So after a lay off of more than 45 years I have finally attempted a scratch build once again. My local club has a class for Indy cars between 1950-1964 built on a standard Penelope Pitlane SM1m chassis with proscribed wheels and tyres.
In searching for a suitable body I came across the Ferrari Bardhal Experimental which came to Indy in 1955 and 1956. It was actually run by the Maserati brothers in 1956 for Nino Farina who was the 1950 F1 world champion.
Sadly the car failed to qualify in both years and I don't think Ferrari has been seen at Indianapolis since then. Hopefully my version will be a little more successful!
Building the car brought back some happy teenage memories but there is room for a lot of improvement of course, which hopefully will come with practice. The body came from Geodies and took quite a lot of fettling to get the chassis to fit,
but is now very snug and so I have used a single cross pin to secure it ...the tape is to stop it vibrating loose. The decals came from Indycals. Those of you with sharp eyes will notice that this Ferrari is apparently running on five cylinders! I just did not have enough room
behind the front wheel for the sixth exhaust using the wire supplied with the body due to the class restrictions on track width. Next time I may use smaller gauge wire if the same problem arises.
So far testing on my home track has been OK, but it does not like tight turns with its narrow track and thin tyres. Plainly this car is built for the large oval at the club so I am looking forward to running it in anger next week.
Mark
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In searching for a suitable body I came across the Ferrari Bardhal Experimental which came to Indy in 1955 and 1956. It was actually run by the Maserati brothers in 1956 for Nino Farina who was the 1950 F1 world champion.
Sadly the car failed to qualify in both years and I don't think Ferrari has been seen at Indianapolis since then. Hopefully my version will be a little more successful!
Building the car brought back some happy teenage memories but there is room for a lot of improvement of course, which hopefully will come with practice. The body came from Geodies and took quite a lot of fettling to get the chassis to fit,
but is now very snug and so I have used a single cross pin to secure it ...the tape is to stop it vibrating loose. The decals came from Indycals. Those of you with sharp eyes will notice that this Ferrari is apparently running on five cylinders! I just did not have enough room
behind the front wheel for the sixth exhaust using the wire supplied with the body due to the class restrictions on track width. Next time I may use smaller gauge wire if the same problem arises.
So far testing on my home track has been OK, but it does not like tight turns with its narrow track and thin tyres. Plainly this car is built for the large oval at the club so I am looking forward to running it in anger next week.
Mark
