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Here’s a little gift for Maurice. I asked my friend Mimi if she could make an animation with the picture above (sent to me by Maurice) and I explained that I would like smoke coming from the exhaust pipes on both sides of the car and a shaking race car. Just for the fun of it. Well… She has done it, and it didn’t take long. She’s good at it. I like it and find it funny. It looks like a cartoon!
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Voici un petit cadeau pour mon ami Maurice. J’ai demandé à mon amie Mimi si elle pouvait me faire une animation avec la photo ci-haut (que Maurice m’a envoyée) et je lui ai expliqué que je voulais de la fumée provenant des échappements de chaque côté de la voiture et que je voulais que la voiture de course tremble sur place. C’était juste pour le plaisir. Et bien… Elle l’a fait, et ça n’a pas pris beaucoup de temps. Elle est très bonne pour faire des animations. J’aime bien le résultat. Ça fait dessin animé.
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Well… here’s another funny animation made by Mimi. I had another idea and she worked on it, but this time she worked a lot longer. Nothing really ultra sophisticated but that’s not bad just for looking for a few seconds. Many thanks to Mimi for these 2 (3 in fact) modified pictures into animations.
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Et bien… voici une autre petite animation faite par cette chère Mimi. J’ai eu une autre idée et elle a travaillé dessus, mais cette fois elle a travaillé beaucoup plus longtemps sur cette petite animation. Ce n’est rien d’ultra sophistiqué mais c’est pas mal pour un coup d’oeil d’â peine quelques secondes. Un grand merci à Mimi pour ces 2 photos (3 en fait, 2 photos en une pour la deuxième animation) qu’elle a modifiées en animations.
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I met Maurice for the first time around 10 years ago in a scale model show, here in Montreal. He had another ’57 Chevy stock car racer in a showcase. My brother took some pictures of the car and I have them here somewhere in a drawer. I just had the idea to post them pretty soon on this page.

Maurice was at a table with his brother Claude, helping him to sell piles of old stock car programs, reviews and so on. I asked him if he would selle the ’57 Chevy but he told me that for the time he had spent building it, it would be too expensive. We started to talk about stock car racing of the good old time and became very good frends since then. I bought a bunch of old programs and other vintage stock car litterature from his brother Claude and he gave me his business card. Reading is name rang some bells in my mind. That was the guy where I went for an interview when I was looking for a job years before. For sure it was him. In his office back then, by the end of the interview I was looking at pictures where I recognised him with Richard Petty or Bobby Allison with plenty of other folks lining up in front of the race car and other pictures of stock car racing. I told him that I was also a fan of stoch car racing and we started talking about the subject for a few minutes. Claude told me then that he had written articles for an old french canadian newspaper about car racing in general called Pistes et Circuits (Race Tracks & Circuits). Thats why his name sounded familiar to my ears. My father had bought a couple of these newspapers in the early seventies and I never missed a chance to read them all. The guy did not hire me. I guess that he found somebody with more experience or for some other reason.
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J’ai rencontré Maurice la première fois il y a environ 10 ans dans une exposition de modèles réduits et maquettisme à Montréal, dans l’ancien éfifice LDG sur la rue Bélanger. Il avait, en exposition, une de ses réalisations, une Chevrolet Belair 1957 de AMT, qu’il avait transformée en Stock Car qui aurait couru sur les pistes ovales vers 1965. C’était un modèle générique, pas une réplique d’une voiture ayant vraiment existé. La voiture était superbe, de couleur jaune avec lettrages graphiques rouges, placée dans un boîtier transparent. Je lui ai demandé s’il voulait la vendre mais il m’a répondu que pour tout le temps qu’il avait mis à la monter elle serait trop chère pour la vendre. Mon frère Jean-Marie qui était venu avec moi cette année-là avait pris des photos et m’en a donné des copies. Je vais les installer sur cette page un peu plus bas.
Maurice était installé derrière une table de vendeurs avec son frère Claude et il l’aidait à vendre des piles d’anciennes revues et de programmes de courses de Stock Cars. Maurice et moi avons commencé à parler de courses de Stock Cars du bon vieux temps, des années ’60 et ’70 et nous sommes devenus de très bons amis depuis ce jour. J’ai acheté une pile d’anciennes revues de Stock Cars de son frère Claude qui m’a donné sa carte d’affaire. En lisant son nom sur sa carte c’est comme si une cloche avait sonné dans mon esprit. Claude Beauchamp. Mais oui, je reconnaissais ce type-là. Des années auparavant je cherchais du travail et on m’avait appelé pour une entrevue. C’était ce gars-là!!! Lors de l’entrevue je voyais des cadres et des photos au mur dans son bureau. Des photos de voitures de courses de type stock cars et des gens devant les voitures dont Richard Petty ou Bobby Allison et des tas d’autres gens devant les voitures, dont Claude Beauchamp avec ces pilotes très connus. L’entrevue s’est déroulée et à la fin de l’entrevue je lui ai dit que j’étais aussi un fanatique des stock cars. Il m’a dit qu’il avait écrit pour une revue que je connaissais bien Pistes et Circuits. C’est probablement pourquoi son nom me disait déjà quelque chose lors de l’entrevue car à l’époque je dévorais ces revues chaque fois que mon père en achetait une. J’avais sûrement lu de ses articles des années auparavant. L’entrevue s’est terminée, nous nous sommes serré la main et je n’ai pas eu de ses nouvelles. Ils ont sûrement trouvé une personne plus qualifiée que moi pour faire le travail, ou pour une autre raison que j’ignore.

