in a portion of the open top and rear window area.
The original Fiat I did, the Terrible Toplino, had many of the features I like in a digger, but, with it's open-chassis front end, it lacks the nose piece that I want to include for a real show car paint job, perhaps in radical boat-flake. Power will be with a blown Hemi with Scott fuel injection like Sudden Death.
Eddie Potter's original Sudden Death:
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The evolved version as Pete Millar's Chicken Coupe with full nose piece:

Flamin' Frank Pedregon's (Cruz and Tony's father) coupe was the best looking of them all. If I can achieve these proportions but with a more elaborate paint job, I'll be more than pleased:

The Terrible Topolino was based on a shortened Too Much frame with an open chassis front end:


The front half and stance will be like this digger I did on the Ramchargers chassis:

OK I'm hooked. After seeing your previous creations, I can't wait for this to happen

I'm likin' the ideas you have for this digger, Looking forward to progress pics.

Thanks everyone!

Resin bodies come in different flavors. Some are meticulously conceived transkits, designed to provide an alternate body design for an existing model kit. There even complete stand-alone kits, the best of which rival or even exceed the quality of the finest plastic kits. Then there are bodies which are not specifically designed to be adapted to a specific kit, and indeed may be purposely aimed at the scratch builders and kit bashers among us. This Fiat Competition coupe by Fremont Racing is from this last variety. It’s very nicely cast from relatively thin and smooth white resin, but exactly which chassis it’s designed for is not indicated. It doesn’t come with instructions! And to make things more confusing, it can be had with 2 different length noses depending on which chassis you might be using.

Originally I just bought the body, thinking I would adapt a nose piece from my stash. But then I saw the design of the shorter Fremont Resins nose. I liked its shape and got myself one. But before I embarked on any body adaptation work I need to figure out what chassis I would use. I asked Joe Curtis at Fremont and he told me that he had 2 chassis in mind when he did this body, and has built models with both. These are the long wheelbase AMT chassis that can be found in kits like the Tommy Ivo FED, Don Garlits Wynn’s Charger, and Too Much, and the shorter wheelbase MPC chassis found in the Ramchargers FED and the recently re-released Jawbreaker kit.

Checking the body against both chassis I found that the distance between the firewall and the rear axle centerline on the Ramchargers chassis is an exact fit. Since this is just about my favorite kit FED chassis, with its radically low legs-under stance I went with it and ordered that slick looking short nose.

But there are a few of adjustments that needed to be made. First of the one piece wheel well assembly (A in the picture below) is slightly too narrow for the chassis and I had to cut it up. Fitting the wheel well pieces to the cutouts in the body sides revealed that they are slightly undersized and leave gaps o the sides. (See C below). I decided to align them with the tops of the arches on the bottoms of the window openings. I made panels that fit the body sides so that there would be plenty of glue area for a firm fit. (B below). The result is shown in D below. The firewall need a slight arched relief to match the Ramchargers firewall and, as the lower two images show, once the nose is fitted to the chassis and aligned with the front end it’s clear that I’ll have to extend the side panels rearward a bit.



As I said, I’m using the Ramchargers chassis. It’s largely stock except that I’ve never been fond of the somewhat narrow front axle so I adapted the pretty the pretty little tubular piece from the dragster half of the Revell Tony Nancy Double Dragster kit. I’m also using the slick looking American Racing 5 spokes mags from the Tony Nancy kit, mated to the wheel backs from the Ramchargers kit. I left the wheels plated for a polished mag look since this will be a show car, and I “chromed” the back halves with my trusty Molotow pen. The tires are from a recent AMT parts pack.

The mockup below uses the Ramchargers kit front wheels and tires but I hope to be able to use true wires on the completed build. Next up is building a blown 392 Chrysler Hemi and starting on the bodywork and paint.



Thanx for lookin’,
B.

Summer is here at last in the Pacific Northwest and my work rate at the bench is suffering, I’m afraid. Still, progress is being made on all fronts.

