Classic Racing Resins 1/24 1962 Mickey Thompson Special

 In 1962, Mickey Thompson entered three John Crosthwaite -designed cars in the Indianapolis 500. They used a stock V8 Buick engine, and it was in the rear unlike the front-engined, race-tuned, Offenhauser- powered cars used by most competitors. It was the first stock engine to be raced at Indy since 1946. Thompson's crew, led by Fritz Voigt, was young, smart, and hard working. Working 12- to 14-hour days, the car was designed and built in 120 days. For the race, the engine (enlarged to 4.2-L capacity, the maximum allowed by the regulations for "stock block" engines) had to be detuned because they were concerned it would not last the distance. Despite being more than 70bhp down on the other cars, Dan Gurney qualified eighth and was in ninth place until a leaking oil seal seized the gearbox and ended his race on lap 94. He was placed 20th out of 33.

First up I want to say that most of my builds are not mainstream・kits. Most are OOP and difficult to obtain. I do the articles so if you do want to search the kit out, you will know what to expect. This kit comes and goes at CRR and if you email Calvin, he will let you know when it will be in stock again.
The kit is what's referred to as a trans kit・in that it normally transforms a donor kit into something different. However, there is no donor kit that will work with it, so you will need to scratch build most of the drivetrain. In this case you get the body, wheels/tires, engine/chassis, intakes, exhaust and windscreen.

The first thing to do is decide if you want to do a full chassis or just add suspension to the kit parts. I chose to scratchbuild a complete chassis.
A friend of mine sent me a diagram of the chassis and it was built using 1/16 round and square strip. I had to grind out the inside of the body to make the chassis fit. Even then, I had to modify the chassis to clear the inside of the nose. I used 1/8 square for the front and rear bulkheads as they carry the suspension mounting points.
I cut apart the kit chassis and separated the seat, center mount and engine. I used 1/8 brass tube for the intakes.

The suspension was made using the diagram as a layout for the front and rear arms. They were built with various round and square strip. I used the uprights from the AMC Lotus kit. They were then drilled so I could use rod to pin them to the frame. When complete, the frame was boxed in and seat, center mount and engine were fitted in the frame.
Wire was used for the track bars, tie rod and exhaust braces.

The body was used basically out of the box. I did, however, need to grind away some areas as I went along. As I test fit the frame and such, I found that it hit, rubbed or just didn稚 clear certain areas. I needed to open the intake holes and removed resin from the rear of the body. I again used parts from the Lotus kit for the mirrors and center nuts for the wheels.

Painting was fairly straight forward. Testors Nassau Blue for the body and Chrome
Yellow for the frame. I'm not sure if these colors are still available from Testors but I know other companies make them.
Decals are from Indycals and include the white area on the nose. They are thin but I had no trouble with them.

This is not a kit for everyone. It requires a lot of careful scratchbuilding. I think anyone who is use to scratchbuilding should have no trouble with it.

The internet and various friends.

Mark Hiott

15 September 2025