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NASCAR MODELS by MR NASCAR D.J. Kennington's 2008 "MAHINDRA TRACTORS" NNS Charger

I grew up on a farm in Onterio in the '50's and early '60's. We didn't see no Mahindras in Williamsburg Township... all the Cool Farmers had Massey-Harrises, or Farmalls (my uncle) or McCormick Deerings (my Dad...). A few non-conformists had the John Deere one-lungers, but we laughed at those... So, while researching Rick Koch's project for D.J. Kennington's STPtools.com Charger (click here), when I saw that DJ also ran occasional MAHINDRA TRACTORS sponsorship, the old farmboy in me decided I needed one of these on my shelf!

..and now... a word from our sponsor..."Mahindra is one of the most forward thinking and respected corporations in India and is among the top conglomerates driving globalization in India and establishing a multinational presence.... The birth of Mahindra & Mahindra began when K.C. Mahindra visited the United States of America as Chairman of the India Supply Mission. He met Barney Roos, inventor of the rugged 'general purpose vehicle' or Jeep and had a flash of inspiration: wouldn't a vehicle that had proved its invincibility on the battlefields of World War II be ideal for India's rugged terrain and its rural roads? Swift action followed thought, and the Mahindra brothers joined hands with a distinguished gentleman called Ghulam Mohammed. And, on October 2nd, 1945, Mahindra & Mohammed was set up as a franchise for assembling jeeps from Willys, USA. Two years later, India became an independent nation and Mahindra & Mohammed changed its name to Mahindra & Mahindra. Ghulam Mohammed migrated to Pakistan post-partition and became the first Finance Minister of Pakistan." (Of course, now those M&M "jeeps" became perfect for the Indian Army for patrolling the often-hostile border between India and Pakistan... how conveenient... Mr Nascar)

"In 1963, M&M formed a joint venture with International Harvester to manufacture tractors carrying the Mahindra nameplate for the Indian market."

That would, of course, explain why I never saw them on the farm - my folks sold it in 1963... Mahindra only entered the North American market in 1994. India is apparently the largest market for tractors in the world, and Mahindra now is the largest manufacturer in India. The relationship with IH was dissolved in 1971, and since then, Mahindra has gone it alone and expanded their market... at IH's and other North American makers' expense, I would assume...

...and now, a word about our driver... At the age of 4, Canadian kid DJ Kennington started racing in go-karts on dirt. At the age of 16 he was the youngest rookie in the 1994 CASCAR Super Series, now NASCAR’s Canada affiliate. He entered the season with the goal of finishing every race, and actually never finished worse than fifteenth. D.J. turned 16 on July 15, 1993, and made his driving debut the following night at Delaware Speedway near London, Ontario, winning the first race he entered. Success in that series followed for several years. In the 2007 CASCAR National Series, D.J. finished 2nd in points, along with 2 poles, and 2 wins, and finished as the Top Mopar Performer. He competed in a limited ACT Late Models season, winning one race. D.J. continued his development in the NASCAR Busch Series competition in 11 races for MacDonald Motorsports. His association with MacDonald Motorsports has gone full time in 2008, as he runs in the Nationwide (formerly BGN) series. To date (one race to go), he is in 26th place in the driver standings, with no top 10 finishes. Typical finish is in the mid-twenties - low-thirties.

Team owner Randy MacDonald is a local lad from here in Oshawa, who worked his way up the ranks of the local Ontario short track scene, ultimately running 3 seasons in the Craftsman Truck series, along with a few Cup and Busch starts. Recently, he has given up racing to concentrate on running his #81 Nationwide Series operation.

Since I already had most of the graphics done for Rick's STPtools.com project, it was a fairly simple task to put together a sheet for the MAHINDRA version. The body foe the car was the 2007 Charger body I mastered for Perry's Resin. This was correct for the NNS car, as, according to Rick, MacDonald Motorsports was using previous year cars purchased from another race team. For details on the body, see my write-up of Kyle Petty's Wells Fargo car (click here...) Randy, at Perry's Resin, did an incredible job on this, cleaning up my master, and casting a body so accurate that you can use windshield and back window from the Revell kit, and a little careful cutting allows you to reshape the side windows to fit the Charger-unique openings. The chassis and of course windows came from my repidly diminishing supply of Revell Intrepid kits, this one an Elliott kit I'd got off eBay a year or so back. It's pretty well box-stock except for the added ignition tray on the dashboard.

The body was washed and scrubbed using dishwashing soap, and the minimal flash removed. I drilled out the hoodpin holes (there are indentations to guide you in the casting) but was satisfied to retain the molded-in pins on the decklid. Based on previous experience, I did separate the window unit into it's component pieces (windscreen, side windows, rear window) to make a good fit easier to obtain, and a fair bit of dremelling was needed due to roof thickness variations to get a good fit of these pieces up into the body so that the fit looked flush.

The washed body was primed on the inside with PlastiKote grey primer, and the outside with PlastiKote white primer, so that the red topcoat would be as bright as possible. I followed that up with a coat of white touch-up lacquer, then masked off the portions to remain white, and applied the red. The only other masking was to allow painting the rear spoiler and front cowl black.

Due to a change in ink suppliers, the decals for this car could not be done in my normal process of double printing the white layers to maximize coverage. Instead I needed to print a white "blank" layer for all those graphics that would be applied over the red area, than a second complete sheet of white, with the colour graphics overlaid on it. To decal the model, I appled the white "blanks" first, then after 3-4 hours to dry, I overlaid the second white layer with the coloured graphics on it. Admittedly, this adds some time to the process, and you need to be careful to make sure that the layers are properly aligned, but the results came out quite well, I thought. If you've ever used a Fred Cady decal, the process is somewhat similar, although less layered than his could become.

After it had all dried for 24 hours, I applied several light coats of TAMIYA TS13 clear from the warmed rattlecan, and after a further 48 hours, it was lightly sanded with 1500-grit paper, then polished with Turtle Wax compound.

I then inserted mesh screening in the grille area, added R&M hoodpins, fitted and fastened in the windows (see above...) and it was done.

This is a good-looking car, and it was nice to add something with the farm connection, and the Canadian connection of driver and owner to my collection. Thanks, Rick, for the inspiration!

MAHINDRA's first vehicle - "patrolling the border"

An early MAHINDRA tractor - those of us with rural roots will see the similarity to postwar IH products

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