The kit is the ancient Testors (first release by Hawk was in 1949) 1/48 model of the Howard “Ike”. My instructions are dated 1976. The "Ike" was first introduced at the Thompson Trophy Race in 1932. Spanning 20’6” with a fuselage length of 17’, the little racer would fit in many living rooms today. With Harold Neumann at the controls, "Ike" , wearing racing number 39, finished fourth in the 1934 Thompson Race, with an average speed of 207.064 miles per hour. The structure was steel tubing covered with fabric and she was powered by a Menasco B-6 inline engine of 489 cubic inch displacement. It was built by Ben Howard in Chicago, Illinois.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_DGA-4
http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/models/air ... -Mike.html
I don’t remember a whole lot of the details about building her back then. I did scratch-build a cockpit, including seat and IP. I drilled out the exhaust openings and did a little weathering. The rather crude wire bracing is very thin strips of galvanized sheet metal glued into place. (I found the port tailplane brace missing when I arrived home. oops! Its absence is obvious in a few pics-sorry 'bout that!
) I wanted a pilot figure to give an idea of her quite petite size and in these pics, a WWII Japanese airman stands in for a ‘30s pilot. Oh well.
Please excuse his amateurish painting and yellowed clear base, but it does demonstrate the small size of the little racer. So, here she is, finally out at the airport. Thanks for having a look and please feel free to comment!
I had most of the Testors Racers in my stash, but gave several to my kids to build when they were little and wanted to build models with dad. They are fine starter kits. And like you said, with a little effort and ingenuity can be built up by the experienced modeler to really shine. Too bad Testors stopped making them and those that you can find now are comparatively overpriced. 
