Built by: Fred Mellini in Seneca Falls, New York

I had an old built-up Ice T sitting on my shelf and had picked up a sealed Stinger kit at the last model show in November. I started to build the Stinger chassis and then I started looking at my boxed kits for a possible body to put on the chassis. I kept coming back to the Ice T and finally decided to go with that.

I cut the T bucket body off of the Stinger kit and then cut the Ice T body at the firewall. I then joined the rail body panels to the firewall of the Ice T. Surprisingly, everything lined up pretty nice.

I wanted to add some fenders to the rear wheels so I took an old built up 1930's Packard or Rolls Royce I had lying around and cut the rear fenders off of that. I used a Dremel tool to open up the radius of the wheel well of the Ice T until the fenders fitted snuggly.

I wasn't just satisfied with the look of the fenders, so I decided to make some winglets/running boards to tie-in the fenders and make everything look more aerodynamic. I used sheet plastic to form the basic shape of the running board/winglets and then used Milliput two part putty to fine tune the shape and blend everything together.

After the body had been puttied, primed, and sanded numerous times, I applied a base coat of Dupli-Color bright silver wheel paint. (All the paint and clear on this model was done with spray cans of Dupli-Color automotive paint.) This was then followed by anodized purple along the bottom sides, anodized red on the upper sides and top, followed by a light misting of anodized orange. Several coats of clear followed by wet sanding and polishing by hand.

Wheels and tires along with the motor came out of a "1320" front engine dragster kit. Decals are aftermarket items that I picked up at a model show, and of course my skeleton driver is a combination of the Stinger kit driver body, and the head of a resin skeleton that came from an ebay purchase of some models. I decided to do the "Mini-Me" thing and gave him a clown white face with green hair.