[greenman62]

Here's a shot of my latest project, An Allard J2X. It's the first "from scratch" car I've done. BTW, It's 1/32nd scale. The body was carved from wood with resin inlays. The wings were made with JB Weld putty and the rest of the bits are from various sources or hand made.

What is pictured is the car body, the wings headlamps, steering wheel, fuel filler and 2 different blisters for the bonnet of the car depending on the car to be made. J2Xs were seen in a wide variety of guises...`with or without louvers, different blisters on the bonnet... even no blister but with a cut out for triple downdraft carbs. They were raced with stock wings, cycle wings and no wings at all.

The body is a slosh casting while the "bits" are 2 part molded and are a tad "flashy" but quite useable (I'm still learning the process).

I'll be making a set of decals to depict Jim Kimbery's "8 ball" livery, which will be included with the car.

 

[Swissracer]

Very good, clean looking casting there !

Do you have some History of the real car to share with us and maybe some pics?

Will a TSRF chassis fit under it ?

Ok! Ok! --I WAS JOKING !!!

 

[Tropi]

QUOTE Will it fit under a TSRF chassis ?

Ok! Ok! --I WAS JOKING !!!

You'd better be, Swiss! I caught Mr P hisself with this one about a year ago!
There is VERY little room indeed UNDER a TSRF chassis, you know -
very few bodies can be slid into that two millimetre gap with any degree of success!

It certainly is a very sharp looking job, Greenman.

Have you plans for other bodies?

 

[Ecurie Martini]

Here are a few shots I took at Watking Glen in '98 - the 50th anniversary celebration - Allard was the featured marque. If you look at the photo of Tom Cole's Allard, you will see Briggs Cunningham III looking it over

I apologize for the quality of the images - they were digitized by the processor whao was running off my 35 mm film and are not hig res.

Scanning up and down from the photos of the model to the real thing shows just how good the model it - really captured the essence of the beast ( drove one - the appellation is well deserved!)

EM

 

[Swissracer]

QUOTE You'd better be, Swiss! I caught Mr P hisself with this one about a year ago!

What ARE you rambling about Tropi ??

Me ? make an error ?

Thanks for the pics EM

That is a great looking car.

 

[thomas]

superbe job greenman! When and where are these castings available?

 

[greenman62]

Thanks for the compliments folks!

This is what happens when you can't find a car you really really want...

I have a small number of castings ready to go at this moment. Since I do the casting on my kitchen counter top (my wife is VERY understanding) things take a bit more time than if I had a dedicated space.

I want to get some sort of instructions pulled together so you folks aren't left completely in the dark. I think Then there's trying to figure out how much to ask for the thing... I'll be ready to send out bodies in a couple of weeks.

As for running gear I haven't gotten that far yet... I'm going to build a front motor scratch frame for my own car. I also want to see if it's possible to modify an MRRC Cobra chassis enough to work for those who preferr to work in plastic. There's plenty of room up front for a motor, but not a whole lot amidships where a standard inline set up would go.

I'll keep you all posted

Greenman62

 

[speedyweenie]

Oh yeah, American hot rods!!! Looks really nice Mr. Greenman. I am definitely interested in acquiring a kit when you have them ready.

One possible suggestion r.e. chassis. I would likely do a brass pan myself, but I wonder if the Scaley Caterham might be a closer fit than the MRRC Cobra for plastic lovers. (This is pure speculation as I don't have one myself.)

Great work!

mp

 

[Ecurie Martini]

For those who want to be prototypical in chassis design (with the caveat that we are dealing with 50 year old memories)

The Allard was built on an English Ford truck frame. It sported an interesting front suspension - "independent" by virtue of cutting the original solid axle in half, pivoting it at the midpoint and adding coil springs to the ends. It carried a lot of positive camber, matching its adhesion to that of the de Dion rear. The chassis had a lot of flex adding to the directional uncertainty introduced by the front suspension. Most of the cars that ran in the U.S. were fitted with Cadillac V-8s coupled to Lincoln/Mercury 3 speed boxes. This wasn't much of a liability given the car's light weight (less than 2000 lbs) and the torque and rev range of the Caddy - even in those dim and distant days, a well prepared engine could be taken to 6000+ RPM safely.

The engine sat well back in the chassis, a la Panoz, and the cockpit was cramped. The seat, typical of the day, offered little lateral support so driver positioning was mostly a matter of a death grip on the wheel - but then, we aren't talking about 1 g cornering forces, either. One of the more common problems came from the convergence of a well worn gearbox, a long shift lever and the bouncing suspension - the gear lever would start to shake up and down and occasionally pop the box out of gear!

As I recall, the front and rear tires were of different sizes but I can't recall the tire size.

There were many others cars around in those days following the same formula of a lightweight assemblage of common bits motivated by a big V-8 but they were mostly one-offs.

They ran in what was called the "modified" class (as contrasted with the "production" i.e. stock (big smile) classes) and would be typically arrayed against C and D Jags, 3 litre Ferraris and Masers etc. Some people pulled the cycle fenders off and ran in the grab-bag "unrestricted" class where one might see a 4CLT Maserati or a 4.5 monoposto Ferrari. Acceleration was explosive, top speed not too bad - the aerodynamics were about as good as a seven room house but the frontal area was small - and the brakes, representative of the time, ranged from marginal to imaginary. Light weight, big tires, a low center of gravity and a bit of sang froid made up for the crude suspension and they gave a good account of themselves in a lot of races.

I'm looking forward to building mine - I'm planning to use a scratch frame, front motor and may continue my (so far less than successful) experiments with pin guides to keep the front end clean.

EM

BTW Those "portholes" in the hood (bonnet, capote) were, unlike the Buicks of the era, open.

 

[greenman62]

QUOTE One possible suggestion r.e. chassis. I would likely do a brass pan myself, but I wonder if the Scaley Caterham might be a closer fit than the MRRC Cobra for plastic lovers. (This is pure speculation as I don't have one myself.)
Good idea Speedy!

I went home over the lunch hour. While there I checked the Allard with a Caterham shell... TAA DAA!

After sawing off the rear wings it looks to be a bang-on fit. It will take some further adjustments to the Caterham and Allard shells but there's a "quick and dirty solution. BTW the wheel base is appears to be the same too....

Greenman62

 

[mgcrazy]

Man, that looks great. Wonderful to see something so different. Keep us informed.

mgcrazy

 

[BEEJAY7]

Very impressive Greenman, the casting looks superb.

How about an in depth article on how you went about your task.

I'm very keen to try it myself, but I'm not sure how to go about the resin casting and which materials to use.

Cheers

Alan

 

[bluetoes591]

QUOTE (Ecurie Martini @ 1 Oct 2003, 09:04 AM)BTW Those "portholes" in the hood (bonnet, capote) were, unlike the Buicks of the era, open.
Cruisilator Ventiports?