The Loukas & Preising Replica took Roger "Riceman" Lee close to a year, from start to finish, to assemble. He estimated the construction hours at 1200. The Replica was scaled down to 1/22 scale from pictures supplied from John Loukas and Crew. During the building, pictures were taken and sent to John to meet his approval for size and accurate reproduction. Each part was prefitted before final assembly.

 

The brass chassis parts were all made and prefitted before final assembly.

 

To get an idea of the scale of the parts, this is a quarter between the radius rods and tie rod.

 

Steering box with shafts.

 

Butterfly steering wheel.

 

Fuel tank.

 

The front wheels were assembled using 22 individual parts (see Parts List at bottom).

 

 

With the chassis soldered together, Roger added the rearend housing, brakes, steering assembly, gas pedal and parachute bracket.

 

 

 

 

 

Next the wheels, drig link, radius rods and front suspension was added.

 

 

 

 

 

Hand made "Speed Sport" scoop.

 

Again, a quarter is used to illustrate the size of the finished hemi engine.

 

 

Fuel tank in place.

 

 

With the engine in the semi-completed chassis, Lee custom fit a resin coupe body.

 

 

With the coupe body in place a dragster nose piece was fitted.

 

 

 

 

With the body fit and chassis detailed, the engine was completed with fuel lines, linkage, plug wires and blower belt.

 

 

 

 

Finally the proper paint and decals were applied and another Riceman Replica was finally complete.

 

 

 

Is it real... or is it Riceman? Actually the photo above is the only one on this page of the real car. It just goes to show how accurate Lee's replica is.