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The Predicta Project:
A Bubble-Topped Obsession!
Let's be straight forward about this: I am certifiably
obsessed with Starbird's Predicta. I think the car is great and I love the Monogram kit, and this whole thing has preoccupied my attention since 1964 - when I was 13 - when I first purchased the kit and built the
model. Since at least 1958, I had been reading Customs Illustrated, Rod & Custom, Hot Rod and other magazines that featured custom cars. Local Salt Lake custom car shows fueled that fire, and model kit building sessions with my childhood friends played a major role in what would turn out to be a lifelong focus on custom cars. Later college and graduate school training had no effect on my enduring interest in custom cars in general and the Predicta in particular.
In 1978, I first wrote to the ever-patient Darryl
Starbird (who graciously responded) in what would turn out to be a nearly quarter-century of friendship and correspondence through which Darryl generously supplied his photos and recollections of the car. As my
model building skills accelerated, an idea started to germinate - what about a detailed, multi-faceted modeling project that would fully explore the incredible history of the car? This effort - The Predicta Project
- would include the construction of the major versions of the car as well as dioramas depicting the incredible history of the car. The idea percolated for a few years, and finally broke into the open in 2002 when
this web site was established through the help of good friend and business partner Mark J. Benton and his web site company.
The first thing to do was to get clear on the history of
the car. From the car's humble beginnings
through the first restyling (below),
to the Monogram (kit) version (below)
to the ignominy of an awful 'street machine' iteration by a California motorcycle shop (below),
and finally back to its restored glory (below),
the history of the Predicta will, hopefully, be recreated in scale. (For more history on the Predicta, check out this section on this.
The Predicta Project was introduced to the public in the pages of Vol. 10, No. 1 of The Builder, in the December 2004 issue of The Journal, the official publication of
IPMS/USA (thanks, David Von Almen!), and in Volume 10, No.2 of The Builder in which I explained more details of the project. You can read the text of the first installment of the Predicta Project in The Builder by going here and you can read
the first "progress" report by going here or continue reading in this section.
By matching up the best machining skills with the decision to build major mechanical
and structural components from brass, I'm convinced that exceptionally realistic parts and functions can be made. It's important to keep in mind that if the car could
be constructed in full scale, most of those functional details can be replicated in scale.
Specifically, a 1/25 scale model can include working ball joints, a functional steering
box, engine function simulated by planting an ultra small DC motor mounted in the engine block and then hooking up an output shaft (well-disguished in a faux
transmission) to an operating drive shaft and thence to a rear axle gearset that would turn both rear wheels. Additionally, apparently operating instruments can be
simulated, as well as headlights and taillights using a small chip custom burned and hidden in the model. Mark Benton is assisting me with me to see what can be done
to simulate an operating TV screen in the Predicta.
Of course, the entire body should be hammered from .025 soft brass so that scale
"thinness" can be achieved with a scale body that would still be strong enough, once soldered together, to permit mounting operating doors, spring-counterweighted
hood hinges and other details. The frame, too, must be constructed from brass.
I've been working with leading edge machinist Cody Grayland and photoetch artist
Bob Wick to produce a list of parts that could be used. I hope to soon speak with Mark Jones to create the gauges decals and related items, also. Of course, this list
is subject to further development, but it suggests those features that I genuinely believe can be constructed.
The Predicta Project will include a wide range of elements:
A full length hard cover book (to be published by Championship Publishing, now a
division of Custom Styling Studio, LLC) on this history of the car. As part of that publishing effort, a separate modeling booklet will be prepared that will focus on
the many kits of the model as well as the modeling project discussed here.
Multiple 1/24 scale models of various versions of the Predicta, some of which will
be highly detailed, as well as a few 1/24 scale dioramas which will depict important events in the development of the car: including the Starbird shop where the car
was first built, the Oakland Roadster Show where it was presented for the second time to the public in 1960, in the back lot of the Monogram Models, Inc. company
where the car was first delivered for kit measurements, in the Monogram studio after it was restyled by Starbird and photographed next to Starbird's Futurista
(which had then been in the possession of Monogram for a little more than a year). If you're interested, check out these details of the project:
Hundreds of parts will be necessary to properly build this model and other models
outlined in the project outline. Check out this early list of parts for the Predicta Project.
And, we'll take a close look at the now unbelievable joint Model Car
Science/Monogram Models contest in 1970 to give the car away. Darrell Zipp - who won that contest - has loaned the International Model Car Builders' Museum the
model that won that competition!
Custom Styling Studio, LLC, a leading aftermarket model car company that provides parts to hobbyists interested in traditional hot rods and custom cars, will offer a
detailing kit for the Predicta that will include a corrected bubble top, machined parts (wheels, engine parts and the like), some photoetch parts, decals, as well as a resin copy of the corrected body.
Can you help us?
We are looking for any photographs, memorabilia, personal recollections really anything about the car that you might be willing to share. If you have any thing
that might help The Predicta Project to more comprehensively present the history of this incredible car, please contact Mark S. Gustavson at:
The Predicta Project10271 South 1300 East, PMB #131
Sandy, Utah 84094Phone: 801.915.1502 E mail: Gustavson@ThePredictaProject.org
Just to kindle your enthusiasm and stimulate thoughts of what can be done in scale
modeling given the current state of machining, photo etching and electronics, please check out the following pictures and let your imaginations run wild with the
kind of parts and features that could be added to a hyper realistic scale model of the Predicta:
With the history of the car well established, and in light of a forthcoming book on the car
from Championship Publishing, LLC we could move on to planning the modeling project itself.
John Estlow was a great pioneer of early model technology though he's little
remembered today (too bad, given his great achievements). The caption in a brief feature on his model in the August 1964 issue of Model Car Science reveals the following
details of this detailed Mercury: lights for the interior and trunk, and license plate light plus two back-lite scale TV sets, high and low beam headlights, working horn (operated
from the steering column), back up lights and turn signals, roll up windows (ala Shuklis), and an Atlas HO motor turning the fan blade with model railroad-source tech producing
puffs of smoke from the exhaust pipes. If this could all be done with 1964-tech, whatcan't be done today?
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Check out the wealth of details in this photo of the unfinished Predicta engine
compartment: The upper control arm brackets and bushing (note the angle bracket locating the radiator), the engine-monitoring gauges, the factory hood latching
mechanism, throttle linkage (note that the Monogram kit portrayed the initial show-only Hillborn fuel injection set up - the four carb set up was the every day operational setup).
What about a spinning fan (with a scale photo etched fan) spinning in cadence to a sound chip giving the sound of a Chrysler Hemi engine? Let's think out the traditional box!
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In this first-version interior set up of the Predicta (the somewhat simplified later version
could also be modeled), think about the details that could be replicated. First, what if micro-miniature LCD technology be used to present a series of images of the different
versions of the Predicta on that TV screen? Consider making the switches on the flat chrome console operate, for instance, the head and taillights? What is the scale key
activated a sound card that presented the sound of a Hemi starting and then running - all tagged to the apparent speed of the fan belt! And, what could be done to make the
bubble top raise and lower -- maybe an electromagnetic repulsion approach? Look, I don't know if all of this can be done, but why not start to think about a radical extension
of our assumptions about the limits to scale modeling? |
