HO Scale Vintage Modified Die-Cast Conversion

[Vintage 1/24]

[sweet]

[sweet]

Here's one running

[slothead]

These conversions look great! Back in the 80's I had a 4 lane HO oval built to replicate Orange County Fair Speedway where I used to go almost every Saturday night. I built my own cars to replicate the top runners from the NY, NJ, & PA dirt tracks - but nothing as neat as these cars.

I moved up to 1/32 scale because it was easier to work in the larger size and now replicate dirt modified cars from then and now using bodies printed on thick glossy photo paper and folded like Vintage 1/24's asphalt modifieds. But I'm not as good as the NYModified.com stuff and if they ever start making big block dirt modified bodies I'll be buying some.

It's great fun racing the cars you love(d) watching. In fact I'm working on a Lou Lazzaro Teo Pro modified now to join my series to race against the likes of C.D. Coville, Peter Britten, and Gary Balough, among others.

[RichD]

Nice work! I recall that Ertl did a lot of the late '60s and early '70s cars that raced in the Northeast. It is good to know that some of the 1:1 cars still exist.

[sweet]

It's nice to see them unrestored. Restorations are nice. But you can't beat seeing the car the way it looked at its very last race.

[Vintage 1/24]

Sweet: I am new to the HO stuff. I don't know if I will change my name to "Vintage 1/64", but I was really impressed with some of the builds going on in this section, and your stuff in part inspired me to build "something".

RichD: Again, I am enjoying all the of the HO content you have put out there - but that museum pic was really really well placed! I post the #15, then the next post is the #3, and then you have both of the real cars in the same shot!

And there is an interesting twist here. One of the classic "what-ifs" heard around oval tracks everywhere is the question of car versus driver - What could my favorite driver do in the other guy's car, and what would the other driver do in my guy's car?

Not sure how many are aware, and I am never sure how "local" all of this is, but in 1971 there was an interesting twist.

In 1971, Bugs Stevens and his pal Fred DeSarro made headlines when they switched rides – Stevens went from blue #3 to the white #15, while DeSarro went from the #15 to the #3. Turns out it was not really a big deal, they each just kept on winning!

[RichD]

I believe that the switch happened while I was in the Army, so I never got the story on it. Last weekend there was a race at my house and I asked a fellow racer why they switched cars. He told me that Bugs Stevens wanted to go for the national championship one more time, but his car owner, Lenny Boehler, did not want to take the car out of the Northeast. 1969 was the last championship for the Bugs Stevens/#3 combination. Fred DeSarro won the 1970 championship in #3. Maybe Bugsey should have stuck with the #3. Sonny Koszela owned the #15 car.

[Coupes]

Fred Desarro won the 1970 NASCAR Modified Championship driving the #15. He also picked up some points driving Joe Brady's #41 Mustang. Fred and Bugsy switched rides in the spring of 71. It was the "shot heard around the world". As Rich D stated they both just kept winning. Fred lost his life in 78 due to an accident at Thompson Speedway. I was a big Desarro fan. A Bugsy fan as well.

[sweet]

[RichD]

So the switch actually happened after I stopped going to the races. I had gotten some information from the bookModified Stock Car Racing of the '60s and '70s by Steve Kennedy. The information there is in the captions for the pictures of the cars and the sequence of events was not clear.
Many of the HOCOC racers were short track racing fans back in '60s and '70s. We have a number of classes for cars of that sort and the guys like to model their HO cars after real 1:1 examples. I tend to favor using my own liveries, but I did so a number of Whelen and SK Modifieds that are tributes to the coupes that ran in the '60s.

[Vintage 1/24]

Have to share what some builders did with the die cast conversion kits...

HO SCALE VINTAGE MODIFIED FEATURE EVENT -



This group has put together ten (10) vintage modifieds so far, and they run them on an oval! The races are very close with the diecast Modifieds.

I really like seeing these replicas running in HO scale.

Ole' Blue, Evans, Jarzombek, the Woodchopper Special - "Modified Legends" that make for great subjects to race against each other!

[RichD]

What a field, the cars look great! HOCOC has two classes for cars of that vintage, the Jalopies which use a T-Jet chassis with the Hot Rod sized tires and wheels and the Coupes which can use a T-Jet or A/FX chassis. In both cases a person can replicate a 1:1 car or use a fantasy livery. We also have two classes for modern SK and Whelen modifieds, the same applies to the choice of paint schemes. Most of my cars do not replicate current ones, they are tributes to cars from the late '60s.

[TuscoTodd]

That is a GREAT looking field of vintage mods!

[model murdering]

Very nice!