New to me Cox Chaparral 2

[viejoronnie]

While I spent more than I usually do for a single vintage slot car, I feel good about this one in that it has a nearly cherry body with zero glue residue. The driver and windshield are long lost to antiquity, but the roll bar, velocity stacks, exhaust pipes, taillights, and headlight bits are perfect. It looks like it was only semi assembled, but never completed/raced in anger. The chassis even has that pinkish tinge.

Also I spent less than $10 US in 1965 dollars exclusive of shipping and tax, so I’m good.

I plan to clean/detail this body per the treatise on the subject by Jean-Michele on slot blog a decade ago and convert a recently acquired LS hardbody kit version of the 1965 Chaparral 2C flipper car and fit both as needed to my super clean/restored Cox mag chassis equipped with front/rear mechanical brakes (currently powering my Monogram 2D flipper coupe) for parade laps at the local track.

Additional initial observations:

The body is free from any excess glue... period. It looks like only the front valance was glued with a tiny bit of adhesive. The chrome and other small parts all appear to be press fitted and/or glued with a minimum of an easily removed adhesive (not styrene model glue),though I am loathe to remove them to confirm ( unless I decide to make repops) for posterity. A windshield and driver appear to have never been installed/affixed in place. There is no obvious damage to the body itself beneath the paint.

The chassis does indeed show evidence of its pinkish protective coating...the wheels not no much, but they are not white and crusty.

IMHO, this car was never fully assembled nor raced in anger or for fun. The guide braids look brand new.

Now to source a Cox box , Cox tools, a decal sheet ( maybe a removable vinyl one from Pattos), white plastic OEM Cox driver, windscreen, and a red Cox controller like I had in 1965 to complete my nostalgia trip back to Mr. Holcombe's long gone Hobby Haven slot car emporium in the Dallas,Tx suburb of Irving. The windshield will likely be the hardest item to locate I believe. I missed out on a couple of Historical Racing Miniature resin Cox repop kits this past year that had a duplicate of the Cox windshield cast in clear resin.

I plan to detail as per Jean-Michels treatise from a decade ago on slot blog but will do some additional detail work that can be reversed if need be to take it back to its semi- OEM configuration:

Add a styrene box to conceal the swing arm pivot, create a paintable and removable interior overlay in the proper brownish maroon shade, add an instrument panel and steering wheel from the LS 2C or Monogram 2D kit, etc.

Still no idea why a previous owner painted it without ridding it of tooling seams. A closer inspection reveals no yellowing of the body, so that’s not the reason. Quines sabe?

So it comes down to this question:

Should I leave the body untouched except to polish out the existing semi-decent protective paint job OR strip the paint/massage the body per the treatise, etc? I think I can create a very thin paintable and removable interior tub using my gelatin/glycerine molding compound that follows the contours of the tub without actually painting the plastic tub itself. That way I can revert back to either an OEM or modified OEM surface car depending on the path I take w/o stripping any paint from the interior. I just remove the flexible tub overlay/glove to get back to the OEM interior.


As received dust and all.




Cleaned body

[mattb]

Just my opinion, so take it with a grain of salt...... The Cox Chap 2 is one of the more plentiful old slot cars you can find......also one of the nicest Chaparral models made..... Not very rare at all,,, though....You have a very nice example....I would probably clean it up as you have,,,,,, find the missing parts and decal it properly....Paint up the correct driver and silicone him in. Maybe paint the interior or just leave it white....Remember you are not hurting some rare and valuable car by painting and detailing it to a more realistic copy....Make yourself a really nice Chap 2 and enjoy it as you did the first one you had way back when.....I can maybe help you with some replacement parts.....I will see what I can dig up and PM you.....I am not a fan of over detailing a slot car you race for fun.....Build an LS static if you just want something superb to set on a shelf....This copy I have is more like I remember from 65!



Matt
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[viejoronnie]

Matt:

Where did you get that grandstand spectator “wallpaper”?

[mattb]

that grandstand art came from some kind of 60's drag car model. I bought it and made some copies for use as a picture backdrop

[chappyman66]

Like Matt says.....nice car, but not the high priced collectible.
Finish it off and run it, that's what it was made for!

[Mitch58]

My only 1/24 Scale Cox mounted Chaparral is red. I don't know if it was molded in red or if somebody in the past painted it red. It is in good enough shape for me to just leave it alone, except for the occasional laps I put on it.

