Australian Muscle Car 2020-02

Slot car
addiction
with Brett Jurmann
Wild horses
It’s time to tackle another build project, and
lately I’ve been thinking about the first race
meeting I ever attended. As it happens, it
was a real classic: the 1970 Easter meeting
at Bathurst, where Norm Beechey’s Monaro
trounced the Mustangs of Bob Jane, Allan Moffat
and Pete Geoghegan. It is a tease of a memory,
because I now know it was a noteworthy
occasion, but at the time I was only eight years
old... I don’t recall much about it apart from shiny,
noisy, fast race cars. But building one from that
bunch is a no-brainer as far as this column goes.
The Monaro was not really an option unless
I went with a fragile resin body shell, and I’ve
already done the Moffat Mustang. So this time
around I thought I’d tackle Pete Geoghegan’s
’67 Mustang. It was a fairly straightforward
build, made easier by the Pioneer notchback
Mustangs, and the bounty of reference material
available way back in issue #28 of AMC.
Once again, half the fun of these builds for me
is the research, although the AMC article made
it fairly straightforward. The first thing I picked
up on is that the exterior of Big Pete’s Mustang
GTA went through various incarnations in its
long life. Unlike the Jane and Moffat Mustangs,
it started its life as a road going car, a 289 GT
with automatic, hence the GT fuel cap and ‘GTA’
moniker. As it got older, Pete’s mechanics tried to
get rid of unnecessary weight and removed the
bumper over-riders and front grille Pony emblem.
Much later when the rules were relaxed, the
guards were flared a little and then chopped fairly
radically. So there were multiple configurations
from which to select.
The second thing I quickly became aware of
was that of the multiple Mustang releases by
Pioneer, only two of them were ’67 notchbacks:
the Parnelli Jones Shelby car, and the Kode Key
racer of Bob Barker. This was good and bad
– good in that the Pioneer model included the
rear quarter panel bezels that indicate a ’67, but
bad in that these are old releases and no longer
on sale through retailers. Sharp readers might
remember though, I managed to pick one up for
a reasonable price at the Scalextric Club swap
meet last year.
I got hold of as many photos of the race
car as I could. The bezels were a big tick, and
five spoke wheels, the lack of a front grill and
flares were also a handy match. However the
Trans Am boot lid fuel filler would have to go,
and I would need to find a ‘GT’ fuel filler to
go between the tail lights, and some chrome
bumpers. More demanding would be the Allan
Standfield-made aluminium scoops for the front
brakes. Naturally the decals would come from
Patto’s, but I would have to put the ‘Big’ into
‘Pete’ for the driver figure.
Pioneer slot cars are great runners, so the
running gear was left mostly alone – just a quick
once-over to make sure it was as it should be. As
Pete was a noted Firestone user, the ‘Goodyear’
tyre branding had to be removed. They are only
branded on one side, so I simply turned them
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