CAT SWB Box Art Brimod shocks

[dinglem]

To finish this thread off nicely, here they are fitted to my SWB.

[dinglem]

Well another pair of unthreaded rear shocks turned up, so by some stroke of fortune I now have two complete sets of these

[1911Colt]

....unicorn poop....

I have read this thread a few times, but only now noticed the Twister motor decal.

[Lavigna]

You always seem to find such cool and rare parts. I can always spot one of your builds because they all have a similar feel to them. I'm not sure what it is exactly, but they always seem to ooze with vintage goodness. Those beautiful aluminum wheels don't hurt either, lol.

Cool shocks. Glad you got 2 complete sets.

[dinglem]

You always seem to find such cool and rare parts. I can always spot one of your builds because they all have a similar feel to them. I'm not sure what it is exactly, but they always seem to ooze with vintage goodness. Those beautiful aluminum wheels don't hurt either, lol.

Cool shocks. Glad you got 2 complete sets.

Thanks for that mate. I do try to go a certain route with my cars, mainly by actively avoiding anything that has been re-released. Reissue cars and repro parts could easily push me out of the hobby and I absolutely avoid them like the plague, so for me building like I do keeps me interested. It would have been so easy to just go and buy an XLS Masami and painted it black and yellow, but for me there is zero value in that. Original vintage is everything this hobby is about for me. Instead I went for a rebuild of my original XL and then sought out a SWB. I then try to add a splash of original period hop-ups to again step away from the box-art theme. This for me, is best achieved by going with nice alloys and perhaps a shock upgrade and in this case, ironically, the very shocks on the SWB boxart car are the headline feature! I do smile to myself when I see the numerous SWB boxart attempts posted up as they are all missing and seemingly ignoring what I consider to be the key feature. I think the re-release trend has actually pushed me further down this path and into more left-field builds. I enjoy tracking down curious upgrades. I think Brimod shocks are becoming a key part of many of my builds now, I have 11 cars with them on I think, plus I have stuck with the wing format I used back in the late 80’s and early 90’s, being clear with extended and painted side panels.

Another thing I do is buy up rare parts whenever I see them and before I actually own or build the cars. I have a set of drawers full of nice bits and bobs which I can then raid when I eventually find an original car to restore.

In this one for example, you can see several sets of alloys, a Nodis coarse transmission conversion, a set of red SRM 2WD wheel adapters and a holy grail NIP CAT grey bumper (which I cannot bring myself to open). Now to find something suitable to put them on! The next drawer down is full of period shock absorbers.

[LurkingCAT]

Congratulations on the Brimod shocks!

After following the development and "soon to come announcements" in the magazines for what felt like an eternity, I was eagerly waiting for the swb to arrive in Norway. I managed to get my claws on one from the first batch and have ever since been a CAT worshipper.
I have (or rather had) the box art swb on my "projects to come list" but gave up on those shocks. Also, I wanted to make those white handmade delrin parts, but again - time is the enemy...

After all your research, do you think you could provide a timeline on the Brimod shocks?

[dinglem]

I have posted this info on the Brimod Prototype thread as somebody asked me the same question over on that thread a few years ago, but in summary:-

From what i gather from my research (and memory from bitd), the Brimod shocks as we know them were around in late '86, with an earlier version without threaded adjusters also being released prior to that. The July SWB CAT review refers to these unthreaded versions being 'prototype Brimod shocks' so that is probably their infancy. I do however have the mag photo of Jason Varley's RC10 from round 1 of the Radio Race Car Series as posted earlier in this thread which also mentions that it has Brimod shocks on it - again the unthreaded flavour. That was the May of '86. So that is my starting point. The adjuster version with grub screw valve and 32tpi thread were the BD 'S' type and were around in late '86 (I have a mag advert from Dec '86 introducing them and the Dec mag was out in November in the UK) as i saw them myself at Perry Common Buggy Club (close to where they were made) when i first started racing there - mainly on Mini Mustangs, and we saw them featuring on the Concept Car 4wd RC10 in April '87, on the XL mag review CAT XL in September '87 as well as on cars at the Romsey Worlds that summer. These were replaced in April '88 (advertised as 'Improved for the '88 season') by the 'SX' which had a pan head screw bleed valve and a coarser 24tpi body thread for faster adjustment. June '88 saw the 'SX-L' for lightweight which had a smaller cap profile, no bleed valve, 24tpi and hex adjusters. June '88 also saw first pictures of the prototype Brimod cars. I have seen S and SX types in packets with spec variations so am guessing there was some stock cross over between each type. I am assuming that the prototypes and the hex adjuster shocks were being developed at the same time; it therefore makes sense to see them mounted on these prototype cars. June '89 saw the release of a shorter fourth shock length as well as slight design tweaks including low friction, machined PTFE pistons. I believe this coincided with the Brimod Talisman, Bullet and Pro-10 on-road cars. I only have one pair of these very short shocks. In the June '89 Talisman update mag review it mentions these new 'slimline' short shock versions.

Beyond this it goes a little hazy, but i also have some adverts for these on-road cars being marketed through a specific model shop and they were advertising shocks looking remarkably similar to Brimods but with a ribbed shock cap effect. I will try to dig out a photo of that advert.

In between those dates Brimod engineered quite a number of other innovative items, including LWB chassis conversions well before the official manufacturer items appeared (CAT XL saddle pack chassis for example - see my XL thread for one of those), UJ's for the Hotshot and Pb cars, Mid LWB chassis - the first one released i believe, a thermal charger and so on and so on. All made in a shed/workshop by hand, out the back of the Britten family home.

[dinglem]

Here we go - i knew i hadn't imagined it. Later in '89 it looks like they are for the 1/8 Kyosho Burns. There is clearly some sort of link up between Brimod and this new model shop as they seem to be advertising a lot of their products, and the 'Prostyle' name is being used for the shocks.

I have never seen a pair of these.

[LurkingCAT]

Thank you very much for your summary. Managed to get hold of the shocks you can see in the picture, but as mentioned before I've given up the unthreaded for a SWB box art build.

Just have to sort out a nice project for the once I have. As per usual a new project can start with a set of turnbuckles and spin ideas from there. Time consuming yes, but a very nice aspect about the joy of building projects

[dinglem]

Very nice set!

[1911Colt]

All made in a shed/workshop by hand, out the back of the Britten family home.

No one does "cottage industry" better than the Brits!