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I always kept contact with Maurice since I met him. He’s the kind of very nice and warm guy, always polite and friendly. No arguments of any kind, never. Just having fun to talk together. He is the kind of friend that we would like to see a lot more often but the opportunities are just too rares. We live and work a bit far one from the other and it just doesn’t help.
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J’ai toujours gardé contact avec Maurice depuis le jour où je l’ai rencontré. C’est le genre de personne qui est très amicale, chaleureuse et respectueuse. Aucun argument d’aucune sorte, jamais. C’est le genre d’individu avec lequel il est agréable de jaser. C’est le genre d’ami qu’on voudrais voir beaucoup plus souvent mais les opportunités sont tout simplement beaucoup trop rares. Nous vivons un peu loin l’un de l’autre et ça n’aide pas. Au moins nous avons les courriels pour nous envoyer des messages et des photos de nos projets.
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Now, a bit of story hiding behind this white ’57 Chevy Stock Car racer.
This very model is a 1/25 scale car produced by AMT (non ProShop model). It was molded in light brown and it is funny that I also started a ’57 Chevy Stock Car racer from AMT molded in the same color, and mine also is distorted because it was heated. Maurice’s model had been started by another guy who wanted to make a junker with the car, so the guy had heated the car in many areas to distort the plastic. Overheating the plastic he made a mistake on the trunk lid and made a big hole on top of it. Then he left it in a box and finally some day he sold it with several other scale models to Martin Bisson another friend scale modeler, who gave it to Maurice as a gift.
Maurice wanted to build a battered short tracker with it. His first one with weathering, scratch paint, bent bumpers and all the rest.
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Maintenant, voici les dessous de l’histoire qui se cache derrière ce modèle réduit de Chevrolet Belair 1957 Stock Car.
Ce modèle est le résultat d’un kit à coller à l’échelle 1/25, de la compagnie AMT (modèle non ProShop). Ce kit particulier a été moulé en brun pâle (il y a eu plusieurs ré-éditions durant les années, au début en blanc) et c’est un curieux hasard car j’ai moi aussi débuté un modèle semblable avec la même édition, moulé de la même couleur et mon modèle aussi a été déformé par la chaleur (mais dans mon cas c’était un incendie). Le modèle de Maurice lui a été donné par un autre ami modéliste qui avait acheté une collection d’un autre gars. ce gars-là avait comme projet de construire une voiture abimée, accidentée et avait chauffé le plastique à différents endroits et avait déformé la carrosserie du modèle réduit fait de plastique (styrène). Le gars avait fait, par erreur, un gros trou sur le couvercle du coffre arrière et a laissé tomber la construction de son modèle, puis l’a vendu avec un lot d’autres modèles à Martin Bisson, un autre modéliste qui l’a donné en cadeau à Maurice.
Maurice voulait construire un Stock Car passablement abimé avec ce modèle. Le premier modèle d’apparence accidenté, frotté et usé qu’il construirait depuis qu’il est modéliste.