[strummer57]

I too have been playing around with one; and posting about it on that other forum.

Here is a photo of its "as arrived" condition:



...and as of today:



Hoping to find those much needed parts (pipes, etc.): have decals and Paul Gage tires on the way.

It's been a lot of fun to work in this larger scale; there is so much stuff still out there, it's hard to believe that the "craze" only lasted a few years...

Mark in Oregon

[viejoronnie]

Mark:

I was messing with it some more tonight and the intake and exhaust pipes came off with very little effort in preparation for some fine grit sanding/polishing work on the tooling seams. If I can get a decent one piece mold impression with my homemade gelatin/glycerine molding material (similar to Composimold), I might be able to make some resin repops of those parts without damaging the originals. I’ll keep ya posted.

If it’s successful a coat of gloss black spray over the cured resin, followed by a product like Super Spaz chrome spray should give a reasonable result.

[mattb]

Try a Melotow chrome pen before you try the multi coat air brush paints for chrome........ Melotow is the best I've ever used and the results are really nice....use the 40% coupon and you can buy them at Hobby Lobby.

[strummer57]

Mark:

I was messing with it some more tonight and the intake and exhaust pipes came off with very little effort in preparation for some fine grit sanding/polishing work on the tooling seams. If I can get a decent one piece mold impression with my homemade gelatin/glycerine molding material (similar to Composimold), I might be able to make some resin repops of those parts without damaging the originals. I’ll keep ya posted.

If it’s successful a coat of gloss black spray over the cured resin, followed by a product like Super Spaz chrome spray should give a reasonable result.

That would be awesome, please do!

Mine came to me (as you can see in the picture) with 1 1/2 of the exhaust parts, but the vertical pipes that sit right behind the driver were missing...

Mark in Oregon

[olskoolslotz]

Very nice condition find, build it how you like and run it. Should be fairly easy to locate a repro decal sheet, and if small parts are needed try to reach bradblohm on Slotblog or Ebay. I have a repro decal sheet by MRE, don't know if they're still available on the MRE page or maybe try Professor Motor.

I went into my slot display cabinet and pulled out the following... Yes, I am ashamed of myself!



This is my clean build car, it's painted. Unfortunately the nos front tires "gassed out" and yellowed the front half of the body over the past 20 years.

[viejoronnie]

This is what my pal Philippe De Lespinay suggests for a tasteful period build. I think I will go with a dark gray and thinner panel lines and forgo the photo etch Dzus fasteners and faux cockpit door/ gas door hinges demonstrated by Jean-Michel e on his builds. I plan to use photos of the Exoto die cast Chaparrals and pics from folks visits to the oPetroleum Museum for additional reference in the absence of my access to the seminal books on the Chaparral.

Here is the link to the detailed Chaparral restoration build thread for Jean-Michel’s posts on slot blog:
http://slotblog.net/topic/17027-rest...cox-chaparral/

[mattb]

Dave, I thought you were selling down a lot of your stuff????? It is easy to accumulate and hard to sell it off.

[olskoolslotz]

Matt, ...
I haven't been through the Cox Chaparral & Ford GT boxes yet, most of the other Cox cars have been thinned out somewhat. I've been tackling this very slowly. The past couple of weeks I worked on 80's-90's commercial raceway stuff which I took to the Canton MI. show last weekend, unfortunately I ended up bringing all but one car back home with me. I see more ebay listings in my future.

To the original post topic and Chaparral detailing, I would pick a specific race version and focus on photos from that race only. The cars were evolving very quickly at the time and changed for nearly every race.

One of my prized possessions is an Oct 6 1966 letter from Jim Hall to my father on Chaparral Cars letterhead with a Chaparral Cars envelope. It's typed by Sandy Hall and hand signed by Jim. It's in response to anti-skid brake development, my dad wrote to Jim as an engineering student at Auburn University.

[BIG E]

You've got yourself a nice clean piece there to start with. Thought I could help you on your nostalgia trip, but when I looked, I unfortunately have no more of those red COX controllers left in my for sale boxes that I bring to slot car shows. They are usually readily available though, and you should be able to find yourself a clean, working example for less than 20 bucks.
Good luck with your project, and... Enjoy! Ernie