RW Slot car build

[PR19_Kit]

A long time ago, in 1969 to be precise, British Leyland had entered a hefty team in the 1970 Daily Mirror World Cup Rally, which started in London and finished in Mexico City after travelling through most of Europe, then going by ship to Argentina and going the rest of the way up South America to Mexico! Just a short jaunt, you'd have thought.....

Amongst the BL team were four Austin Maxis, only just announced on the UK market in early 1969, and the idea was to promote the sales of the car as a handy but strong family bolide.

Sadly it wasn't, strong that is, and BL Special Tuning in Abingdon asked us at Pressed Steel R&D how they could make the Maxi stronger. Like all estate type cars, and the Maxi was a very early version of hatchback styling, there's no bulkhead across the rear of the car to give it torsional strength, so we took a standard Maxi shell off the line and tried a few things. Only one idea really worked and that was to weld up the upper half of the hatchback and to cut the bottom half off and hinge it as a conventional boot.

As it happened I did the actual welding on that car, not that I'm all that good a gas welder, it's just that I was the bloke doing the testing. The guys at ST liked the results we gave them and asked if we could do three more shells, two of which they provided and one we took off the line. Needless to say, as the world's most experienced Maxi tailgate welder, I got the job to do them as well! 

One of the cars was XMO412H, which had been used a recce car by the team, and we took the tailgate off, cut it in half, and I welded the top half back into the shell while the other guys turned the bottom half into a bootlid. I can't remember the other two car's reggies but I think they were both XMOs as well.

Soon after that I left Pressed Steel and went to work at BR, where I bored them all silly when reports of the Rally came in next year, saying 'I welded up the tailgates of three of those Maxis you know!' and have continued to do so ever since of course. 

As luck would have it XMO412H was driven in the rally by none other than Prince Micheal of Kent (who I met many years later when he presented a MONSTER Trophy to my youngest daughter. Did you know she was the RAF's Best Air ......... Oh, you do, OK) and a couple of his Army colleagues. Sadly, like most of the other Maxis, their car didn't make it all the way to Mexico City, succumbing to gearbox failure in Argentina, but the car itself not only survived but still exists and it's in the British Motor Museum at Gaydon.

I've always wanted to build a model of it, and I've had an Airfix Maxi kit earmarked for some decades now (it's a remarkably complete kit, full interior, and with engine and suspension detail too!) and two weeks ago my local slot racing club decided to go ahead with their Summer Stages Slot Rally event, which had been postponed from 2020 of course. The Hon. Sec. asked me if I'd like to enter and I wasn't too fussed as the only Slot Rally car I've got is a Mk II Escort, which is nicely weathered but usually ends up 20th out of a field of 19............(more likely to due to my driving of course)

But then I thought of the Maxi, and figured it was about time I built it, and I had a month and a day to do it in. GULP! 

So I set to. I had a convenient chassis to hand, that turned out to be too long for the Maxi, so I bought another, shorter one, and had that assembled quite quickly, but not track tested as yet.




Then I got to work on the body, which went together nicely and quickly, taking all of 30 mins from start to finish! Research into the colour scheme used on XMO was pretty easy, it was White with a Matt Black bonnet, but the car was COVERED in sponsor decals!




While some of them were easy to work out, and I had a few pics of the car as it is now at Gaydon, some were almost impossible to determine as all of the pics of the car on the event were in black and white! Luckily I found a wonderful half hour colour film of the event on YouTube which gave me most of the answers so I was able to draw up a massive decal sheet containing 95% of the decals. The others were on the roof and there was no way I could ever find out what they were sadly.

I scratched up the extra lighting brackets and stuff that they welded onto the body, and PSR'd my welding round the upper tailgate  , and so far it's got to here.



So tonight it'll be decal time, which could take a while......

Oh yes, my welding must have been pretty good as here's Prince Micheal admiring it all.



Well, I suppose he could have been cleaning the rear window as well, but............ 

[PR19_Kit]

I've got all 44 decals on the car now. 



And yes, it's meant to be different on each side.

It took two evenings as my eyes just wore out looking at the teeny weeny things. It's got to be right as I had it inspected by the Scale Reference Cat. 

[zenrat]

Gearbox failure.,,

My Dad got through two or three gearboxes on his Maxi and that was just driving to work and back with the occasional summer holiday trip.

Looks good Kit.

[PR19_Kit]

Did your Dad have the Mk 1's cable shift box or the Mk 2's rod shift box Fred?

The Mk 2 was a bit better, but it was still the same gearbox.

[zenrat]

Don't know.  I was young then.  All I remember was a 1750 in a very dark green with dark green vinyl upholstery.

[PR19_Kit]

A Mk 2 then. The 1750 engine didn't come in till the update.

The 1750 was the engine they built for the 4 door Maxi GT, but decided to DE-tune it for the Mk 2s! I drove one of the GTs and it was a ROCKET, for its time anyway, even though it was as ugly as sin!

