Well,
Bob is right, Ty is wrong, and right.
Shoestring was named by Rod Kriemendahl's wife as he was a family man working at Lockheed and had a young growing family. Much of the material in construction were from surplus Lockheed stock.
The picture was taken in 1955 (August was one guys researched guess, the car could have been a '56 too someone said) at a race in Elmira, N.Y.
Shoestring was painted 1949 Cadillac Chartreuse, (which is color code 21 for the convertible only) and Chinese Red according to Bryan Kriemendahl (designer/builder's son) and Ray Cote (owner from 1965 to 1980 when he donated it to the San Diego Air and Space Museum).
When Ray bought the airplane in 1965 for the '66 season he reports it was still chartreuse. He was hoping for a Gulf sponsorship and painted it like their Ford GT's of the time. Note that the picture of Ray Cote and his son and long time crew chief with the airplane in Gulf colors was taken by Tony Naccarato when he was a professional A&P mechanic and expert racing plane wrench. I love the full size/modeller cross-over in aviation!
In this copy of an old slide, the yellow's on the Pack "Lil' Rebel", Tom Cassutt's 111 and the wings and trim on "Rivets" are Cub Yellow and "Bonzo" is Lemon Yellow. In a better copy of the original slide I have buried somewhere, the color on Shoestring is definitely carrying a lot of green and paint stores and art houses seem to have a straight chartreuse which is way greener than this color (like a green apple), and then a yellow chartreuse which is more like Shoestring in the color slides I have.
The Planes of Fame just restored a Shoestring and painted it a color which looks Lime Green, but is Sherwin Williams Chartreuse. Too bad, I'm sure that there was a yellow chartreuse available.
Bill Byles and I are heading up to his favorite paint shop and having them mix the Cadillac color when I paint my Cal Smith Shoestring, and I will add a bit of neutral white to lighten it up for scale.
So, the car is anyone's guess because I am not so good with fifties cars. The airplane is not clear dope over primer (where do these stories start?) but the best paint money could buy and the color of the year it was originally built. It can be seen in the close up that the airplane was not a hack job but a well turned out machine, finish as well as construction.
What is neat is the fact that dope being lacquer like, is easy to remove and repair. When the airplane was sold by Kreimendahl in 1951 or so, the lettering on the tail was removed (Neo Air) with rubbing compound and the new lettering applied with dope and a brush, typically. I remember my Dad shaking up a baby food jar of Randolph red dope and laying down the masking tape to repaint the trim on the old Staggerwing with his 3/4" sable brush. It was all of the stuff off the model bench!
Chris...
P.S. In the B&W close-up the players are designer Rod Kriemendahl, chief builder Carl Ast, and pilot John Paul Jones also owner of the engine!
Topic: Shoestring Stunters (Read 17739 times)