1966 Ford Galaxie #27 Abingdon Motor Co Nascar

The original car driven by Cale Yarborough in a black and white picture. I couldn't find any pictures of the original car at all when I started the project, but when it was almost finished my friend Niclas Lindblom came along with a swedish year book of motorracing from the old days and there he had found a picture. Unfortunatly the picture appeared after I had decaled the body and all so I have some minor errors in the positioning. That the wheels should be white and not black as I had originally done them on this one I could fix before finishing it.

The decals that are out of production where actually given to me by a very friendly sole called Thomas Mooty that saw my distress call for them at Randy's Nascar modeling forum. Thanks Thomas!

Also for color I had to guess somewhat. The only pictures I could find in color was some built models. I came over this #27 1966 Ford Fairline picture recently I hope they painted the Galaxie the same red, it's rather close to the red I used.

The kit is originally a road version with lots of molded in chrome trim that has to be sanded of to make it a Nascar.

The kit does have a roll cage but I never used that, too heavy for racing. The wheels however I used and made inserts of. See the separate storyn on that at this site. "How to make inserts" is the title.

The lamps on the front is supposed to be covered up and there are covers included in the kit but they where so clumsy so I didn't use them.

Instead I made my own from sheet styrene that I sanded to the correct fit.

Much thinner in the profile and more correct look.

The front gave me problems since it was so week so I glued some sheet styrene in and filled the empty space up to the grille with foam.


Also the bumpers gave me problems, they where too wide and would be sticking out and that in a race would give that other cars would hook up into them and rip them off. So I had to de-chrome them, sand them down lenghtwise, round the corners and fill the gap with styrene so I could get a close fit to the body.



The rear bumper also gave me problems, there was nothing to glue it to so I had to build something out of sheet styrene.

I sprayed the bumpers with Alclad IIs chrome paint. Looked really nice but never really dried and was so sensitive so some rubbing with the finger took the paint off. I had to de-paint them and try something else. I finally stuck with Tamiya Alcrylic chrome, it dried nicely and was rather unsensitive to mechanical rubbing as the car will get when racing. It doesn't have the same shine dough.

Test with the body to the chassi. The grille de-painted. The body is painted by Peter Bjurman who is a professional car painter and uses real car paint. The decaling and detail painting is made by me.

Here you can see the slotracing chassis. I kept the wipers since it just was to much work removing them on this kit, but I painted them black to camoflage them as much as possible.

Next step is to glue the body brackets to the chassi. Our racing rules says that you must have at least 5 mm between the bodys underside and the track, that is not prototypically correct (to low), but gives a quite okey look and still useful handling (we want the body to sit as low as possible for handling but that makes these cars look like total lowriders so 5 mm is the trade off we choose).

Through the window you can see the aluminium bracket that holds the body.

Glueing windows. The glue we use is called "LiquiSole" and is very rubber like which make a flexible connection which is good in crashes since the windows don't pop out or crack so easily.

The downside is that it takes 24 hours to cure so you only glue one item per day and it is rather messy to work with so you have to work slow and use a small screwdriver to attach the glue.

The rear window holding strips are a piece of tape.

The interior is made from a Lexan piece that is a simplified interior made for slotracing builders by Q-model. I took the original dash from the kit and mounted in for better look.

Test fit of the interior.

The roll cage is made from styrene tubing bend with soldering wire inside that is removed afterwards, we don't want that weight up there...

The driver comes from Q-model. The belt comes from a piece black tape with some silver paint for the looking like the release buckle.

The ready interior waiting to mate the body. The racing rules says that a simplified interior is ok so this is the compromise I choose (although a complete model correct interior would have been nice, but to heavy for good handling). I think this compromise looks quite okey but is still light, just under 10 grams for the whole painted complete interior (yes, of course the driver is hollowed out :-)

Glueing of the front bumper. I needed something that could press it down a little so this rather risky balance act was put together.

Pictures of the interior mounted in the body.

The body glued to the chassi - we are ready for the track!

Posing on a diorama plate.

On the track!

Racing! The #27 is an AMT 1966 Galaxie model kit with out of print JNJ decals. It stands on a Schöler chassi and the #55 is an AMT 1964 kit with Yesterday decals, it stands on a Plafit Chassi.