(Pics) 1966 Mercury Comet

"Top-up" always works for me. With zero effort, that Lincoln top fits pretty good; not bad at all.

I used that model as the basis of my Mercury Comet flip-top funny cars.  

You all have great ideas !

Steve

@marty-johnson That Kendal GT-1 looks so cool and it also looks like the mod was quite labor intensive.

@rich-sufficool - Thanks for the compliment! 

When I first thought of doing Jack Chrisman's GT-1, I failed to take into account the reality of "Murphy's Law."  As we know, Mr. Murphy had many laws.  The one that applied here was, "Nothing is as easy as it looks."  When originally planned, I truly thought it was going to be a "Chris Moroni" quickie.  It was nothing like that.  That sucka kicked my butt, BIG TIME!!!  

There were a number of challenges.  The roadster hoop was a trial and error of which 3 or 4 previous ideas were total failures.  I tried fabricating it from plastic which all were nightmarishly bad.  Finally, I settled on trying to get the shape using brass metal sheet.  Thankfully, it worked.  

Next, was trying to get the engine to sit in the chassis low enough that it would clear the body.  The original 1:1 car used a Stage 1 Logghe chassis.  The model I used was from Arnie Beswick's Logghe GTO but was a Stage 2.  The upper and lower frame rails on the Stage 1 Logghe chassis are perfectly parallel.  However, on the Stage 2, they are not parallel like the Stage 1, and are taller beginning from the rear of the car, tapering into a shorter height towards the front of the car.  Due to the increased height, the width of the cylinder heads of the SOHC would not allow the engine to sit between the rails low enough in the car.  So when the body was lowered it would come into contact height with the blower fuel injection intake "hat" preventing the body from sitting properly on the chassis.  To solve the clearance problem, I reduced the size of the blower casing by sectioning so the entire engine profile would be lower and clear the body when lowered. 

Hard, huh?  Those two challenges were NOTHING compared to getting the windscreen fabricated and mounted to the body.  It was the nightmare that superseded all other nightmares on this modification.  I made a template out of 3x5 card and kept cutting until I had the shape right.  Then using the windscreen template, I cut out clear plastic.  I can't remember how many times I had to do that to get it REASONABLY correct.  Once I finally got the shape, then I had to figure out how to attach it to the body.  I vividly recall how many failures I had as nothing worked.  Finally, I elected to create a "seating" flange that the base of the windscreen would fit in.  If I got it right, I wouldn't have to apply any glue to keep it in place.  After numerous attempts, I finally get it to seat properly with very little adhesive holding it in place.  The windscreen isn't perfect, but considering all the effort I did to create the darn thing, it was good enough for me.  

At the end of the day, Murphy's Law reared its ugly head and was victorious once again!  But, I have a unique model which is likely the only 1:18, diecast Jack Chrisman, 1966 Comet Cyclone funny car in existence!  😍

Wow, both of those Mercury Comet funny cars look fantastic ! As detailed, it certainly was a tremendous amount of work, but the results are excellent. The Yat Ming '66 Comet does provide a well done and affordable basis for mods.

One way perhaps to make the convertible top look and blend in better is to maybe paint it black. Here, it is done digitally, but it indicates that really painting it black could possibly be a way to go.

Go with the black color top, Mike. It looks good.

Posted by: @carcrazyinarkansas

Go with the black color top, Mike. It looks good.

I think you are right. If I do this, I also feel the black top will work better and look good on the Comet.

The black top, imo, complements the rocker panel stripe.