Super Modifieds @ Beech Ridge Speedway, Maine

[Maineboy]

Posting this for reference but also to as for ideas on what the body may have been built from. I will post more pics of cars from this track and era, just to put up some possible model building ideas.


Don't know car owner or driver.
bridge7 by Nathan Pitts, on Flickr

Nathan

[David Bogard]

I am not at all sure what the lower half is but the top might have come from a 1949-52 Chevy Fleetline. Another choice might be the 1946-48 Chevy Fleetline but since there were so many more of the later model years sold and they were about 3 inches narrower I would tend to go that way. Whatever it was, it was shortened considerably. All of this is just a guess on my part.

[Olderndirt]

 I'm gonna guess it was built from a Henry J body.

  Olderndirt

[David Bogard]

The top from the Henry J is a good call and it might be that.

[john2]

   Makes me wonder if he had to lean forward to drive it. 

[Maineboy]

Like david I thought of the Chevy Fleetline circa 1948. My parents had one and it's their first car I remember. I thought it was an oddball even as a little kid. The Henry J is also a great idea also. My friend and I raced our 56 Chev in Ellsworth, ME primarily. Did some at Cherryfield Park in Cherryfield and a small attempt at Speedway 95 in Bangor which was brand new then, between 1966 and 1969. There were modifieds raced at Ellsworth in addition to our bomber class. Early ones were jalopies with bigger motors and wheels and tires. Everyone I saw was handbuilt out of whatever, and looked it.

We would make the drive down to Beech Ridge several times a summer just to see those mods like above. They were scary fast for that time. I think these mods "evolved" over time. In the early years  in Maine custom chassis were banned. So all the mods had a frame that had been under an American car or truck. Could be modified but had to start with  something that had been under an American vehicle. I saw them built out of most anything you can imagine. The one thing many had in common was that they were very fast for the time. 301 Chevy motors were 90% or better. Small block fords made their way into it a bit. Those were fun times and great advances were made in racing over just  a few years.

Nathan

[Maineboy]

More Beech Ridge Cars from the mid to late 60's.

This one seems particularly weird due to long wheelbase and strange slant to the cowl. Racers would try most anyting to see if it worked better than the status quo.
bridge6 by Nathan Pitts, on Flickr

I think this one is pretty easy to see what it was built from.
bridge8 by Nathan Pitts, on Flickr

Pretty car. Is that a Buick motor?
bridge12 by Nathan Pitts, on Flickr

So what were they built from?

Many of these early mods had extensive work done to the body sheetmetal. Back then all we had for welders were the old stick electric welder and an acetylene torch. No MIG, no TIG. Sheet metal is definitely NOT easy to weld with the torch without it warping. Not an easy job to take several inches out of the center of a 37 Chevy coupe and weld the pieces together again. David B does some beautiful model work on this kind of alteration. But the original metal bodies are a lot heavier and harder to move around and hold in position. Those guys were magicians in many ways because of their ability to modify these cars beyond belief sometimes. There were tons of originality in most of these cars and, in this day and age of chassis and car builder specialists, many of the cars look the same. I lost my taste for NASCAR because you can't tell one car from another, plus it now is a big money corporate operation with the little guy having no chance to even get on the track. My heart is still with what it was several decades ago.

Nathan

[David Bogard]

Alright then, let's get to buildin!

[TarheelRick]

I am quite intrigued by the exhaust set-up on the #69 car.  Is it just an illusion or are the center ports stacked and is the rear port much higher than the rest? If by chance those pipes are correctly positioned, what brand of engine would that be?

[Maineboy]

I saw that too and wondered a bit. But I am sure it is a small block Chev, from the water pump, the valve cover and the engine mounting points. I think the camera angle confuses it a bit. I think those pipes bend down to line up with the ports and we can't see that because of the angle. I do have to admit that I never saw a set of headers built that way, but these may very well have been homemade as most everything else was back then. 90% of the mods of this era that I saw ran small block Chevy motors of the 301  variety, with 327's later once they raised the limit.  Anything else was rare indeed. The motor in that #20 car looks a bit like a nailhead Buick to me at first glance. Rare in this racing indeed if it was a Buick.


......"So lets get building".......

YES! 
I just put my 57 Ford 300 post sedan project onto the back burner so I can get working on my 56 chevy bomber project.

http://www.shorttrackmodels.com/index.php?topic=1881.0


And am hoping to try and build a reasonable facsimile of that yellow and black Mod shown in this first post. Just got the tires and wheels for that from Larry at Big Donkey. Also just got the coupe body. Will be an adventure involving narrowing the body like David Bogard does so well. Plus I have given myself all kinds of ideas for projects with these pics I posted. Hope maybe somebody else may get inspired too.


Nathan