Rework: Robby Gordon's 1996 First Union unbranded Chevy Monte Carlo. The rest of the Team Sabco was running Pontiac's in 1996, and Robby Gordon drove the #40 Chevrolet twice, at Phoenix, and at Rockingham.
MajesticExpress' Late 90's Early 2000's Showroom
- Thread starter Majesticexpress
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I wonder why they ran the #40 as a Monte Carlo instead of a Pontiac? Were they trying to do R&D work before they ran Chevy's in 1997?
I would assume so, the only thing that makes sense. I'll look more into it soon!
Yes it was R&D. That whole team in 1996 was R&D. They ran Pontiacs at some tracks too. Along the same lines, R&D was why Jack Sprague ran the Pontiac #52. Hendrick was testing the Pontiac as a comparison to the Monte Carlo.
They later tested Pontiacs again in 1998 when the Pontiacs started getting really competitive and were considering a potential switch away from Chevy. They built a couple. One was tested by the #50 of Craven. Intended to have Jack Sprague enter it in the 1st Cup race at Vegas.
Obviously that switch didn't happen. Hendricks also built the Pontiacs for MB2 #36 cars that Ernie Irvan drove at the time. Not sure if they built them in 97 for Derrike Cope or not.
They later tested Pontiacs again in 1998 when the Pontiacs started getting really competitive and were considering a potential switch away from Chevy. They built a couple. One was tested by the #50 of Craven. Intended to have Jack Sprague enter it in the 1st Cup race at Vegas.
Obviously that switch didn't happen. Hendricks also built the Pontiacs for MB2 #36 cars that Ernie Irvan drove at the time. Not sure if they built them in 97 for Derrike Cope or not.
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Thank you! I really appreciate it, especially with the Pontiac too. The Monte Carlo and thunderbird are pretty decent once you know how the angles of logos need to go to stay parallel to the shading. With the Pontiacs all bets are off, lol! I’m glad there’s only a few Pontiacs in the 1996 field overall. But I’m just thankful for the mod, happy to paint on it even with all its quirks!
yeah the Thunderbird model is miles off where it should be. Primarily on the nose. You've done a great job with it trying to make it look as close as possible with that geometry. The chevy model is pretty good. and the pontiac is just wonky. the upper grill shouldn't be angled downward to the outer edges like it is and geometry is a little off. Not enough to really hurt it too much. But the lower rear fender area really has issues. The bodywork is really jagged there. logos get distorted easily etc. I'm grateful we have a cool mod for the time period. I really am. I just wish they took a little more time with it and really polished those models out. Maybe one day down the line we get an updated version?. Who knows.
I know slippy has done some reshading, and reworking of some grills/ front valence for the Suzuka thunderbirds, which I think overall help the thunderbird nose area. I think the sides and rear are really good. The Pontiac is just crazy, once you paint on it and get your bearings after a few paints, you can kinda work around the model. But I agree, that area near the front valence/fenders, is a tough area to work around. Thankfully most paint schemes on the Pontiac’s from 96-99 didn’t do anything too crazy around those areas. The Monte Carlo and Taurus are the easiest and I would say most accurate out of the 4 models.
I think the main problem is the mod was developed for 1998. Trying to make a Thunderbird out of a Taurus is going to cause some issues. All in all, not bad, but I agree, it would be nice having a dedicated model for those years. I guess the next closest would be the Cup90 mod.
Well no, they didn't make a thunderbird out of the Taurus model. they were completely separate models. But I think the Thunderbird was more of a "bonus" addition to fill out the 4th make. There were a few team who still used it through 99 so it makes sense they would include it. I just wish they had taken a bit more time to nail the front nose geometry on it, tweaked the pontiac grills to sir proper and then double checked the smoothing of certain areas. Mostly the lower rear QP are that is jagged from the poly's being out of whack and the c-post area on (I think it is... I'd have to verify which model it was) the chevy where the logos get a bit warped because of the polys being jagged a bit.
Again I am not trying to crap on the mod makers or the mod as a whole. This is just things I noticed and had hoped they could have fixed prior to release. Yeah Cup90 would be the next best option at this time and CC48 and I did make some pretty good carsets for the late 90's. His Taurus template on the ford thunderbird body is pretty nice and the Monte Carlo is fantastic.
Hopefully, Maybe, someday we will have a mi-90's mod that can be further detailed out into the proper body styles. But until then we have 2 great 90's mods to enjoy and make cool things on.
I was not aware of that. Thank you for clarifying. It went right over my head that there were only 3 car makes at that time, so that left an extra for the Thunderbird. Probably because, even though the Cup98 mod is the one I most use, I've never used any carsets other than the 1995, 1996, or 1997 ones; and, thankfully, there's been a recent explosion of those lately.
Also. after reading the previous posts I just realized why your name seemed familiar. That you also were heavily involved with my other favorite mod, the Cup90 carsets with CC48. Thank you both for those.
Jeff Purvis rework. This is one of five others that will appear in my 96 set. Got some good reference pictures and help from JGamboa yet again on a clutch logo ID.
I love it. They seemed to run a different variation of this scheme (mostly the hood graphic) in every race they showed up for. Even in the Busch Series it kept changing
For real! This was a fun one to make, just hunting down the right David lee Murphy album cover for his Daytona 500 ride today then I’ll have two more done. Needing the bigger out with a bang on the right half of the album rather than the tiny centered version. Or even just a blank copy with no text and then I can “recreate it”
Chuck Bown rework. Numbers, and logos are all custom made. There will be 3-5 variations of this scheme in the set when released.
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