[Rheged]

I've only ever once driven a Maxi.............and I didn't like the experience at all!!   My disdain for the vehicle might be coloured by the state of it.  A fellow teacher damaged their hand in a bad fall at school and I volunteered to drive them home in their own car, with another colleague following to take me back to collect my own car from the staff car park.

I was warned by the Maxi owner that "The seat is a little rocky"   I discovered this to mean that the seat recline mechanism could fail at any time and the seat back assume a horizontal position;  any attempt to move the seat base backwards  meant that the securing mechanism was no longer reliable and would shoot backwards without notice............   and  the seat back was almost totally without padding. 

Despite the problems, I managed to get her home and park the car in her drive.    A few weeks later, she replaced it with a DAF 55  with variomatic drive that could in theory travel backwards as fast as it went forwards.................and often did.  Watching her park this device in the staff car park was vastly amusing for all those watching from the staffroom window, except those whose cars were close to her chosen space.

[PR19_Kit]

I've only been lurking here for the past few weeks as I'm still deep in building this slot racer for a Rally Stage event that's NEXT Sunday. 
I should manage it however ​as the body is pretty well done now, just the interior to tidy and up glue in place, and then I have to add all the extra lights! LOTS of them plus that crazy roo bar on the grille.

The chassis is finished and runs a treat, very smooth and the fastest rally chassis that I've ever built amazingly. 



Compare with the pics of the real thing posted above. 


After checking out the box of bits left over, I realised that there's enough there to build one of those exhibits you used to see at Motor Shows years ago. Those were the ones where the manufacturers had maybe sawn the car down the middle, or left off the body panels on one side so you could see  how it was built.

In this case of course there IS no body as it'll be racing, but everything else is there. The Airfix Maxi kit is incredibly well detailed for a 1/32 scale kit, believe me, I worked on the real thing! So I decided to build my own 'Motor Show Whiff', as I'm pretty sure BL never actually did what I'm doing to this kit!

Here's the underframe and the E-Series engine as far as I've got, but a long way to go, and LOTS of painting to do yet.

[Freightdog862]

Impressive stuff Kit, I didn't have you down as a slot car type of guy? I enjoyed them as a child, and bought my son a set about 10 years ago but his interest didn't last. During the first lock down we set it up again on the living room floor where I briefly relived my youth, then all the children lost interest even quicker than before and it went back in the box and under the bed.

I still have a Scalextric Escort Mk.I that remarkably survived from my childhood, and its also the slowest of the bunch.

Colin     

[Pellson]

...A few weeks later, she replaced it with a DAF 55  with variomatic drive that could in theory travel backwards as fast as it went forwards.................and often did.  Watching her park this device in the staff car park was vastly amusing for all those watching from the staffroom window, except those whose cars were close to her chosen space.

You are aware that there's a racing series in the Netherlands where the requirement is to go backwards round the circuit? Hilarious to watch. 

[PR19_Kit]

Colin I'll have you know I was the Area 5 Saloon Car Champion driver in 1964 or so! I MAY have had an advantage as my 'saloon' had 55 seats or more, and two steering front wheels and a SOCKING great motor, because I could.  Plus I could nerf anyone off the track who was stupid enopugh to be in a lane outside me..............

The rules defining a 'saloon' in those days said '...more than 4 seats...'. Well a Duple coach DOES have more than four seats.  Just after that they revised the rules so they said '...between 4 and 7 seats....' the ratbags!

I still have my 'Kit's Koach' and it still runs too, but is WELL outclassed now of course.

[McColm]

I'm sure that I saw the Maxi at the British Leyland museum when it was at Syon Park Hounslow before they moved.
My stepfather and I would visit it whilst my mum and my sisters walked around the garden centre. I can't remember taking any photos or if we were allowed to take any photos whilst inside.
Great build 

[Rheged]

The rules defining a 'saloon' in those days said '...more than 4 seats...'. Well a Duple coach DOES have more than four seats.  Just after that they revised the rules so they said '...between 4 and 7 seats....' the ratbags!

Bodywork like this simply fulfils  your requirement  for a "longer fuselage".

  In the RW touring car championships some time ago, I seem to recall Volvo entering their ESTATE model.   There were cracks about "It's touring car, not towing car"  but as I recall, they performed rather well!

[Pellson]

..In the RW touring car championships some time ago, I seem to recall Volvo entering their ESTATE model.   There were cracks about "It's touring car, not towing car"  but as I recall, they performed rather well!

Yup, they did. Great publicity stunt. But already the following year, they switched to the sedan/saloon version, due to improved body rigidity. And that year, they won the BTCC series, if I remember correctly. 

[zenrat]

Could you fit three minis in the back?
I now have the "self preservation society" song installed on my cerebral jukebox you fiend.