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By the same period, I had crafted some graphics for a 1960 Mercury Comet short tracker project. These graphics had been created first to put on a car drawing that I had modified into a Stock Car racer but I had also a 1/25 scale model of the same car and it was the same color (white). So, I ended up with the idea to make a decal sheet for the 1/25 scale model with the same graphics and the drawing would be directly related to my scale model, some kind of advertising for it. So, here is the project. It is, in fact, not a scale model kit, but a “promo” and it is more or less warped by areas. It would take a lot of work to straighten it , but I have a second 1960 Comet scale model and this one is a used kit (non promo) but it was sanded with a very rough sanding paper, the tail fins have been rounded, the hood line in the center was sanded and the top of the fender lines also. Lots of work to do on this one also, I have also a 1962 Comet (used 1/25 scale model kit), but the back panel of the car is not the same and it has different tail lights. I have been wondering if I could cut 2 models and make one with the 2, or maybe buy another ’60 or ’61 Comet on ebay.
What is sad when you buy a used model on ebay is that the seller is not all the time perfectly honest and will hide some important flaws on the model and then when you buy it and receive the model, there is a lot more work to do than you thought because the pictures (willingly or not) don’t reveal all the details. Anyway, here are 2 pictures of the 1960 Comet “promo” (promotional model sold by car dealers), the second picture shows the rollcage in construction in the car :
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Vers la même époque, je travaillais à me créer des graphiques pour ajouter sur un dessin de Mercury Comet 1960 que J’avais trouvé sur internet, dessin de ce modèle de voiture que j’avais commencé à modifier de voiture de rue qu’il était originalement, en Stock Car. J’avais déjà un projet de voiture de course à l’échelle 1/25 du même modèle mais je n’avais pas de graphiques pour ce modèle. Mon modèle réduit était un “Promo” que j’avais acheté sur Internet et il était de la même couleur que le dessin (blanc). Donc les graphiques que je concevais étaient aussi pour mon modèle réduit, à la différence que je devais modifier les angles de mes graphiques pour les adapter au dessin, les déformer et en changer les angles selon les perspectives de la voiture sur le dessin. Donc deux séries de graphiques dérivés du même ensemble, l’un de face et l’autre en angles selon les perspectives du dessin.

L’idée m’était venue de créer un panneau publicitaire pour un Lave Auto miniature que je voulais construire pour ma figurine Lorie, que Mimi m’avais fabriqué (sur demande, voir plus bas) et elle faisait partie de mon histoire. Comme j’avais déjà le modèle de Comet 1960 à l’échelle 1/25, je voulais les graphiques aussi pour me fabriquer le modèle réduit, la voiture sur le panneau étant un dessin du modèle réduit. En fait je ne suis plus certain si je voulais faire le panneau en premier car j’avais déjà le modèle réduit avant d’avoir trouvé le dessin de la voiture, mais logiquement, j’ai dû créer les graphiques de face en premier, comme on les fait d’habitude (donc pour le modèle réduit), puis en modifier des copies pour le dessin de la voiture. Lorsque j’étudiais en dessin technique à l’école secondaire je me souviens des projections orthogonales (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projection_orthogonale). Ceci pour expliquer que de modifier des graphiques pour en changer les angles selon les perspectives d’un dessin n’est pas toujours facile.

il y avait cette figurine et c’est un mélange de 3 projets ensemble qui ont donné la création de ces graphiques. Le graphique du Lave Auto, quant à lui, m’a été inspiré par une publicité en noir et blanc que j’avais trouvée dans un journal de cartier à Montréal (Villeray) où j’habitais il y a une dizaine d’année et plus. J’ai encore l’annonce jaunie quelque part, et aussi, un scan sur un ancien disque dur. Quand je trouverai cette publicité il faut que je l’installe dans cette page car il est intéressant de savoir ce qui a inspiré une idée. C’était un Lave Auto sur la rue St-Dominique.

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J’ai finalement retrouvé l’annonce qui m’a inspiré dans mon design du Lave Auto de Lorie. J’avais trouvé cette publicité il y a des années. Peut-être à la fin des années 90 au au début des années 2000.

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Voici les graphiques que j’ai fabriqués pour mon enseigne miniature. La pancarte est fabriquée par ordinateur mais en réalité j’ai fabriqué une enseigne sur pieds miniature différente de ce que l’on voit. La pancarte c’était seulement pour me donner une idée de ce que ça pourrait avoir l’air.

