drag contest entry....Flamin Frank Pedregon's Fiat

[PRIVATEER]

Here is my entry for the drag contest. Those of you that follow modern drag racing know who Cruz and Tony Pedregon are, but I am building their fathers car from the late 1960's. Frank campaigned a Fiat dragster that was very popular on the west coast. He was famous for smoking the tires for the entire quarter mile, and literally setting the rear slicks on fire!! There are different stories as to how this actually happened, but the way I hear it Frank had an extremely tight budget back then, so he soaked the slicks in diesel fuel as a make shift traction compound,and when the car ran the exhaust stacks lit the tires on fire. After becoming famous for his burning tires and eaning the nickname " Flamin' Frank" he actually ran a fuel line to each slick and turned the rearmost exhaust stack toward the tires. Heres are some pics for reference.








I am using the body from Reliable Resin, the frame will come from Revells 22 jr. kit, and a modified hemi from Monogram's Big John Willy's. Tires and various detail parts from my spares.

Heres a couple of shots of the body. You can see the castings are a tad rough, but thats ok.





I think this may qualify as the strangest car in this contest.

[Amazon]

Will the model include smoke (j/k)?

[white97ex]

very nice. i've been waiting to see this pop up!!

[tigeraid]

Wow, that's gonna be a helluv a project. Can't wait to see it!

[g00eY]

lol that's so cool!

[PRIVATEER]

Made some progress here. The resin casting was pretty rough. I got it cleaned up but it was 2 days worth of sanding and filling to get there.

This first pic shows the cars nose. It had more holes in it than a beehive. I filled the holes then sanded and revealed more holes .




This pic shows the inner fenders. They were casted to wide to fit the frame I'm using ( I'm using the frame recommended By the way), so I had to just glue them in and sand away the extra.




This pic show the assmbled body ready for primer and paint. The gold you see is whats left of a gold guide coat I painted the car in to show flaws. The interior has been airbrushed flat black.



Next time.......Bright orange paint

[white97ex]

lookin good. shame about the bad cast

[PRIVATEER]

Ok I got some work done.

This first pic shows the orange color. The paint has a couple rough spots so theres a little sanding and polishing in order. If you look close you can see Franks head sticking out the in the roll cage. the front and rear axes are just mocked up here.



These next pics show the engine with some wiring done. The engine is from Monogram's Big John Willys. I cut the transmission off and added the clutch housing from the 22 Jr. kit. I also removed the stock style water pump and added a front cover. The fuel pump is scratch built from styrene. The magneto is turned aluminum and is from Scale Modeling By Chris. I was very pleased with his products by the way. I am planning on using machined pulleys from Machined Aluminum Specialties as well as photo- etch wire wheels from them too.







This last pic shows how the "Frank" figure fits in the car. As you can see he is cast very rough and will need extensive clean up. I need to make him new hands as well.

[quadzero]

awesome. that engine is great, the mag looks so real and i like the colour of the blower. great subject and great work. cant wait to see more

[white97ex]

great work