Gregg Kishline's Journal - Scaled Builds

No paint scallops for this one - I chose the graphics pkg used in the 1950's advertising for these cars. Period ad attached.

Doug Caruthers fathered the quarter-midget sport on the west coast in the early 1950's. I built the car in part as a tribute to Doug and his
life-long contributions to racing. He had three sons - one survives, Roy.

Roy graciously signed the cockpit at a vintage event in Winchester, Indiana, earlier this summer. We then cleared the body, just prior to the lettering work and preserving the signature.

Eastern seaboard, you can say Carl Schiller was the grandfather of 1/4 midgets. Out on Long Island he authored his own Offyette brand, with hundreds built and sold. (His unique 1/4 midget cars were monocoque fiberglass tubs [on a 51" w.b.], to which he bolted independent springing, rack and pinion steering, juice brakes, and a clutched driveline. Survivors remain highly collectible. Well into my 70's, I finally acquired one last year.)

Independently and on the west coast, Doug Caruthers hand-crafted scaled cars for his grade-school sons, starting in 1953 with a track roadster. Caruthers' efforts predated Art Ingels' prototype go-kart (late 1956). Doug's chassis design was rear-engine, channel frame with a weightless, drop-on fiberglass body. A conventional upright 1/4 midget followed, with his last offering presented in 1959 as an offset Indy roadster on a short 45" wheelbase. Incidentally, Art Ingels was a Kurtis Kraft employee who fabricated Indy cars, midgets, and 1/4 midgets for Frank Kurtis. Ingels stripped away the suspensions, bumpers, and bodies and the result was the start of the sport of karting.

All of the builders mentioned here deserve credit for creating a new medium of motorsport, just as cycle-karting has done.

I have restored examples of each builder, with the exception of an original, unrestored Offyette, which, at 60+ yrs old, is just too nice and too 'as-raced' to molest, now. My compass stops at 'It's only original once'.

Back to the missing link in my ''collection' - meaning, no Caruthers product. My fondness for roadsters was cemented with trips accompanying my Dad to Indy Qualifying weekend in the 50's and early 1960s. So, the Viking Craft roadster has always been on my radar.

In June of 2021, I recognized a Caruthers roadster body, laying in state among piles of racing 'junk', having been murdered somewhere, obviously on behalf of its growing driver, eons ago.

Long story short, I bought three pcs of Viking Craft fiberglass roadster body. Ripped, torn, crashed, cracked, and with its front valance and windshield flare both amputated ... does not describe how badly it was treated. There was no metal included in my find. Body restoration commenced, followed by a re-creation of the belly pan. Then, with only a few historical photos for reference, I cloned a chassis and bars that could pass as reasonable replicas, including the parallel T-bar front suspension. I was fortunate to find period-correct wheels and rubber. Paint awaits. Costs for automotive refinishing materials have sky-rocketed, so I'll experiment with cheap farm implement enamel, sprayed. Compatible reducer and hardener can be purchased under the same roof as paint - all-up paint cost should stay under $100. Kubota orange it will be.

This car is one of four that have been gestating for a decade or so. I'm one of several guys who have tried to bring them to fruition. One builder (Denny Jamison, HammerArt in Indianapolis) has completed one car. This model is approaching completion, built in half size and intended for static display.

Engine is a dummy 255 Offy, built with the liberal use of stainless, polyester resin, and modeling urethane. The Halibrands and Firestones were molded in fiberglass from hand-made molds (which were in turn made from hand-made master plugs). Front tires are 15.75" in diameter, rears are 17". Tire profiles were swiped from lots of photo study.

Frame is a very close Watson copy built from good drawings. Suspension works, altho the T-bars do not - springing comes from small coils inside the 6 blue Monroe shocks.

Steering gear is a 10:1 auger drive liberated from a snowblower - it's sloppy but it works. Hood, cowl, windshield flare, side panels, and belly pans are aluminum. Nose and tail are fiberglass. Car goes to the upholsterer, next. Maybe a couple of car shows. Eye candy, pure and simple.