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Retour à mon texte d’origine
Les graphiques que j’ai créés étaient différents de celui dont je me suis inspiré, tout en ayant une certaine ressemblance (le lettrage en biais) et j’avais choisi des couleurs et polices qui me plaisaient et le style de lettrage qui était populaire pour l’époque que je visais, soit vers 1970, car sur les pistes de Stock Car, on voyait (et encore de nos jours) beaucoup de modèles de voitures qui n’étaient plus récentes.
Pour ce qui était de mon projet sur le modèle réduit, c’était une voiture promotionnelle (promo) qu’on vendait chez les concessionnaires automobiles. À cette époque, les manufacturiers les fabriquaient avec de l’acétate, un plastique qui se déforme sur de longues expositions à la lumière. Mon modèle avait des endroits déformés et quand on achète sur internet, les photos trahissent bien des défauts. J’avais par la suite acheté le même modèle mais fabriqué en styrène (kit à coller et non promo, qui ne déforme pas).
Il faut dire que c’est un modèle rare, pas facile a trouver. Celui là n’était pas cher mais lorsque je l’ai reçu, il avait les pointes d’ailes toutes sablées et arrondies, la ligne au centre du capos toute sablée et il avait été sablé partout avec un papier si rude qu’on aurait dit qu’il avait été égratigné avec des pointes de clous partout sur la carrosserie. J’étais découragé après avoir acheté deux modèles, ni l’un ni l’autre ne semblait récupérable. Le modèle avec les sillons tout abimés a séjourné longtemps dans des boîtes et un jour je l’ai repris et j’ai commencé à le réparer et refaire les pointes d’ailes toutes sablées avec de la pâte plastique, du sablage et des rectifications multiples. Il est maintenant très bien, tellement mieux mais bon sang que ça a demandé du travail et du courage. Les gens ne sont pas toujours honnêtes quand ils nous vendent des choses et nous cachent des défauts importants.

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Pictures of the white “Promo”. The driver side was not bad, but the passenger side was arced side ways like a banana.

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Photos du “Promo”. Le côté conducteur n’était pas tellement tordu mais le côté passager était arqué comme une banane tout au long du côté.

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Now what is related to Maurice’s white ‘battered ’57 Chevy is this. I emailed him the page of the blue print of my graphics to ask him what he tought about them. I had chosen a style of font that looked vintage and period correct because I had also started to write a novel, a fictive story about short trackers around 1970, and my 1960 Comet was part of the novel. It turned out that he liked them enough that he asked me if he could use my graphics on his race car.
Well… It was not my intention at the biginning, I had never thought about it… It was not my idea at all when I sent him the graphicsl… but when you really appreciate somebody and you want the person to be happy, I guess that the only answer that you can say on the moment is … Well… Ok… yes, Why not after all…

Since I had all a story behind this decal sheet, and I had started to write a novel with fictive characters. In fact, not absolutely fictive as the story started in my mind with one of my figurines and then other characters popped in my imagination one by one like mushrooms (I’m crazy… I know). These other characters are completely fictive (but now new figurines have to be crafted), and then the novel started to pick up steam and turn very good. Even Maurice told me that it was very good, and to pay attention not to loose what I wrote.
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Maintenant, la relation de ce que je viens d’écrire ici au sujet de mon triple projet (et même quadruple) et celui de Maurice c’est une anecdote un peu comique. Encore à cette même époque, j’ai commencé à écrire une histoire fictive, un genre de début de roman et à partir de ma figurine de Lorie, le paneau publicitaire, le projet de voiture de course comet 1960, j’avais brodé une histoire autour de tout ça. J’avais inventé d’autres personnages, des lieux et une histoire que j’ai envoyé à Maurice et il m’a dit qu’il fallait que j’écrive la suite. Il m’en a reparlé quelques fois dans les dernières années jusqu’à tout récemment où j’ai recommencé à en écrire d’autres parties.
J’ai envoyé à Maurice par courriel, une page blanche montrant tous mes graphiques pour ce projet, les différents letrages, dessins etc. c’était l’ensemble de mes graphiques pour ma voiture de course Comet 1960, à imprimer sur une feuille de décalques. Je voulais avoir son avis, savoir ce qu’il en pensais. Il les a bien aimé. En fait il les a aimés assez pour me demander s’il pouvait les utiliser sur son projet de Stock Car Chevrolet 1957 Blanc.
Disons que ce n’était pas du tout le but de l’exercice et que je me suis retrouvé pris au dépourvu par sa question. D’un côté j’étais très flatté qu’il veuille les utiliser sur son projet. De l’autre côté Les graphiques étaient destinés pour ma voiture, mon panneau publicitaire… et possiblement la page couverture de mon roman… si jamais je le terminais. Mais que peut-on répondre à un ami qu’on estime beaucoup et qu’on ne voudrais pas décevoir… et bien… Ok, pourquoi pas après tout…
Maurice s’est imprimé des décalques et les a installé sur son modèle, une fois qu’il l’a eu terminé.
Le problème c’est que dans l’histoire que j’ai écrite, Lorie Lave Auto à la main est un endroit où on accomplit un travail absolument impeccable sur les voitures… et Pointe-ST-Charles Auto Body est un atelier renommé pour la grande qualité du travail accompli sur les réparations de carrosseries et peintures sur les véhicules. Comment est-ce que deux commanditaires pareils peuvent se retrouver sur une voiture toute abimée, néglitée et plus ou moins salie? Je ne connais pas d’atelier de carrosserie qui mettrais son nom sur une voiture si mal entretenue, c’est vraiment un paradoxe incroyable. Je n’y avais même pas pensé sur le coup. C’est une ironie de la vie. Alors je fais le mort. je fais comme si la voiture de Maurice n’existait pas et qu’elle n’était pas là pour me hanter (rire).