The motor is largely done. It’s a 392 Chrysler Hemi from an AMT Piranha kit with various detail parts such as the fuel pump and Cirello “Frankenstein “ magneto from an AMT Too Much kit. The headers are from the Ramchargers kit. The drive pulleys are courtesy of Speed City Resin. They make a Funny Car Parts Pack that’s full of highly detailed engine goodies including these pulleys. They also make a toothed rubber Gilmer belt that will go on the motor. I was going to use their Scott Super Slot Injector as well. It’s very finely made and, like all their parts, absolutely top shelf. But I preferred the slightly different shape of a Super Slot from Altered States Models which I had used on an earlier digger build so I stole it off that motor and will used the Speed City injector as its replacement. Finished on all the parts are the usual assortment of Testors Metalizers with the ribs of the blower casing picked out in Molotow Chrome to simulate polished aluminum.

I’ve started on the body work which is turning out to be quite extensive. First off I had to extend the side panels of the nose piece to meet up with the firewall. I’ll probably land up filling the seam where the additional styrene piece meets up with the resin. But the real work comes as a result of the decision to make a flip-top rood panel and fill the rear of the cab with a window panel. The whole thing is done so the back of the roll cage will just barely pop out through the window opening when the body is properly located. I made styrene panels which had to be built up to match the thickness of the resin. It’s based on the restored Cacklefest version of the Flamin’ Frank Pedregon Fiat which, unlike most of the original versions, has a fully covered cab. It’s very smooth and sinister looking so I took the bait and went for it.

Below is a (very) rough set of workbench photos. There’s a great deal of sanding and shaping and filling to do to get the body ready for paint. Then there’s the question of a show-worthy paint and decal scheme. So this project will extend into the cooler weather of fall.

Thanx for lookin’,
B.



The modern version of the Flamin’ Frank Pedregon Fiat:

Awesome build Bern, lots of work and I enjoy your research/history on your builds.

Thanks!

The basic bodywork and base coats for the paint are completed now. The nose piece has mounting tabs which are just visible in the pictures below. They align the rear section with the frame. The paint job consists of grey primer followed by Duplicolor MS200 Metal Specks Silver which is a coarse metalflake-like silver lacquer paint. It leaves a slightly rough texture but I didn’t want to sand out the flake so I followed up with four coats of Duplicolor Clear lacquer to smooth things out. Then I shot 2 coats of Tamiya TS-73 Clear Orange which creates a deep gold undercoat. This will be followed by a masking job to create gold scallops and stripes, although at this point the final design is still up in the air. Then a final color layer of two coats of Tamiya TS-74 Clear Red to make a candy red metalflake will be applied. I’ll have some gold decals printed once I come up with a final graphics design and car name. These will go on along with various trade decals and then the whole thing will be sealed under multiple coats of clear and rubbed out.

Below is a composite showing the Metal Specks Silver and gold metalflake base coats along with an inset showing what the final body color will be.

The motor is completed and the chassis is waiting for the bodywork to be done before I can work on mounting brackets, the front wing, etc. I still need to do something about getting a set of true wire wheels, too.

Thanx for lookin’,
B.

The basic paint is done. Tamaya Clear Red over gold flake as explained in the last post, with the stripes, spare tire area and nose scallop picked out with masking tape. Next up, and critical to the whole effect is the graphics design which will require, among other things, naming the darn thing. But the basic paint went down with surprisingly little drama. The usual summary picture is below.

Thanx for lookin',
B.

Now that's cool.

This is a project I haven’t touched for nearly 3 months, which for me is very unusual since I’m pretty much a one-project-at-a-time kind of guy and rarely jump between multiple builds. But with the TRaK 2018 Autorama contest deadline looming less than 10 days away and 3 projects penciled in for completion by then I’ve been jumping between builds like crazy. The Fiat went on hold while I had custom decals printed for it, and by the time they landed on my bench I was juggling 4 other projects and it had to wait in line. The good news is that with the decals finally applied most of what’s left is simple final assembly work and I’ve got a chance at finishing it in time. Below are pictures of the gold decals I had made as they appear on the car at last. Now they’ll get cleared and it will be time to assemble the completed car.

Thanx for lookin’,
B.