I just realize, it is more than 2 years ago since my last post here. Many things happened - privately and in business. Good things and bad things. A colourfull mix of great achivements as designer and some frustrations about the way the world has changed over the last years. One thing, what made me tired and shocked nearly every single day, was the way, the USA gone over the last 4 years. The country of my dreams. The country I always wanted to visit and to travel turned into something like a nightmare. I live in Germany - far away. But it is impossible to be not shocked, what was happend there. Brexit is also something, what is crazy and made me tired over the years. And the final thing is of course the Covid-19 virus, what changed our life forever. All together is a tough mix.
To get not crazy, I decided to spend a lot of time with new vintage projects. Every single hour I am sitting in my little workshop and polish, dremel, or wrench on parts is one hour less in the hard reality outside of my home. So I also changed my way of working on my vintage projects. I tried to spend more time on every single part until it is really perfect. Slow down. More attention to the details. Enjoy every step you do without hurry. No compromises.
So what do we have here? It is a Team Associated Stealth Car - but from 1985.
My idea was, what, if they made a Stealth Car many years before the REAL Stealth Car? Was it possible to create something, like this in 1985? With the original 6 gear tranny, short gold shocks, wheels and everything else from that time? And if they could do it, who would be the driver? The IFMAR World Champion Jay Halsey maybe?
Original Team Associated Advertising and the other car.
So I started this adventure by making the whole assembly with 3D CAD drawings. I did something like re-engineering the REAL Stealth Car, but made for the 6-gear tranny, shocks and other parts from that time. I also tried to keep the original total width of 230mm, wich is pretty narrow.
It spend 3-4 days to complete all drawings and to make the assembly. As always, I checked the whole geometry with simulations. Up and down travel, steering geometry, etc.
The rendering looks promising.
Once, all parts was made, I ordered the plastic parts from Shapeways and send the files of the carbon and glass-fibre parts to the carbon cutter company. Two weeks later all parts arrived!
The Shapeways parts. White polished strong & flexible plastic material. Super strong and perfect as always. I love Shapeways for doing such a great quality!
The cutted parts. Excellent quality and precision! And I love, how they are packed.
For this particular project I ordered stainless steel screws.
This is the original "super white" colour from Shapeways.
This is the Team Associated Nylon colour after dying the parts for 10 minutes in hot Espresso.
Let´s enjoy some pics!
The body sits lower, than usual and the wheelbase is 10mm longer.
Holiday Buggy Rear tires (Parma made this copies back in the days - and they feel and look fresh as new). Frog size black front rims from CRP with Proline Knobby front tires. I used stainless steel socket M2 screws and stop nuts for the rims.
The Jay Halsey replika body is painted by ARQ paint in Spain. The decals are painted! Amazing artwork here! This livery is legend! The colour combination is my all time favorite!
The look is long and low. And I love it so much!
The rear wing is basically a Schumacher Cat XLS wing with side plates to match the look of the original Jammin Car.
All colours of the whole car delighting my eyes! Let´s dive under the body now!
Gold, black, white and shiny silver - the colours of magic from the 80´s!
The re-release 6-gear tranny works surprisingly good and smooth. Clean installation of electronics is a must!
I put a Reedy Gold in the rear. Please forgive me the XT30 plug to the Novak ESC!
From the left you can spot the NOVAK NESC 4 Speed Controller. Maybe the most expensive part in this car. But it is from 1985! Futaba Servo for the steering.
Front view. Shock towers are made from 2.0mm glass-fibre. Optimized suspension geometry. Lunsford titanium turnbuckles.
The rear end. Universal joint drive shafts. I own them since more, than 20 years and finally they found their car. I really love the look of the Holiday rear tires. They are pretty narrow, but the pin design looks perfect. No wonder, why they were first choice back in the days.
These colours makes me crazy!
Give me my 80´s back! Now!
A look under the chassis.
The steering. I used RC10 aluminium bell crank arms from Losi Performance for the prototype look. Spot the steering plate!
The c-hub design. I used CRP stub axles for Tamiya rims.
The bumper is made from a Kydex plate.
The 6-gear tranny with all the tuning. Polished gears and outer bearings.
The Novak NESC 4. Fresh out of the box. It is a sexy thing from 1985! And crazy expensive. The batteries are Sanyo SC cells fake. But they looks pretty close to the real cells.
Making Sanyo SC fake cells from some LRP 5000mAh NiMh cells.
Sanyo SC stickers...
Ready! Those cells were my first racing batteries back in time. I had some mih-pushed batteries. I have spend all my pocket money for 2 of those stick batteries and I was the proudest boy in town.
The modern Futaba reciever indicates, that I COULD run this car.
This sticker on my Servo was made to remind me the shock oil.
Without the wheels. Long - but not very long - arms. I wanted to keep the original width of the RC10 car.
Polished shock caps. Why? Because it looks cool! The chassis stand offs are made from the RC10 nose tubes.
2 positions for the front shocks.
The original RC10 rear hubs. I spend a full day only with shock setup. To find the right oil and springs. The front springs must be very soft. I found some of the Team Durango spring set, I designed by myself back, when I designed the DEX410 car. The softest one (grey coloured) is perfectly for this car. I removed the colour of the springs and polished them after. Now the suspension works amazing. Lot of travel and super smooth operation. I am sure, 1985 would this be a killer suspension.
The Kydex fron bumper and front bulkhead with suspension arms.
What is the conclusion?
First of all - I really enjoyed every second to plan, draw and build this project! It was an exciting time to find parts on eBay and build step by step this thing! I learned to slow down my work on those projects and make them better than ever before. This is one of the most beautiful cars I made so far. And maybe I will drive it one day. The 3D printed parts are really strong and I see no problems with breaking parts.
We can not re-write history, but I am sure, Team Associated could make this car in the year 1985. And I think, it would be a great performer.
But is this a real vintage car? No. It is an exciting experiment with re-engineered parts and a beautiful result. The very last parts of this car were the US flag stickers. Maybe some hope for better times for the country of my dreams. Things changing.
UPDATE: I will run a batch of a chassis conversion kit for this project. If you want to build your own car, please send me an e-mail: revolutiondesignvollmer@googlemail.com . I will send you all informations.