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The problem is that this beautiful Lorie in my novel has a gorgeous 1960 Mercury Comet Stock Car racer that she drives at the race tracks.
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Le contraste frappant dans l’histoire que j’écris c’est que Lorie, une beauté de jeune fille, possède le Lave-Auto et aussi elle pilote sa superbe Mercury Comet 1960, bichonnée, polie, brillante et très bien entretenue.
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She is very proud of her baby, a shinny, well maintained and flawless competition machine (she owns a top-market hand car wash and her dad owns a first-rate body shop just next door, in the same building), both businesses sponsor Laurie’s race car, the car wash on each quarter panel and the body shop on the trunk lid. Now the graphics appear on a poor battered, neglected and dirty ’57 Chevy. What about a renowned body shop that sponsors a beaten and battered race car and doesn’t seem to care too much for its image? Reckon that’s not very good for a serious business. And what about a girl who owns a hand car wash with an excellent reputation driving her own dirty race car on the tracks all over? Hoooo! I didn’t think about it. Oh, I feel depressed. What I’m gonna do? Do I have to start over my novel? Not only the novel but also all the material that I already prepaired for the diorama including a sign advertising her business
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Lorie est très fière de sa voiture. Son père est proprio de l’atelier de carrosserie qui se trouve dans le même bâtiment. Son travail de réparation de carrosserie sur la voiture de course est impeccable. Enfin… C’est une anecdote à la fois comique et embarrassante.
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Well, anyway… On the othe hand, I must say that I am very pleased to look at this ’57 Chevy. I like also battered and weathered scale models. In fact I also have a couple of projects of beaten race cars, some abandonned poor lonely hearts in need of love (I feel suddenly like a poet), rotting outside in a field or in the backyard of an old garage. Yes, I have done some successful test of rust and soaked car bodies in it, as I like to play with numerous kinds of material and make all kind of experiences.
Some day I’ll get back to these models. If I could multipyl my time by 10… or 20… or 100… and never sleep, and never be sick, and never have to go to work outside…

I must say that this white ’57 Chevy racer is very well done. I love it, no joke and no doubt about it. We’ll find a solution to my dilemna. We just have to think about it. Think and think and think, as usual…
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Maurice told me that he will send me some more pics of this one (the 2 last pictures that I posted 2 days later, so it’s done now) and pics of other nice cars that he has built (received also the next day that I created this page). Soon. I know that he won’t let me down (he didn’t), and this is true that I already have pictures of some projects in construction (WIP ie Work In Progress) and some completed ones that he has done. I have to look in my files (numerous files, and files and files on several hard disks) to find them.
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D’un autre côté je dois dire que je suis très content du projet de Maurice. Je le trouve superbe. Ça fait changement des beaux modèles de voitures qui ont l’air de sortir de l’atelier pour la première fois et n’ont jamais fait une seule course encore. J’aime bien les modèles abimés, usés, au fini tordu, bosselé, les peintures frottées, éraflées. J’en ai d’ailleurs quelques uns en construction.

