Randy Ayers Nascar Modeling Forums

[hurricane21]

Bobby Allison's Coke Mercury from the 1971 season and I believe the Mercury is the 1969 model. This started as the standard Bobby Allison Coke Mercury Cyclone kit from Polar Lights. I could not find a single reference pic of Bobby driving that model Mercury. All I could find of Bobby in a Mercury were of the W nose version of the Cyclone. I decided to attempt to modify the kit to the W nose version, or at least something close to it. I cut the front slopped nose piece off the body and it fit perfectly on the front of the hood. I glued styrene pieces on the front fender and on the top of the fender to extend the nose outward in the shape of the W nose. Next I built up Mr Hobby body filler and sanded it into the desired shape. This took several sessions of building it up and then sanding into shape before I got something close to the reference pics.

I made the grill out of a large grill piece that I had laying around from some street kit that came with multiple grills that I never used. I had to find something big enough to make the whole grill in one piece and that turned out to be more difficult than I anticipated. The grills that come with the kit aren’t long enough to make the sides of the W where it shoots out. The scrap grill was cut down to the correct width to fit the grill. It was a long piece of plastic so I had some wiggle room and I heated it up with a lighter in the appropriate areas to bend it outward. After I cut it down to the correct size on the sides I wrapped it in this silver metallic ribbon I found at the craft store that looks like the screened front grill on the Mercury. I cut the headlight covers out of a big parts tree I had fromn something and painted them silver.

I made some other small tweeks like bringing the fenders down a bit and trimming the bottom of the rear panel off to get the back bumper to fit better. Paint is Testors red and Tamiya gold leaf acrylic. Wheels and tires from PPP and I used the kit decals. It's may not be perfect as I didn't pay attention to fine details on the body panels but I feel like I captured the essence of Bobby's Mercury much better than Polar Lights did. I didn't think to do a WIP post because I was making it all up as I went and was preoccupied with trying to get the look right. I may do another one for the Wood Brothers in the future if Salvino's doesn’t do the W nose and if I do I'll try to remember to post pics as I go. Thanks for looking.

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[Rattlecan Dan]

Beautiful Job! Very realistic. Nice paint and stance.

[MarkJ]

I believe the long nosed Mercury Cyclone and Ford Talladegas were outlawed for the 71 season, just like the winged Dodge Daytona and Plymouth Superbirds were, except for the small block Dodge Daytona that Dick Brooks drove at Daytona that year. But you did a great job on your conversion.

[Henryjint]

Very nicely done!!!
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Forum member since 10/25/2010

[jh63fan]

Very nice build.
The reason you could not find any reference photos of the 1969 Coke Cyclone is because there never was one. When that kit came out, many were calling it the phantom Cyclone. Something the model company did to turn a buck.

[hurricane21]

[Razorback 46]

Excellent work!! Bobby always had good looking Coke cars! Wish I could have been around to see them in action.

[Michael F]

Very cool Merc. !!
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Greetings from germany!!

[Toys4Don]

Nice job turning that kit into one of Bobby’s real race cars. Your work on the grill is outstanding.