Glen Way purchased the frame from Woody Gilmore's Race Car Engineering. It carried a scant 93" wheelbase. The model's frame is constructed with Plastruct 1/16" plastic coated wire(which I also use on my funnycar and dragster frames) . With the wire, it's strong enough, and with the plastic coating it takes glue easy enough. Some people may dispute this, but, I find this product easy to work with. Evergreen plastic rod, .035", was used for the uprights (connections to the main rails), and .020" plastic rod was used for the stringers (the diagonal connections between uprights).

On any car, no matter the scale, the stance can make or break it. Thanks to Mark Brown, and the July '69 edition of Popular Hot Rodding magazine, the accompanying photo (above) shows a great side shot of the Groundshaker with Glen Way and crew. Study the pic closely. Notice the kick up on the lower main rail to the rear end? The curvature of the upper main rail to the connection at the front torsion tube? Just below the lower tin you can barely see the clutch exhaust tube exiting from its belly. Besides help with the construction of the frame, this picture was used to attain the correct stance for the model. I did not have any "body off" pics of this car, and sometimes some simple reasoning and educated guessing may be in order.

The width of the frame was attained by looking at the 3/4 shot (below) of the actual car. The upper frame rails pass just inside the front grill shell. That provided a reasonable estimate of the width. Next, with the side shot, a ruler was used to see approximately where the two main rails ended up. The lower rail ends even with, or just past the differential axle shafts. The upper rail goes past the driver's compartment, and extends under the body's turtle deck to support the rear mounted fuel tank. (You can see the tank in the rear wheel opening.) There is also a third set of rails to support the roll cage, seat, and steering box. Generally, this third set of rails would start at, or just behind the firewall and extend around the top lip of the seat. Simple, huh?

Once the frame was constructed using good old Testor's tube glue, and Crazy Glue, the brackets for the throttle, clutch pedals, dual master cylinders, front shock mounts, rear axle mounts, grill shell support, and fuel tank supports were made with .015" sheet plastic. For the roll cage, I used a combination of .100" plastic rod, some plastic from the "Miss Deal" kit, and .015" sheet plastic for the chute supports. Once the mock up was complete, the frame was shot with Model Master gloss black enamel.

The biggest problem posed by the office space of this car was the seat. It employs a dragster style wrap around seat which is no problem. Hell, I have tons of those in kit form. The problem was the upholstery ON the seat. It has an angled waffle pattern. I decided the entire seat. Sheet plastic, .030" thick was curved to fit the uppermost frame rail, then a bottom section was added. Squadron white putty was then applied to the inside of the seat. Once dry, the putty was sanded. A pencil was used to draw out the waffle pattern in the seat. Once I was satisfied with the results, a hobby knife was used to etch the pattern into the seat. Once the pattern was knifed out, three grades of sand paper, 320, 400, 600, were used to soften each waffle "block". It took some time but was well worth the effort. The slots were drilled out for the shoulder and lap belts. Finally, the seat was shot with a mixture of Model Master gloss and flat black.

The interior tin was made from .015" thick sheet plastic. The plastic was polished out, and Metalizer buffing aluminum was used.

The throttle pedal came from the 22Jr. dragster, while the clutch pedal, brake handle, dual master cylinders, fuel shut off knob, kill switch and chute release pull rings were scratch built. The butterfly steering wheel is a photo etch item with .015" thick sheet plastic added for the grips. The plastic was sanded to shape, and painted to simulate wood. The harness is made from The Model Car Garage belt material, and the buckles are from sheet plastic.