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Hey! I noticed on the windshield that the car is for Sale!!!!
Ok. I buy it Maurice! Your price is mine (we should never say that).
I am going to pass it to Lorie’s father. He’s gonna straighten it from one end to the other and believe me, he’s more than pretty good at it! He’s a top notch body worker. This car is going to be a flawless beauty!
Ok, Flo, enough craziness for the moment, cool it!
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HÉ! Mais je viens de me rendre compte que dans le pare-brise de l’auto de Maurice il a mis une pancarte et que la voiture est à vendre!!!!! Voilà la solution de mon problème! J’achète ta voiture Maurice, ton prix sera le mien (On ne doit jamais dire ça). Je vais envoyer la voiture au père de Lorie qui va redresser la carrosserie d’un bout à l’autre et croyez-moi, il connait son affaire. C’est un carrossier de premier ordre. Cette voiture sera une beauté sans défaut. Bon, assez de folie pour le moment Flo, calmes-toi.

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This Yellow ’57 Chevy is the one that grabbed my attention the day I met Maurice for the first time. I asked him if he’d sell it but for answer he told me that for all the time and efforts that he had spent on it, it wouldn’t worth it to sell it. In fact, I didn’t have much hope that he would accept to sell it. He told me that this car was a generic rendition of the Sportsman cars that he saw on the race tracks in the years around 1965. Maurice told me that the decal sheet that he used for this car was from Slixx Decals.
This re-re-re-release of an old kit from AMT came with optional parts to build a customized ’57 Chevy if desired. I am not sure if Maurice had already started the kit as a custom car and changed his mind and turned it into a short tracker but he installed the headlight extensions supplied in the kit for the customized version on his car. Well, it makes a different race car. Not really my taste but I really like all the rest on his car. I would had removed the front fender wells on the race car because the race car builders removed them for 3 good reasons. 1-remove some more weight on the car. 2- It makes the engine “breathe” better and allows more air to circulate and cool the engine, headers and all heating parts. 3- It gives a lot more room when mechanics need to work on the suspension, or body workers to straighten fenders into place.
As these fender wells come molded with the fenders on these AMT kits, we have to cut them with the back of the blade of a hobby knife or with a scriber.
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Maurice made a nice job sanding all the body moldings, making holes for the door handles, making the holes where the 2 hood ornaments would be originally installed, installing, fabricating tubbing bumpers, a rollcage, radiussing the wheel openings, choosing the graphics style (period correct) and his choice of color for the car. I like also the addition of a race helmet and the trophy, it’s like the cherry on the cake.
It is a nice build up model. I must say that I am, by no means, a modeler who is building “Out-of-the-box” scale models. I LOVE projects with a lot more originality, something creative, innovative. Something that requires modifications, extensive work, customizing of some sort, even some tricky concept, improvising, researches as much for documentation as for the choice of parts, choice of material and also a lot of work with tools to transform a model into something different, but nice looking.
Why would we build something simple when we can make it complicated? (I’m crazy… I know… I was born like that (lol !!!).
Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong building a kit directly from the box without any modification, swap of parts and extensive work. Somebody may do it just for relaxing and do something not too complicated. And also the biginners need to start somewhere to make some experience and learn the hobby. Many of them are not mechanics or body wokers and can sometimes install a part upside down or installing the wrong part because the drawings on the instructions are not very well done. It always takes time to build some experience, develop skills and we all start one day by being a neeby, a beginner with no experience at all. Many people, when they start don’t have the chance to have an experienced modeler to guide them, give them tricks, answer their questions and show them how to perform the work correctly, with the right tools. Somebody may be happy of having built a very simple scale model. Who knows how difficult it could have been for this person to achieve a work so simple. Who knows if somebody has a certain unseen handicap of understanding and assimilating things that other ones would grasp easily. Some people may love a certain hobby, but may not be very talented at it. I suddenly feel very sad thinking about that, because I may have hurt some of them and maybe that I never noticed it. Who really knows if somebody has given a very good effort doing a job that seems easy for everybody? God only knows how difficult it can be for a certain individual to achieve a simple task. Not a single human being is the same as another one. Some people feel good performing a task, and other ones feel very insecure and need a lot more support.

