Racing Car Transporter Art

Thus, it took a while before I came upon the last chapter in the book, which I found to be one of the best. Here before me were full color detailed drawings of many of the transporters described in the text. Wonderful large, impressive layouts closed the chapter on this installment of the Cross Transporter saga (there will be more).

So it was with eager anticipation that I emailed Mike Sells about his drawings and found that he not only does drawings but models. In our ensuing discussions we found out that we also graduated only two years apart from the same small and isolated, cold but beautiful little city and then attended the same college. “I have been an auto modeler since childhood,” wrote Sells. In fact we both frequented the two hobby shops in town where our favorite models could be found. _____________________________________________________________

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Today Mike is a civil engineering CADD operator who does residential and commercial development design for a private consulting firm. He’s had a lot of sports cars in his time including a 1964 Alfa Giulia Sprint.

When gazing upon Mike’s drawings, he wants us to be very aware that they are drawn from photos and published dimensions and NOT actual inspection. “I have corrected all the errors of which I am aware but that doesn’t mean I found them all. The trucks evolved over time even as the racers did so markings and even paint schemes can vary and most of the photos were taken with the racers front and center, not the transporters.”

Mike enjoys building models, many from scratch, and the transporter drawings and models were conceived as display pieces for his racing car models. “I became fascinated with them as models in their own right and prefer the 1950s and ‘60s trucks because they are so varied and individualized; modern tractor trailer rigs that only change the paint colors don’t do much for me.” And that of course is what makes the book he helped illustrate so endlessly fascinating. “The transporter drawings are my way of accumulating all the information from photos and other sources, adjusting size, shape and proportion, and working out most of the assembly details before construction. They are printed to self adhesive label material to scale and then used for patterns.”

Mike is not in this for the money but f you would like to have and hold, his transporter drawings are available at $5.00 each for a pdf file. The file can be printed at nearly any scale desired. Mike also states that they are meant to be guides and are no substitute for period or even restored photos of the actual trucks.

Many more such drawings can be seen in the pages of Inside the Paddock, including a wide variety of British and German transports.

Mike can be contacted at jmsells@sellsbrothers.com