Doug Kalitta decals or any other that are not slixx?

[gbdolfans]

Hi everyone, I have a sealed Budweiser Top fueler. I would like to build a fueler other than Kennys.

Anyone know of anyone making these?

Thanks, George

[gbdolfans]

Hi, any help from anyone?? Are there any Top fuel decals out there?

Slixx only has a couple.

George

[iBorg]

Good luck. There have been a few others but they're long obsolete. I'd love to find a Snake final strike but I put that in the not likely catagory.

 

[robdebie]

I don't think there are top fuel dragster aftermarket decals apart from the Slixx ones. I started redrawing the decal sheet of the Revell Joe Amato 1990 dragster, since they were badly yellowed, and did not look good. Here's a paper print of that, folded around the chassis. I found another kit since then, that has much better decals, so the redrawing sort of stopped. I would have had them custom printed. And I still might do so.

Rob

[Beans]

I've done the same at Rob and printed some out on cardstock then clear coated them with nail polish topcoat.  They looked OK but I feel your pain on trying to find some.  Sometimes google will get you an image of a livery or work from.

 

[robdebie]

3 hours ago, Beans said:

I've done the same at Rob and printed some out on cardstock then clear coated them with nail polish topcoat.  They looked OK but I feel your pain on trying to find some.  Sometimes google will get you an image of a livery or work from.

Joe, great work! I was planning to have my redrawn decals custom printed as real decals, and work in the conventional way. Except that I think I see that the kit body is too fat, and I want to make a smaller one in plastic card. I also should note that redrawing the decals in vector graphics is a ton of work, I probably spent 10-15 hours so far. But you do learn more about all the parts suppliers ?

In my first post I also forgot to mention that I have a list of Slixx top fuel decals on my webpage about building the Amato car.

Rob

[Force]

I don't know of any source for Doug Kalitta decals.
One problem with this is that Revell started doing the "modern era" Top Fuel kits at a time when the evolution of the Nitro cars was very steep, and they stopped issuing Top Fuel dragsters in the early 2000's, so nothing new after that has been done, they also got competition from the Die Cast market who started to do die cast models and sell many of the popular drivers cars and many of the larger teams licensed the rights exclusively to them.
The Revell kits are updated some over the 12-15 years they were offered but never enough to be up to date for the versions they issued except for the first kits wich were pretty accurate when they came, if they had done all necessary updates when they did the last issues wich were the Kenny Bernstein Budweiser King and Tony Schumacher ARMY dragsters issued in 2002 the kits would have been pretty much up to date even today as not much has been altered on these cars since then...maybe the DSR canopy for some and a few other small things but most things still looks pretty much the same as back in 2002.
Same goes for the Funny Car kits, they were updated some over the years they were out but never enough, but if they had at least the chassis would be up to date even now, not the bodies as they have change a lot.
So building an accurate 2023 TF Champion Doug Kalitta dragster would need a lot of work updating it to todays standard...except for the decals wich I don't think are available.
Some of the parts needed to update the TF kits are available as 3D prints but you have to do a search for things like engine parts, wheels, front and rear wings and other stuff from several different sources as some are out there, and they are not cheap.
I think that if Revell would do an up to date TF kit now based on the kits from 2002 it would sell, they have to change some parts to do a correct one but do it as a generic kit and decals for these kits might come from the aftermarket.