paddy
Well-known member
Mephistopheles was a Demon from German folk law, a worker for Lucifer. Renowned for his howl.
Unable to find a model of him I have settled for this, The chassis of a 1908 Fiat SB4 racing car with a 6-cylinder, 21.7 litre (21,706 cc) Fiat A.12 aeroplane engine producing 320 PS (235 kW; 316 bhp) It set a land speed record on public roads in 1926 of 146mph.
It gained notoriety when owned by the Englishman Ernest Eldridge and set standing start ½ mile of 23 seconds at Brooklands but went on to lap at over 100mph
In October 1924, at Montlhéry airdrome, Mr. Eldridge covered 210 kilometres 230 metres in the hour, and at one time attained 218 kilometres (over 136 miles) an hour.
So basically, a very brave man in car made from a lorry chassis with an airplane engine strapped on
The Italeri kit is one of a series of new mould 1/12 kits of italian “between the wars” racing cars and if their Alfa 2300 is anything to go by, should be a gem.
My first job was some research and the further I dug, the more involved it got. The original Mephistopheles was restored in the early 2000’s and seems to be based on the Protar kit of the early 70’s and Italeri seem to have copied the Protar and restored example, but it seems to be quite different from the original car which is rather disappointing. The rear body is changed and the original car at the time of the records it set ……was probably Black….not Red
Most people model this quite understandably in Red and as a pretty clean car. Truth, is it operated a total loss oil system with exposed rockers and valve springs. Eldridge described the fine mist of coolant that constantly spewed from the cooling system back over driver and car , mixed in with a haze of oil.. The car quite often caught fire, noise was deafening from the exhaust stubs…the model and restored example has a silencer and exhaust pipe. The whole thing was driven by clattering chain drive by the driver’s elbow.
Is this Red or Black ?
The dilemma is then, to build the model of the restored example or to try and produce a copy of the crude oily mess that was the original.
I don’t have any dimensions to alter the body work and pictures are rare, but oil and dirt is within my possibilities
Maybe I can also find a picture of the exhaust stubs?I have now found a quote from someone at the time of the world speed record that referred to the” big red car” in 1924, and yet its said that at the time of the record it was black. The large letters on the cowl FIAT were a sponsor name added for just on race meeting and yet the car is modelled in Red and Black with these letters on. A guy that drove it before its restoration said
“The point was that poor 'Mephisto' - despite being a runner - was at that time in very poor condition. Steam, scalding water, hot oil, fumes and smoke issued from almost every conceivable pore. The radiator leaked. The water jackets leaked. Oil unions leaked. She would run clean then gasp, cough and backfire - she would ripple into a misfiring fit, clear her throat, spit stabs of flame back from the carburettors...”
Probably Red ?
So it looks to me like recollections have been muddled between decades, It certainly was originally Black before it was Red. Its odd but seems true that the original car now restored between 2005 and 2011 The Italeri kit is based on the 2011 restoration/Protar model.
My probable aim will be to build it at the point it was retired as a modern race car in the late 20’s after Eldridge had sold it. Incidentally it only held the land speed record for a week before Malcolm Campbell beat it by 0.5mph in Bluebird.
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