1961 cooper Indy car.

[btaylor]

Inspiration comes from the darndest places sometimes. I won two Marx friction toy cars on Ebay for $6.00. Why did I even bid on them you ask? I saw potential that is not readily available in 1/24 scale. I went after the Cooper of the pair, to build a replica of the 1961 Cooper Indy car. This is a rather historic car, as it was the first rear engine car ever entered, and Jack Brabham drove it to a 9th place finish against the big motored cars of the time. Some say he could have placed better had he knew he would have to make a third pit stop for tires and fuel. he was babying the car to limit pit stops for a winning strategy Anyway, The following pics show what I have come up with so far. I need to print off the Kimberley decals to finish it up, and add one more coat of clear. I stripped this car of all its inner workings, and gutted the drivers pod to fit a new driver figure. (also an old Marx item) Removed 40 plus years of goo, and factory decals. I built a brass chassis to fit it, and added H&R wheels with $hotgun Daves rear urethanes. I made the artillery style wheels used on the cooper, by drilling holes in a set of steel wheel inserts out of an unknown model kit.I added some three bar knock offs from the parts bin, and the rest was pretty straight forward modeling. Its a fun little car, not overpowered, and runs quite well on the oval.


The other Marx car for comparison.


Hope you all enjoy this little car!

Bob

[waaytoomuchintothis]

Another winner from Bob, the building machine!

[glasshorsevh]

Bob,

This is way cool! A Cooper was the second car I wanted to have entered in the HRW 100th year Indy proxy last year, but I only had time to submit the Lotus 38 because of a lengthy hospital stay. The inclusion of the Jack Brabham Cooper would have meant that most of the ground breaking Indy cars had been represented by our small field. I don't do 1/24th scale, but I love your builds.

Val

[RV Racing]

You've captured the essence of scratchbuilding -- creating milestone cars in miniature that are otherwise unavailable! Well done.

Incidentally, Brabham's Cooper was the cover car on the May/June 2015 issue of Vintage Motorsport magazine, with several pages inside devoted to detail photography and the car's history. Back issues still available at https://shop.vintagemotorsport.com/coll ... ues?page=2

Cheers,
Rick V.

[munter]

Nice Cooper.
T60 judging from that hump over the engine.

[btaylor]