'51 Chevy Bel Air - Peking To Paris Rally Car

[Mr.409]

While ago on Model Cars Magazine forum a Peking To Paris Rally Community Build was announced. As it's a rally for classic cars and some of the roads are pretty rough, the cars need all kinds of small modifications here and there. And my favorite part is that you can't install a modern engine or drivetrain in these cars. Here is a link to the MCM thread where you can see the rules for this contest Peking To Paris Rally CBP


My starting point for this is an old beat up AMT '51 Bel Air that I got in a trade a while ago. I was originally going to use this as a parts car for my other '51 Chevrolets, but I'm going to use it for this build off instead. The crash damage that some previous builder has done, will be partly fixed but I'm going to leave some dents and scratches here and there, so that this looks like a car that has gone through a few rallies in the past and it has suffered a light hit at some point.

So here's what I started with:





Taking the old builtup apart was actually a lot easier than I thought. And most of the parts came off as one piece, which is always a great bonus when working with these old "Glue Bombs".


And here is the body after paint stripping. All parts look pretty good after that operation, except for the body crash damage... But that's going to be part of the car's character anyway.



I decided to start building by making the roll cage. I found a pretty good main hoop from my parts box. It was exactly the correct height and it had to be narrowed only a little to fit in this body. However I had to do little modifications to the door panels to make some room for the main hoop.


Then I filled the hole with sheet styrene, and now the main hoop fits well on its place.


It fits pretty well to the body shapes as well.


Today I did some more tubings to the roll bar. I had some .080 plastic rod which is slightly thinner than the main hoop, but I decided not to loose my night sleep because of that. It's not done but it's a good start. I didn't see a rule that says you gotta have a backseat, so I left mine out. I'm going to make a full roll cage for this as it makes the body so much stronger.

[Mr.409]

The cage is done. Don't know what kind of roll cages rally cars usually have, but this is a bit of "simplified" version of 8.5 second roll cage that is seen on Drag Race cars. I think it'll do on this one, especially as the minimum requirement is only the main hoop and bars that go to the back.

I'm not completely happy on how the cage turned out, but luckily it's hidden for the most part inside of the car. The body shapes were a bit trickier on this one compared to the Fox Mustang where I built my latest cage before this one.

[volvo544special65]

I'm looking in the SBF rulebook and it seems like what's missing for a rally car according to their rules is just an X bracing inside the main hoop. It should be OK other than that.

[Mr.409]

Thanks! Then I am pretty close with the cage. I think I'll leave it like that, as it is much better than what the Peking To Paris minimum requirement is, and the speeds in this rally are much lower than on a modern day rally. Plus that I'm running low on the roll cage material.

Here is a start of the engine. The rules say that you can use any technology and aftermarket items that were available when the car was new, so in my case that is 1951. The engine is the basic Chevy Stovebolt that comes in this kit, with Bill Fisher's custom cylinder head that became available in late 1951. This is one of the early cast iron versions, Fisher moved to aluminum version of the same head in 1952, but obviously that would be one year too "new" for this car. Of course taking part to a Rally like this with pretty rare cylinder head is a bit of a risk, but while the engine isn't built with the every last horsepower in mind, I think it will survive.

All of the old paint came off very nicely from the engine parts. But there was pretty much glue used on all parts, and removing that was a lot of work. After lots of cleanup, the parts fit decent on place. I also stripped the chrome from that cylinder head and sprayed it with "Chrome Silver" from a spray can. Next I need to paint the starter and add some black washing to the engine to bring out some details.

[Mr.409]

Not a very special update, but minor progress at least. I fabricated those small "supports" or whatever they might be called to the seat. Now the driver and co-driver are not going to slide around on the seat while cornering. At least some of the old Stock Cars had these on their bench seats.



Also the engine got a bit of black wash. Next step will be working on the intake and exhaust area, and add spark plug wires...