prototyp Posted February 21, 2025 Posted February 21, 2025 (edited) The Battleship. I've had this alt-history concept in mind for some time: what if road racing was the big-time in America - say a series called the American Road Racing Championship existed rather than NASCAR - and what if we had a bit of an earlier start on all the Aerospace Space program tech, aero, materials, engineering and the result was a bunch of Group 5/GT3-ish silhouette endurance racers in the early 60's? Rules were relatively open, the cars had to keep "recognizable production designs" in place for the roofline, fender/shoulder lines, the key elements of the front and rear facias, and had to use an engine from somewhere in the brand's portfolio. Loopholes were found of course, chief amongst which was the realization that the rules didn't explicitly stipulate these "recognizable" design details had to be kept in their original positions. This garnered some wild interpretations with fenders widened, noses and tails cut away for embedded wings and diffusers, rooflines narrowed, tapering and tilting to make the greenhouse more aero. Wild stuff. I've got sketches for sleekly-flared Falcons, full Moby-Dick-style Group 5-esque mid-engined Corvaires... First I wanted to take the most unlikely car and turn it into one of these raging hypothetical road race beasts. The early-60's Lincoln Continental has some gorgeous lines and a planetary-grade mass to it which I figured would be fun to chop away at. The nightmare love child of a Continental and an F1 car The Lincoln Continental ARRC is based on a non-production short-wheelbase two-door coupe styling concept and powered by a prototype Ford-Cosworth DFV engine being developed for Formula 1, run through a rear-mounted sports-car transaxle. The monocoque chassis features side-pod and rear-mounted cooling with massive diffusers both front and rear. There was so much planar surface and such a huge footprint for the underbody that the engineering team didn't see the need to fit a large rear wing, instead relying on the front nose-wing and rear deck fins to trim aero balance. Built up for the same 3DSuperCarBricks hosted comp which @danielsmocs created his Lancia Stratos for using 3DSC's superb custom-moulded windscreen part. 1100 parts 16s wide x 40s long Layers and layers of mechanical detail. Pushrod suspensions, ITBs, pneu-hose exhaust headers... There's no space left un-detailed. Uses a handful of new-ish parts but nothing too exotic. Buildable in a number of colorways (red, light gray, dark blue, black, white, dark gray... though sadly not a nice Mid-Century Sand Blue, Sand Green or Orange which looked amazing as renders) Fully modularized chassis built up around a central tub with separate front suspension/engine, separate sidepods, separate transaxle and rear suspension under fully removable bodywork. It's all very #racecar. I have some ideas for a brick-built A pillar in place of the 3DSC windscreen which should be possible, but those windscreens are available directly from 3DSC and - if you're in the States - I have a handful I'll be putting up on my site along with some wheel options. And oh, it sits. Pictures don't quite capture just how lurking and mean this thing is on the shelf or on a desk. Looking at it here it still makes me laugh at the madness of it. If you want to give it a build, stop by my shop https://prototyp-brickworks.com/products/lincoln-arrc-silhouette-instructions-1-15-scale As always, thanks for looking and thank you for the inspiration, Prototyp These photos and more up at Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/prototyp/ Stop by and say hi: https://instagram.com/prototyp_brickworks Edited February 21, 2025 by prototyp Quote
captainmib Posted March 1, 2025 Posted March 1, 2025 Those are some awesome looking cars. Love the details and the background story. Great job! Quote
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