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This ’57 Ford Fairlane is a rendition of the race car of Local driver living in the same township where Maurice lives. The sponsor was also a local garage in the same township. I had the picture of the real car but I can’t find it. I’ll have to ask Maurice to send me the picture again. He asked me some 2 years ago if I was able to reproduce the number 88 on the door of the race car and he sent me the picture. I cropped only the door of the car and imported it into my graphic software and reproduced the numbers using superimposed circles and ovals of different shapes and colors. I still have the picture of the door of the race car that I cropped and the #88 that I crafted from scratch with my software and here it is :
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If you look on the door of the scale model and the picture of the race car door the numbers look pretty much the same and the respective dimensions of numbers versus door dimensions look also pretty much the same. The picture of the real car was a bit fuzzy, was old and the colors were a bit yellowished and brownished, so I had to figure out fresh colors for the graphics like when the paint was new on the car, back then, and this is also what maurice has done when he chose the blue paint for the scale model. I made only the numbers for the doors as Maurice had already some white letters and numbers for the rest of the job. I am not sure but I think that this race car was running in the Limited Sportsman division or some equivalent division, looking at the width of the tires.
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It was when the project was in construction. Why the red color? I don’t know.
I emailed Maurice and the story is that he found this model used for $2 in some kind of a swap meet a few years back. He sanded the body moldings, stripped the paint and so on.
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Late yesterday evening Maurice emailed me several other pictures.
I asked for the picture of the race car of this local fellow.
The driver’s name is Pierre Lachappelle from St-Roch-de-l’Achigan, Québec.
He drove on a dirt track located in St-Esprit in a close township from where he lived in the late ’60s and early ’70. After that he bought a blue ’64 Chevelle Late Model Sportsman and drove on a paved track in Laval, Quebec (Riverside Speedway), and other asphalt race tracks around in the province of Quebec. He then drove other cars till, I guess he retired from racing. Here is a picture of the first race car that he had built, #88A, a ’58 Ford.
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Here is the picture of the race car that I had when I made the #88. Don’t get me wrong, I had the picture, not the car (lol).
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An old black and white picture of the #88A. This one is a 1958 Ford 2 door sedan. The graphics and numeral are different than the blue race car on the color photo. The 88A has a slanted wheel at the front right hand side. Car builders were sometimes allowed by the rules to install a stud on a ball joint or spacers on the lower “A” arm on the right side. This would give a wheel in angle and it would help for a better handling in the curves.
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Wow! I love these old ’58 Ford dirt trackers. It reminds me lots of memories of the good old days of Stock Car racing.
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#88A winning a race at the long gone dirt track in St-Esprit (Approximatly 35 miles at the north-east outside of Montreal).
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Maurice told me that he has built his 1/25 scale model kit with a ’57 Ford because ’58 Fords scale models are very rare and expensive. Nevertheless, he has crafted a nice scale model, a clean build.
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This 1964 Chevelle ran in the Late Model Sportsman division around 1973 or 1974 and was driven also by Pierre Lachappelle at Riverside Speedway in Laval, Qc, at Le Circuit Deux-Montagnes near St-Eustache, Qc and other tracks in the province at the time of the ACAQ, a stock car racing association founded by promoter André Beaudry in the early seventies. If I am not mistaken this race car was the ex #31 driven by André Scott in the previous years and I believe it was sold to Lachappelle. I have seen this race car for the last time in the yard of a service station on Jarry street close to the 6th avenue St-Michel in Montreal. It was in 1977 and there was only the rest of the body without front clip and trunk lid. There were no motor, transmission, suspension, direction, and differential. There were only the rollcage, body and frame left, everything that had been welded together on the race car. It was lying directly on the ground on its floor and rocker panels. There were still the numerals “04″ on each door panels, the writings on the quarter panels and the color was still the same blue. For a vintage stock car nut like me it was sad to see it.
So many times I would had loved to have a piece of land, a barn where I could save these pieces of racing history from being destroyed. I guess that they sent it to a scrap yard and it was crushed as most vintage stock car racers ended up their “lives” some day. I am a very nostalgic guy.
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We are years after the fact that I had posted the ’64 Chevelle Late Model Sportsman pictures supplied by Maurice. I just found in an old file the starting work of crafting the two numbers of the 04. I found the work on the #4, but not the #0. I am pretty sure that I have done both numbers. and Maurice probably got them at the time. I had some bad computer crahes and lost a lot of documents.  I do know that at the time he did not have a ’64 Chevelle scale model at the hand. He was supposed to put the graphics on a ’65 instead. He probably has done it. I don’t have the pictures. At lesat you have a picture of how the #4 was done into vector graphic.

