Dirt Track Rolls Royce
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Kits used:
Minicraft 11209  Rolls Royce Silver Cloud
Revell Snap 85-1909 Humvee
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Started: 18 August 2004
Finished: 13 September 2004
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It started with a project "Dare To Be Different". Excavating what I had, I found a good match: A Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud with a Humvee Chassis to make a dirt track racer.
Both were kits that could be sacrificed. The RR being a blunt one and the Humvee a snap kit.

18 August 2004:

This was the first visual check of how it could look. The wheelbases were almost the same but the RR body had to be widened by 10 mm.



I cut the body, hood and the boot of the RR in two.


Putting on the Hummer chassis, I marked where I should cut open the wheelarches.



20 August 2004:

After cutting out the wheelarches, I cut 10 mm wide strips of styrene and glued them all along, joining the two halves. I made a wider reinforcing strip under the body panels, so the glued straight lines would not be weak.



21 August 2004:

Naturally, enough putty followed.



22 August 2004:

The gas filler cap was traced as a "positive" line, so I traced it over into the body panel.



I had to scratchbuild a wider grille since it was impossible to play on the original. I cut styrene sheets and constructed the basic outline. Then I prepared the vertical bars and glued them in as the photo below. Then I painted it flat black so that after applying BMF and tracing the openings, the grille would be open-simulated.


26 August 2004:

I painted the body flat white to see imperfections. Also here is a mockup with the grille in place.



27 August 2004:

I prepared the floor pan. I had trimmed the chassis before, to fit the body and now I glued two pieces of styrene on the two sides of the middle tunnel and drilled the holes to fit the roll cage.



I constructed the roll cage in place, continuously checking the fit with the body.


28 August 2004:

I drilled the headlamp recesses and though not very clear in the photo, I glued a cup from a pill holder inside. The car won't have any headlamps.

29 August 2004:

The cluster below are the cardboard templates that I used for determining the exact height and shape of the dashboard with respect to the chassis. The dashboard will be held on the body while the roll cage is on the chassis; so a very good matching in assembly was necessary. The dashboard is seen in the lower part of the photo.


I bent a paper clip wire and prepared parts from styrene tubing. The tubing at the center would serve as a hinge for final fixing. That is, the dashboard will be free to pitch and take the final fitting angle during assembly of the chassis with the cage. An epoxy glue will cure in this position.



This is as the epoxy cured, everything fitting well in place.

30 August 2004:

I got a steering wheel from my parts box and glued a styrene tubing and fitted temporarily to check the proper angle.



I painted the dashboard black and cut out the gauges' plate from styrene.


I printed the gauges on the computer and glued on the back of the plate. I painted the plate aluminium and drilled holes for pins that would be warning lights and switches.


Here is the panel finished. I painted the heads of the pins with clear red. For the rocker switches, I cut the pin heads off with pliers and painted the tips black.




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