'32 Fordor Jalopy Racer - Larned, KS. 1958 - Update 12-29

[Bernard Kron]

The circle track oriented Scale Racecar Lobby board has a whole section devoted to The Early Years featuring a lot of Jalopy style stock-based dirt track cars. While perusing its many fine models I got to thinking about doing a 50’s era middle-America stock car jalopy. . I love the research part, particularly when it involves a subject like this one where I have much to learn. Thus began my obligatory web-cruise which culminated in finding this terrific web site chronicling the JayCee Speedway in Larned, Kansas, a 1/4 mile track that was active in the 1950's: winfield.50megs.com/tripod/Larned/Larned_Speedway.htm

I was particularly inspired by this picture:



That is one sanitary jalopy. Beautifully constructed and ready on race day morning, Sunday, April 27th, 1958. Pictured are the driver, Gene Coffman, and the car's owner and sponsor, Mrs. Clarice Palmer.

One thing that has impressed me is the very high level of construction quality on many of these cars. You only appreciate it if they were fortunate enough to be photographed before being raced. Afterwards their condition tended to disguise the fact! The rules at Larned appear to restrict motors and suspension to stock or mild hop ups as far as I can tell.

It reminded me that many moons ago Dave Zinn included a resin Hendrix '32 Ford Fordor based on the AMT Deuces as a bonus gift in a parts swap I did with him. The perfect base for my first Jalopy build. The mechanicals will come from the AMT '32 Ford Phaeton kit.

I'm guessing the wheels and the upper part of the body were white, the beltline some dark color and the lower body a light color, but not white. Probably yellow. I'm planning on doing my car with a white upper, green beltline and yellow lower. I’ll do homemade decals with sponsor names and numbers. It won’t be a strict replica but the inspiration will be clear.

First off, probably very much like was done at the time, I cut open the roof and cut up the AMT ’32 Ford Phaeton interior bucket to get my bearing on space and dimension issues. The interior will get some panel detail at a later stage. Then I roughed in the roll cage to the basic AMT Deuce chassis. It’s .010 styrene rod.



It's clear these cars were built for some very rough driving. Besides open roofs, most of the Larned cars had cutaway passenger side doors for easy exit in the inevitable crash. For the same reason I noticed there's generally no diagonal bracing across the top of the roll cage, most likely to allow the driver to readily crawl out if the car got dumped on its side. But most cars did have side bracing tubes in the middle of the doors. The roll cage was completed accordingly. I decided to cut up the passenger side of the body and the interior bucket. The hard part was making sure the body cutout, the interior bucket cutaway, and the side brace bars all lined up. I think I pulled it off. I'm wrestling with the front nerf bars (bully bars?) right now. That and the bracing for the ’40 Ford radiator and hood panel will be the next major challenge.



After that building the motor and setting up the chassis should be pretty straight forward. Once everything is trial fit and ship-shape it’ll be time for paint and graphics. Things are moving fairly quickly but I don’t know if this will be done in time to be my final 2016 build.

Thanx for lookin’,
B.

[fordrodnkustom]

Looks good and authentic so far B. Watching this one for sure.....big fan of short trackers that only turn left! You going to simulate that paint overspray on the tires?

[harron68]

Thank you for this Christmas treat build. I've seen a few old cars on the web, but quality varies greatly. Most guys were "hobby racers" never expecting to move up in class to better machines. Tracks were anywhere rural and provided good entertainment for local fans. Some racers had good backing from sponsors or themselves had money to burn. Then the cars were both better maintained and were more reliable. Interesting also, a few racers chose unusual makes of cars with anything from straight 8 engines to often successful light weight machines with straight 6 motors. I always thought when the '41 Plymouth coupe kit came out it would bring a number of jalopy racer models from builders. Best of luck. I'll be interested to see what you do with this one!

[TooOld]

I like where this one is headed , nice work so far !

[Bernard Kron]

Thanks everyone! I'm really enjoying all the research and fabrcation this project requires. Big Fun!!!!

