1969 Buddy Arrington Dodge Daytona

[Billy Kingsley]

Here's one I debated posting for quite some time. It's not very accurate, and it's not very good, but it was my first historical (pre-Winston Cup) build I'd ever done, and I didn't really know what I was doing at the time.
The car never actually ran with the sponsors on the side-there is a press photo of the car wearing it but it was NOT on the actual car. The white stripe on the real car did not carry across the trunk lid. The real car did not have side marker lights :mad:

This car is again, historically important, although on a much less grand scale then the #13. Buddy Arrington was a longtime independant campaigner in NASCAR, using Mopars most of his career, even into the 1980s when no one else was using them on a regular, full time basis. He's also quite a character from what I've heard. He ran a total of one points race with his Dodge Daytona, the Daytona 500 in 1970. Unfortunatly for Buddy, he crashed, and crashed hard. The wing broke and flew off. As such, all future wing cars-both Daytonas and Superbirds, now had a cord inside the wing holding it on so it could not fly off. Another safety feature created by/for NASCAR that impacted street car living. Buddy didn't repair his Daytona, after the accident (he was out for a time) he came back with only a Charger 500.

My build is somewhat interesting, as I had defective decals. They were all printed wrong but the producer issued a correction sheet, which, I found out afterwards, I could have gotten, but didn't. I built the model before I knew it existed. I had to hand paint the white in the numbers. Not a very pleasent task.

This model was the first I ever scratchbuilt anything for. It wasn't much, just a cover for the rear bulkhead, which I made of cardboard, but it was a big deal to me at the time. A model I've been working on since 2005, another Daytona, has nearly 50 scratchbuilt parts:ahhhhh:

Enjoy!