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We are again several more years after this above post and as I was just looking in some old back up file, I found this additional picture of my graphic work of the 04. Here is the picture that I coudn’t find back at the time. so today, saturday night, March 5th, 2022, I am posting this picture with the complete work on the #04 that I have crafted a long while ago.

 

 

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The dark blue and white 1969 Chevelle was another one driven by Lachappelle in the Late Model Sportsman division. The light blue and white 1968 Chevelle was the 27A driven by the popular driver André Manny. Manny had his body shop (East end Auto Body) here in RDP (Rivière-des-Prairies), located at the north-east on the Montreal island.
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I don’t know if Maurice is planning on building a rendition of the 1969 Chevelle Late Model Sportsman of Pierre Lachappelle, but he has this AMT 1/25 scale race car into construction.
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Here’s a 1964 Chevy Impala SS oval racer that Maurice has built. It is a generic race car Grand National division style. I have seen ’64 Chevrolet Grand National racers with their body moldings on them on YouTube. I know that the body moldings were mandatory in the rules for this racing division in the early sixties but I’m not sure about 1964 if the rules still required them as an obligation. Anyhow Maurice has done a nice job sanding them off and the body looks very straight with no flaw. Scraping body moldings is not all the time an easy taks for a modeler, and repairing the imperfections eighter. This is why we see often enough some scale models turned into race cars with their body moldings painted over with the rest of the body like if they didn’t exist, but we still see them. I was doing this when I was a kid. Well, it requires patience to scrape them off and sending them off, and then correcting where we removed too much of material with glazing, and sanding… and glazing again… and sanding again… and so on. Patience and courage. This is sad, but this is it. Work, and work and work again.
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The car could have been also running into another division close to a factory stock race car. Another thing is that in 1964 the biggest engine available by Chevrolet division was the 409, called also “W motor” because of the shape of the motor heads and valve covers, one of the most beautiful engine produced for its look, a completely different engine than the 396-427-454 cubic inch engines. The 409 last year of production was in 1965 and 1965 was also the first year of release of the 396 c.i.d. The 427 was an upgrade of the 396, but came up on the market a bit later. It is not easy to gather all the period correct facts and build a race car that depicts perfectly this period of time, with the rules of a certain division, from a specific association, for a specific year. This is asking a lot of documentation. I like the model very much anyway. This is a nice project very cleanly done.
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Here is another work in progress from Maurice, a 1/25 Scale 1965 Chevelle Z-16 from Revell crafted into a Stock Car racer. The Revell kit is well detailed and it features suspension, direction parts, differential and exhaust parts apart from the chassis. Nice if you want to build a race car and swap parts.
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Here Maurice has built a nice model. It depics a ’36 or ’37 Chevy coupe that the famous driver Richie Evans drove.
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And here’s a Maynard Troyer’s Pinto built by Maurice
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And here’s a Vega from the Modified division, with trailer and van that he built.

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Then, a ’69 Falcon Modified Stocker.
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Something out of stock car racing, Maurice likes also Hot Rods. I like the red stering wheel and the red wheel rims. It’s a nice contrast of colors. Maurice told me that he was inspired by a picture that he saw in a magazine.
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A few days ago, Maurice sent me this picture. He went to a small hobby shop that we know and the guy over there is also buying and selling used scale models. Maurice found this amazing semi-trailer crafted by some folk who got rid of it and sold it to this guy at the hobby shop. Maurice bought it. The thing derives from a Nascar trailer that a modeler has very stylishly cut and has removed some wall and roof sections to leave only a platform at the back of the semi and kept the front section closed for the tooling and racing equipment. Maurice told me that this unknown modeler has done a very nice job. Funny that the color of the rig is the same as the lettering of Maurice’s ’69 Chevelle short tracker. Maurice told me that It is ok to release the picture on his page cause it can gives some inspiration to some scale modelers.
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He sent me also 2 pictures of a garage with race cars, mechanics, tools and machines that he is building but told me not to publish them now because it is an unfinished project. He has to build some walls for the garage prior putting the pictures on his web page.
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Many thanks Maurice for all these nice pictures and the time that he spent answering my numerous questions.

Any question or comment?

Write me at :

florent@montrealminiatures.com