Bonneville Salt Flat Racers

[Weaver]

Okay, three of the four Testors Bonneville Salt Flat Racer kits arrived yesterday courtesy of the ebay fairy. These are re-pops of 1961 moulds, and they're "interesting" in all sorts of good and bad ways.

The Dinosaurs from the Land That Trading Standards Forgot. Note that the canopy shapes and top surface detail on the boxes bear scant relationship to the actual mouldings, and the drivers shown are not included:




They're a clever, if cynical, idea: you get four kits out of almost the same parts. These bits are common to all of them:



Note that the underside of the body and the inside faces of the wheels are hollow. These are only barely "models": they could almost be better described as "self-assembly toys".


These are the ONLY bits that are different for each kit (sorry for the crappy picture):



One central strip provides the car's "character", and provides a base for a canopy nicked from some aircraft kit.


A close-up of the canopies. Anyone care to guess what they're from? I think the back one is possibly a Dauntless, but I can't place the other two. The near one looks too big to be 1/72nd, unlike the other two:




Scale is an interesting point. They're allegedly 1/32nd scale, and while the bodies would seem to be about right, the canopies would not. The grey ape (apparently doing something unmentionable  ) in the picture below is allegedly 1/32nd scale, and his head flatly will NOT fit in the red car's (Dauntless?) canopy. The 'armless black dude is 1/48th and looks much more comfortable:





So there we have it: lots of whiff potential, but lots of work needed. I will NOT be doing anything with these immediately, so don't hold your breath, but my tentative ideas so far are:

Red One: Steampunked land-speed record car for the LSR GB. Beaten copper body with loads of panel lines and rivets and two smokestacks with filligree cones at the top a la Stephenson's Rocket.

Blue One: Flash Gordon-style space-fighter with engines hanging under the rear "wheel arches" and gun pods under the front ones.

Yellow One: Westland-Delanne-Burnelli jet fighter. Jet nozzle at rear (it's got a nose intake, remember), tandem wings and twin fins. Not sure what to do about the wheel arches.....

[puddingwrestler]

I've seen these before and was wondering about their potential...

You could make one into a speed boat! Or an Ekranoplan! Or a propellor driven sled... or a ROCKET SLED!
damn. Now I want a set...

[Daryl J.]

I'd just like to drive at the Salt Flats.   

Daryl J., without the cubic money needed for such a venture.


Neat project too.

[Weaver]

Forgot to say, they're dirt cheap too. I got all three for £5.00 (+ P&P) off ebay, and there are others on there for similar prices.

[sotoolslinger]

Neato I see flying subs