Tether Car build Maserati

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Rebirth Of A Maserati 4CLT

John Goodall

At the SAM35 Octoberfest swapmeet in 2023 an old customer of mine and reader of my MEW magazine John Hemmings offered me an incomplete scale model car body showing signs of its apparent age. We agreed an exchange of one of my rarish engines for the body, which at the time I knew nothing about at all, except it was an Italian Maserati. John told me he had been given the body by an old friend of his who was now aged over 90 who had owned it from new, but done nothing with it. John obviously knew I was now a tether car enthusiast.


Maserati body, louvres in abundance	ZN independent front suspension	Just two wheels

In discussions a day or two later with Hugh Blowers of OTW he thought the body could have been made initially for purely static display during 1949 similar to one of those made by Rex Hays. It has double wishbone suspension at the front, which was missing uprights and the axles and the entire rear suspension, as well as the bonnet, which was also missing. Hugh thought ZN, a firm long extinct, made the front suspension. See OTW for all the background to ZN and their products. This suspension was actually made for a tether car, as it has no swivelling axles unlike the static version, which has. The body is highly detailed with copious ventilation louvres cut into the body as per the full size car, which I had discovered was the Maserati 4CLT model originally made in 1948 only a year before the model. The car was powered by a 3 litre eight cylinder engine made up from two four cylinder 1.5 litre units joined end on, which is why there is a gap in the exhaust manifold centre. Henri Baigent had also made a very similar model to this one?

When I got home from Buckminster I looked out a set of wire wheels I had bought off Steve Betney some years previously, that were surplus to his needs. Chris Garcia in USA made these and Chris has since stopped making them but I thought they might come in useful to me one day, in spite of their high cost. That day had now arrived because they looked superb and matched closely the full size car and are runnable, so I knew I had to use them on the Maserati build.

The model dates from 1949, which is why corrosion was now so evident on the 76 year old body. It comprises about sixteen different panels and doublers, which looked to have been pressed in dies all hand riveted together into a superb piece of work. I carefully rubbed the body down with fine abrasive and finished with wire wool, it did look better, but deeper pitting remained.

I set to and milled the front suspension uprights from H15 alloy to the drawing sent by Hugh but when I offered the second up it leaned out at a peculiar angle? I measured the upper and lower arm centres and there was an error of 0.060 of an inch (1.5mm) between them? Checking the lower bush it was just large enough to make a new eccentric bush to the error noted previously and now both looked vertical and matching. Quality control lacking at ZN perhaps?


ZN front suspension with new uprights	Complete front suspension, no brake drums as yet

I next decided to make the missing bonnet and I had to learn how to do this and make the necessary tooling. Hugh again turned up an article by Arthur Weaver, which showed how it could be done. It turned out easy to make the tooling, but more demanding to produce the louvers. These had to be cut using a shaped roller to a length differing by 0.050 of an inch or 1.25 mm to match the bodies narrowing taper. I achieved this on my Bridgeport milling machine using the X-Y digital readout to control length of cut and spacing and by using the machine manually only. I started each of the louvers parallel to the outer edges. A few practices later I cut the first side and repeated this on the opposite side to match, this all done while it was still flat of course. I made a tool to shape the exhaust cut out raised edge matching the body cut-out and its raised edge almost exactly. The bonnet was then bent by hand over a suitable piece of pipe to match the body shape.


'Arthur Weaver' system for cutting Louvres	Trial run	Set up for the bonnet


Bonnet before rolling	Tool for forming exhaust cut out	Bonnet in place

I made the six bonnet catches from brass, which were initially turned and then finished by hand filing to a streamlined shape. The rear two are fixed to the removable cover while those at the front work similar to full size to allow bonnet removal. They are nickel plated to finish. At the same time I made the dummy filler petrol tank cap from brass held from underneath by a single screw and the breather in SS. Soft bright steel clips were made to hold this in place set after painting.

Dummy rear view mirrors were made in alloy freehand turned to correct shape with 8BA screws and brass support necks these were nickel-plated. The windscreen surround was made by two L shaped brass beatings which when placed together and silver soldered formed a U shape with 2mm gap to take a screen made from 2mm polycarbonate.


Bonnet catch	Windscreen frame	Windscreen and mounts

Hugh Blowers also provided me with copies of period articles on building this highly detailed model. That enabled me to make the front axles turned up in my lathe. The Chris Garcia wire wheel hubs are very small in diameter and I managed to find two ball bearings that would fit one each end of the hub giving a stable mount to the wheels when all were mounted on the axles. I turned up dummy brake drums and back plates were fabricated from two pieces of aluminium with mesh debris guards trapped between the two pieces riveted together. I added dummy hydraulic hoses made from O-ring rubber.


New stub axles	Rocker arm and lower wishbone	Brake drums and brake hose

My plan was to power the model and I determined a single cylinder engine would be far too bulky to fit under the bonnet and I tried a CS in line twin I had which with a little modification could be made to just fit with nothing to spare. I was averse to fitting a foreign engine and preferred an Oliver however and my preferred British alternative for a British made car was non-existent. One of my builder friends of special engines had unfortunately and sadly recently lost his wife and a more recent contact proved too have too much other work so that after some months there was no visible progress at all. This held further work up for several months because without the engine other things could not be decided or completed.

I modified a bevel gearbox casting set I had of 1066 origin using a set of 2:1 ratio bevel gears bought economically from Belting On Line. The gearbox housing needed widening to match the front wheel track at the rear. The cast originals had to have a short piece welded on each side by my friend Ian Harper. These were than bored and reamed on the lathe to suit an extended rear axle made from tough steel, as was the pinion shaft. I found a suitable coupling among my spares to take the engine drive.

I could now concentrate on the rear suspension. I wanted this to be as close to original as possible and made up the swing arms in mild steel silver soldered to steel bushes which held the gearbox shaft housings, I added steel pockets into which the multi leaf springs ends fitted and made from Phosphor Bronze. I made up a sub frame from light gauge steel to which the swing arms would be pivoted.

The centre of these pivot‘s has to be co incident with the coupling joint pivot exactly. The forward end of the springs were crimped into a bracket bolted each side to the sub frame inside the swing arms. The sub frame spreads the suspension load's widely on the fragile body.

John talks about his work on the car go to www.youtube.com

Part two and photos of the incredible build follow next month