5/23/2021

Paint, plating, upholstery, and graphics are complete. I chose this year for this car because: 1) I have a reasonably accurate 1:18 Carousel model of the 1962 version, for reference, and 2) I watched Parnelli break 150 mph in 1962 Qualifying at the Speedway, as a kid.
Long build - broke my spirit more than once. One of these is enuf.

I seem to be stuck in scaled cars - 1/4 and 1/2 midgets, karts (long ago), one-offs ....
An open-wheel midget friend introduced me to cyclekarts. If I had time, I'd build one. I'm lucky to complete a car in 10 months, got four of them backed up right now, so....

Anyhow, I save the build photos. Here's a car that was inspired by a second, long look at the 'Birdcage' Maserati Tipo 61 chassis. Scaled cars don't allow the luxury of volume, meaning they're usually exo-skeletons with skin - because the human body doesn't shrink.

I acquired an NOS Moss 1/2 midget body and decided to apply the spaceframe concept to the Moss built, rather than a slavish reproduction of the factory channel frame. The Moss wheelbase is about 51".

Forty years ago, we built a spaceframe kart out of cheap conduit tubing that was light and took enormous abuse - finally cut it up 5 years ago, saving the important bits. This Moss chassis reflects that kart build, as well. The chassis hugs the inside of the body, to allow maximum use of the volume available, for the driver and driveline. Lots of triangles, all with short legs. And a deep footwell.

Front suspension is independent / rocker-arm, using cheap coilovers - supplemental springing was required. I'm 6', 220# and it fits me. A cyclekart is bigger yet, easier to solve the engineering problems.

Rear suspension is two fixed pillow-blocks.

Hopefully, I can attach photos, or this was a wasted exercise.

First-time user here ... I build, restore, and in another lifetime raced open-wheel cars. Retired to the garage.

I know vintage quarter midgets pretty well. A 60-yr-old scaled fiberglass body showed up for repairs - never saw this one before. About the same size as a quarter-midget, measures a 48" wheelbase. It's a full-body (with a removable decklid for engine access), dropped onto a purpose-built chassis. The dating of the car precedes go-karts, so it is by no means a 'yard-car'. It was sold for kid use.

The more time spent with the body, the more it appealed to me ... excellent proportions, the balanced lines of a French Curve, reminiscent of the Jag C and D-types designed by Malcom Sayer, who knew a thing or two about aerodynamics.

Long story short, I asked the owner for permission to copy the body, knowing little or nothing about it. (Found out later that the inspiration for the car was the Ferrari Monza bodied for Enzo in 1955 by Sergio Scaglietti, who followed up with the incredible Testarossa two years later ... two inconic cars, hard to tell them apart.)

Rather than do a slavish copy of the dated Connetti chassis, I built my own using kart technology and materials of 1960. A cockpit insert seemed like a good idea to close off and upholster the interior. A cockpit surround (floor included) was created as a wet fiberglass lay-up, directly on the tube chassis.

One advertisement surfaced for the car - 1958 Car Craft magazine. The commercial version was utterly lacking the signature details of Scaglietti's design, so I added some but not all - using reference photos of original and restored Ferraris:

> hood scoop
> headlight cutouts
> elimination of the decklid seam
> instrument cluster /speedo / key
> full-width windscreen
> fender brake vents aft of the front wheel openings
> an aluminum eggcrate grill and bezel
> upholstery that mimics the production car
> a hard tonneau cover (removable), placed over the passenger seat
> 3-spoke, period correct, leather-covered, removable steering wheel

And I stretched the cockpit 2" in the door area, upping the wheelbase to 50".

The body attaches at eight points. A floating engine plate rides on the rear axle, fitted for a Continental 6:1, as used in competition quarter-midgets of the 1950's.

Wheels are 6-point Margay kart wheels (6" in diameter) of the period, with two different tire sizes mounted to provide a slight rake.

The body is finished in Ferrari red, naturally - 2 stage urethane. The temptation to slap big white roundels on the sides and nose was resisted, but many a restored Monza sports this racing graphic. Maybe, down the road ...

Okay, that's my story on this one. Mulling over a scaled '68 AMX in fiberglass on an accurately scaled body buck. These things take 8-10 months to wrap up, so it's no small decision.