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VW Beetle Gasser


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Next one started.? Memorial collection Beetle. This is a two way kit. Stock or Double A/Altered.

I've gone with the altered.Stretched pan with a 426 supercharged Hemi.Doors bonnet and boot all open and it's pretty well detailed as a '70's Gasser. Just going to wire the engine and should be good. Paint is Green metal flake.  I haven't clear coated it yet, but it pops like crazy in the sun!

Cheers, Daz.

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Great looking color for a drag car, and it looks like you've done a fine job spraying it.  :D

You may know this is a repop of a vintage IMC kit that dates from the mid 1960s. Item image 

 IMC did several highly detailed kits that have been re-released over time.

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Just a note on terminology..."altered" and "gasser" are drag-racing classes and are not interchangeable.

A true gasser was a US-based car, with the engine in essentially the normal location (10% setback was permitted at one point). Gassers originally had to run full 'street' equipment but gradually evolved into full-blown race cars.

The altered class, which this kit represents, allowed far more radical modifications, like this VW body on specially-constructed chassis with virtually any engine. Fiat Topolino bodies were common too, as well as other small European cars, and early American bodies like Bantams, Ford Ts, As, etc.

 

Edited by Ace-Garageguy
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A true gasser was a US-based car, with the engine in essentially the normal location (10% setback was permitted at one point). Gassers originally had to run full 'street' equipment but gradually evolved into full-blown race cars.

 

Gassers were usually but not exclusively American cars. There were quite a few British Anglia/Thames gassers. There were also some Volkswagen gassers, which had VW engines in the stock location and (basically) stock (-ish) VW frames. I think they ran in about I/Gas or one of the lower classes.

But yes, the frame/engine setup in the IMC VW kit is definitely an Altered deal, not a Gasser deal.

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Gassers were usually but not exclusively American cars. There were quite a few British Anglia/Thames gassers. There were also some Volkswagen gassers, which had VW engines in the stock location and (basically) stock (-ish) VW frames. I think they ran in about I/Gas or one of the lower classes.

OK. I should have said the true "typical early gassers" were US based cars. NHRA didn't allow the Anglias to run as gassers until '63 or so, and then only with an un-blown smallblock engine, owing to the car's extremely short wheelbase (though AHRA allowed big ol' blower motors and NHRA followed suit in '69).

The point is that the "gas" classes were always figured on a weight-to-displacement formula in a car that retained its original engine / drivetrain layout, engine swaps were allowed (in the original location) but kept real by the 10% setback rule, and complete body swaps were simply not permitted.

The fastest little Bugs did run H and I "gas" (classes that didn't even exist in the early gasser days) but retained the stock chassis and rear-engine configuration, as required by the general rules.

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If I recall correctly, George Montgomery's "Malco Gasser" Mustang of '67 was the first of the rebodies to run the gas classes, built on a much-modified Willys chassis under a somewhat vague and sometimes challenged interpretation of the then-current gasser rules that allowed late-model production unibody cars to be constructed to race using conventional frames. The car retained the original engine location and front-engine layout, as was still required, and was in fact very close to being a full-fledged funny car...but kept a nodding acquaintance with its street-driven class roots with a "passenger" seat and other little touches.

Image result for malco gasser mustang        Image result for malco gasser mustang

 

 

 

Edited by Ace-Garageguy
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Cheers guys. Don't really know much about drag regs. I'm determined to see this one through and make sure it doesn't end up on the ever growing started and stalled pile!

It's a cool little model, you seem to be doing a great job with it, and we're all looking forward to seeing it progress. :D 

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Cheers guys. Don't really know much about drag regs. I'm determined to see this one through and make sure it doesn't end up on the ever growing started and stalled pile!

Good deal. Nice to see this post get back on track lol.

I saw this kit listed on eBay a while back and found myself interested in it. Nice to see one getting built!

Best of luck!

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The EMPI Inch-Pincher amongst others was definitely a force to be reckoned with !

There was also a Modified Compact class in the 70's , IIRC , though I don't know whose class it was ( AHRA or NHRA ) , nor am I aware of what was permitted in that class . It does , how-ever , seem to sound like a spinoff of Modified Production .

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Very interesting non the least. I'm curious as to why you painted your body first, before building all the chassis components.??:blink:

That's how I build most of my kits - especialy if the chassis and by are going to be different colors, which they almost always are.

Don't know about anyone else, but it allows me to move forward with the build while the body + paint cure. I'm sure everyone has a way of aproaching things differently.

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That's how I build most of my kits - especialy if the chassis and by are going to be different colors, which they almost always are.

Don't know about anyone else, but it allows me to move forward with the build while the body + paint cure. I'm sure everyone has a way of aproaching things differently.

So far, I always paint the body first. I figure if the paint is not as good as I'd like, there's little point in wasting time on all the rest.

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