Mr. Norm’s Ghost Charger by Polar Lights

Reviewed By James Woody, #33899

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Short History from the instructions: “Mr. Norm’s Grand Spaulding Dodge 1969 super Charger has a celebrated history. Debuted mid season in 1969, it replaced its tow-time burned out predecessor. This car was truly new from the ground up, sporting a new chassis as per chief mechanic and driver, Gary Dyer’s suggestions. The virgin voyage took place during the Coca-Cola Cavalcade of Funny Cars Championship. Despite setbacks with the previous cars, the new Super Charger won the championship with Gary Dyer as the driver and mechanic – quite a testament to the team’s winning spirit. In 1970, the car returned to the funny car wars. 1970 was a very successful year, with constant competition in match races; and many NHRA events, including the US Nationals in Indianapolis. At the end of the 1970 season, the Super charger was retired and parked. It stayed in Chicago in pristine condition. It is still replete with its original lettering and equipment, such as tires, wheels, parachute pack and more. This car is truly a survivor and now resides in a private collection in sunny San Diego.”

What a kit. This funny car with its clear body parts just cries out for added detailing. However, I am building it out of the box for this review.

The first thing that I did upon opening the box was to take a parts inventory. This was not as easy as it sounds because the instruction sheet does not have a parts list. Going through the instructions I found that I was missing chassis parts and contacted Polar Lights for replacements. (Several weeks later the parts arrived). The instruction sheet is only an exploded view without any positive locations for parts. This requires you to make guesses as to the location of several parts.

The paint guide lists paints by Testors paint line numbers. Several parts are marked with two different colors – straight or Metalizer. Lots of the parts are already chrome plated, but need to be refinished after cleaning up the parts.

The first step in the instructions is the engine assembly. Paint and assemble the engine as you go. Watch out as part 53 (engine front mounting plate) is shown reversed in the instructions. There is no positive locating hole for the Magneto, so check your sources and make one on the front right side of the engine block. The engine does have an option. If you are going to build the car early in its career, use the Hilborn injectors. It was only late in the 1970 season that the car was changed to the Enderle style of injectors. One more note on the engine – make sure that the drive belt pulleys are well glued or they will come flying off as you try to put on the ‘rubber’ drive belt.

The second step is the chassis. The most important thing with any chassis is to keep it square. I used my magnetic table (a metal base with magnetized ‘L’ brackets) to keep the chassis square during assembly. The diagram only shows one rear cross member, but the main rails have attachment points for two (one in front of the other). I made one from a piece of sprue to match the one included in the kit. Be very careful with the radius rods – being chrome plated they still needed to have the mold seam line removed from the parts. Most of the parts had very noticeable mold seam lines that needed to be sanded out and refinished. The rear end has a collar that will insure you get proper placement of the ladder and rear brake assemblies.

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Inside the drivers cage the instructions state that you will have to make a choice of either the tachometer or the gauge cluster (both fit on the steering shaft). I checked my references and mounted both on the shaft, with the tachometer in the up position and the gage cluster beneath it. The accelerator pedal does not have a positive locating pin, so take your best guess, but mount it on the right side of the tub. The safety harness just sits on top of the seat and should be replaced if not building OOB. When you install the roll cage on the drivers tub, part 23, a diagonal roll cage bar will stick through the bottom of the tub and interfere with placement of the tub on the chassis if you don’t snip off what is showing beneath the tub.

Installing the engine, headers and wheels is straight forward. The header brace needs some filing to make the chassis side of the brace fit on the rails. Very little sanding was needed to get the brake assembly to fit into the rear wheels. The steering linkage (part 31) does not have a positive locating pin on the front wheel assembly. Check your references and fit it in the best that you can. The kit does come with optional wheel styles, so again check your references for the correct wheel style for the time period that you are modeling.

Now for the area that has taken more of my time than I care to think about. Has given me nightmares, and caused this review to take way too long to finish. The clear plastic body (John, don’t ever let me do a clear model again). Every clear part (with the exception of the front, back, and side windows) had ejection pin marks that needed to be sanded out. Even after the marks were smooth, there was still distortion in the plastic that caused me to think that the marks still needed more sanding. After the dry sanding, the wet sanding, using 3 levels of scratch removers, I finally had a clear body ready for a coat of Future. (Hence the photo of me with a bottle of Future at the Nationals in OKC – got real strange looks at WalMart buying Future and CoffeeMate (for Bob Hester, but that is another story).) It was in my hotel room that I discovered that you really can’t dip a car body like you can dip an aircraft canopy, too many curves. Tried to brush it, but that really did not work that well. So, clean it up the best I could and onto the table right before cutoff time.

After the show and back at home, strip off the Future using Windex with ammonia and prep it for spraying the Future coat. When on like a champ and set it aside to dry. I was looking forward to the clubs First Annual Cruise Night to show off the car. But, when I went to check on it the next day I almost cried. What I ended up showing at the contest was a very nice chassis, drive train and a ‘Orange Peel’ Future body. John, here is your review – the body is not yet complete, I refuse to let this car beat me – I will win.

One last item – Decals. There are actually two decal sheets with the kit. Look very good and in register. The main sheet has all the marking for the car body – don’t know if I will put them on the clear plastic or not. I probably will leave them off. The second sheet is replacement for the front grill works (the ones on the main sheet don’t look like they will fit inside the body cutout).

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