One of the members on the TRaK board, Stu Neil, questioned if using the AMT Phaeton interior bucket was such a good idea given the massive roof opening and the door cutout. He thought it might make the bodywork look too thick. I had to agree and I decided to completely re-do my approach to the interior. I started by cutting out the sides of the interior buck, leaving only the firewall and cowl panels. After gluing this vestigial piece to the floor board I fabricated two curved extension pieces to fill the gap between the floorboard and the body sides. Next I made a couple of interior side panels. I researched ’32 Ford interior body structures on the web and was only able to find detailed pictures of a Phaeton shell, although I think the basic approach must be similar to the Fordor. Combining that with the structures of earlier Tudors and Fordors I came up with what should pass for some interior detail. After fabricating the side panels I epoxied them in place and then added additional strips of styrene epoxied directly to the body shell to simulate the rest of the structure. Here’s a summary of that work:



I was also able to complete the front nerf bar setup. Common practice on the Larned cars was to use later series, and larger, radiators. In this case I used an AMT ’40 Ford piece and fabricated the “bully bars” from .100 styrene rod. While not quite as elaborate (and agricultural!) as some jalopies sported, this design was fairly prototypical of these cars. I also include some wire mesh between the radiator and the bars. Interestingly, the Larned cars almost never had rear nerf bars or side bars even though they had massive roll cages and front protection. Here’s some a summary of this part of the project:



Now on to the suspension and motor. Then final bodywork, paint and decals. Still shooting for December ‘31st to get ‘er done…

Thanx for lookin’,
B.

[fordrodnkustom]

Coming along great. The front bars and radiator assembly definitely look the part and that inner body structure you fabricated is brilliant.

[Bernard Kron]

Thanx Ron!

I’m on the home stretch now. The suspension, just the stock setup from the AMT kit, wheels and tires are painted and glued in place. The suspension is finished out in gloss and matte black and dark shades of Testors Metalizer paints. The front wheels are AMT ’40 Ford front steelies and the rears Revell ’40 Ford rears. The front tires are standard AMT Firestones and the rears are Revell ’40 Ford units with the whitewalls painted matte black.

One detail you’ll notice is that I built a rear bumper after all. I had commented that Larned cars didn’t seem to run them, which struck me as odd given how heavily built up the front bars and roll cages were. Well, more careful examination of the old pictures show that the cars all did have bumpers, it’s just that they aren’t the massive structures you see at the front. So I fabricated a prototypical setup from styrene rod and strip and installed at the back of the chassis.

The bodywork is painted now. The upper half is Duplicolor Wimbledon white, as are the interior and the nerf bars. The frame is painted a medium dark green, a Testors Acryl color. I’ve begun the graphics. The companies are fictional businesses from the area around the Larned track. Great Bend, Kansas is the major town in the area, about 23 miles from Larned. The graphics fonts and layout are based on photos of Larned cars. All the cars wore a number on each side and one on the rear. The layout photo below is a Photoshop mockup and final colors and fonts will be determined when I actually print the decals. Probably tomorrow.

Not shown is the motor which is about done and ready for installation. It’s the Ford Flathead block from the kit with AMT ’40 Ford stock heads and intake, finished in the traditional Ford zinc chromate green.

Still shooting for a 2016 completion!

Thanx for lookin’,
B.

[harron68]

I suppose, depending on the era, whether any shocks, (friction shocks or modern shocks)were used. They did know about handling and weird, wonky tire angles,sometimes deliberate and sometimes from accidents, were the norm. So much effort on the body interior panels!!!! Dunno if I'd go so far. Also, going by the foto, it looks like in that era they welded doors shut, for safety and added body strength. Earlier a hunk of chain served the purpose. As on most of the cars then and earlier body paint was deliberately kept simple and overspray onto frame, tires and interior was common. Also,brush painting was frequently done in some places. Damage every race day meant repainting after pounding out dents. To say it was simple, low budget racing is reflected in the basic look of the machines. Very cool work by you. All the best in the new year!