Tall T Modified

[Lefturns75]

During the 67 season here, I was a fan of a Joplin Mo. driver and his T.  Some years ago I was able to sit down with him and ask lots of questions about this car and he loaned me a stack of photos to build this scale model of his ride.  I dirtied this one up because I never remember seeing it clean.  If there was only one mud hole at the track, he drove through it.  This car was built on the stock T chassis with some extra tube and plate added to help take out the flex.  I was shocked to learn the roll cage was made from old drive shafts.  He told me he got a pickup load of them really cheap and figured they would make good cage material.  He built two cars with them.  The engine was a 413 Chrysler and was pretty much stock.  He made the headers and the radiator was from a Jeep. He said the most expensive parts were the corvette disc brakes.  He told me the car drove ok but at times in the middle of the straight it would take off for the fence or the infield.  You had to be on your toes so you could catch it.  The car ran two and a half seasons before it met its end at Ozark Speedway in Joplin.  I asked him if he knew of its whereabouts and he told me the crusher ate it.  I found out after I finished the build the original color was "Big Bad Green" which is much lighter than what I used.  The car was always so dirty it looked much darker than it was.  The original driver inspected this one after I completed it and he approved it.  He said there were a few things inaccurate but you couldn't see them anyway. He came up with the number because everyone told him it looked like 1/2 of a car when it was finished.     

[Lefturns75]

To be honest, I always thought the car was rather unsafe---read that as deathtrap.  And yes, when it went, it went quick but when it wanted to be ornery, it was.  This guy was one of those types that could make something from nothing.  The car built right after the T was built using the last of the drive shaft pile.  It was a mustang body over a 1934 ford chassis with a 61 or 62 Valiant front section.  The interior was done up with corrugated sheet like you find on your barn.  Center steering using a ford tractor steering box-------the 9N-2N style with the arms on both sides.  The steering worked just like it did on the tractor.  He used 302 power and was track champ at my local track twice.  I think the photo is from around 1970.  Late model rules were still a little lax then.  He ran this car thru the 1973 season.  I am glad I wrote all this stuff down, he is no longer with us and I can't ask the questions. 

[sentsat71]

Wow!! that is a different build! Like it!!
Great job on it!!

Love the stories as well.!

[Bill in MA]

Now there's something you don't see every day.  Very cool! 

[Gary Davis]

Man...I'm amazed at some of the ingenuity that racecar builders have. Use what you have and if you don't have it...make it out of what you have. Then...if that don't work...go find it! That T is really different. I really would've liked to see it run. I'll bet it was a handfull. That Mustang really looks cool. There's some great history here. Thanks for posting it LT75

[Olderndirt]

If you think about it, this car has some real advantages. GIANT windows, because many tracks had a limit to how much you could hog them out. Small, light, narrow, body, that was almost perfect for the job. And they were not all that easy to come by, so you didn't have to worry about a bunch of them competing with you. And then there is the engine setback, holy smoke this thing must have been pure evil.

  Olderndirt

[Olderndirt]

I'm assuming this was stage one of your experimenting with weathering. This thing looks like it was tailgating a manure spreader. I love the rest of the build. It could be the example of why they limited engine setback. Definitely not one of those" oh I've seen that before" builds. I wish the wheels were a different color, that shows their detail a little better.

  Olderndirt

[Lefturns75]

Older, this car raced on red clay tracks here and that stuff would clod up and splat all over the cars.  When it dried it took on a red-brown color.  All the photos I had loaned to me of this car and what I remembered is just as it is---muddy and dirty.  I could have painted the wheels a different color, I could have done the dirt different, I could have done a lot of things but I did this one like the photos.  Some others in the past have questioned the mud but they were not here.  I build gloo-bombs, don't expect a best of show winner because I don't build those. 

[Olderndirt]

 We are on the same page when it comes to glue bombs. I live in a county that has no hobby shop. The nearest hobby shop is 65 miles away. That makes it a 130 mile round trip, which means it don't happen very often. So I haunt thrift stores, and yard sales, for glue bombs. I get some kind of perverse pleasure from pulling an old substandard build apart, soaking the paint off, and hacking it up for a jalopy, or early modified, short tracker. Oh, and I love oddball engines, but I guess you already knew that. My current project is a '39 Chevy coupe reworked to look like a Buick, with a 320 cu. in. Straight eight for power.

  Olderndirt

[oldvter2]

great story & GREAT build!!!