- BODY: Aurora Model Motoring
- WHEELS & TIRES: Road Race Replicas
The Maserati is one of the more valuable of the original Thunderjets. Not only is it desirable and hard to find in good condition without broken or missing parts, it is also one of the few T-jet bodies that was not redone as a Cigar Box free-wheeler, so supplies are limited to only those that were made as slot cars. It’s taken me a while to build my fleet of “Maser’s” and its cost a lot of money, but as I always say, its hard to argue with results. This cream example with the red stripe was my first one; perhaps this is cataloged as “white” but to my eye it has a definite pinkish hue to it; I believe this is the color the fashion industry likes to call “taupe.” I managed to win it on ebay most likely because, as luck would have it, there were 2 others being auctioned at almost the same time and most watchers seemed like they were focused on those. This one also didn’t photograph well in the seller’s listing, but when it arrived it turned out it was just dirty and needed a good cleaning. Once that was done, I set about choosing a look for the car. I decided to go with a wheel style I hadn’t yet used, the Road Race Replicas wires in gold. I had installed several of the chrome wire wheels on other cars but had never used the gold painted ones because I thought they might look a little “tacky”, like trying to pimp-out a slot car. When I saw the gold-tone wires on the cream colored body, I knew I had a winning combination: it looked spectacular!
As chance would have it, this car was also fitted with a brand new out-of-the-package chassis that was exceptionally fast. At first I took it easy, not wanting to crash the car too hard knowing its reputation for easy breakage, but it turned out to be more durable than I thought; as time went on I ramped up the speed incrementally until I was taking full advantage of its performance, and its since because a top competitor in my sports car fleet that often makes it to the final round and has won at least one tournament outright.
The only remaining question I had to answer after fitting the wheels was what number decals to use; I choose this red “33” without much thought, believing the thin font wouldn’t look very good and I would likely just scrape it off and try something else, but as with the gold wire wheels, it looked really good; I left it that way, and in doing so also started a trend I kept up with, giving all 4 of my Maserati’s double-digit numbers (22, 33, 66, 88; 11 and 55 were already in use and I’ve never acquired an acceptable decal bearing the number 44).
This is a classy and elegant car, well proportioned and nicely colored. Even when it doesn’t win a race, it looks terrific running it!
