Just closed up the build shop for the night after a long but successful conversion on the first Aurora “Mako Shark” I’ve ever acquired. To be more specifc, this is the XP-830 Mako Shark II show car, first seen at the New York Autorama in 1965. This started off as another free-wheeling Cigar Box model I got at a good price. Though it’s a little rough and has the usual bent A-pillars, I got it for a mere $8.50; I routinely see slot bodies this good selling for $50 and up.
This particular car is more difficult than many to convert because of the rear bumper and tail lamp assembly. On the slot cars, this is a chrome plated plastic piece that locates into the recess on the back of the body with a couple of pegs and gets adhered into place either by melting or glue, or both. On the Cigar Box release, this assembly is actually cast as part of the metal chassis. One possible way of dealing with this would be to buy the very part illustrated in the picture: a reproduction of the back bumper. Not a bad idea, but expensive; the part alone is $5.75, and with $5.50 in postage that’s more than what I paid for the whole car. I had a better idea…where’s my Dremel? Got cutting wheel, will build.
It was very easy to do, but as always with these things, it required patience. After using the Dremel to drill the heads off the rivets/screws, separating the body from the chassis, and rinsing both with my special super-duper cleaning solution, the rear bumper and tail light assembly was cut from the chassis. It pressed back into place on the body with a few well placed dabs of super glue and, vo-ee-la, that was done!
There was a lot of grinding and shaving to do on this one to make everything fit though, from the chassis to the rear screw post to the front fender wells, and like some of the other Cigar Box cars the rear screw post was far too long and needed to be reduced in length a good 3/16 of an inch. As always, “easy does it,” and once I was sure everything fit to my satisfaction I chose a rust colored chassis-always a nice look on a dark green body-and outfitted her with Vincent Torque Thrusts which I painted gold. I used one of the Axles that came with the Cigar Box chassis for the front as these axles are very strong a very straight, and, hey: waste not, want not! She even got a set of brand new RWL Firestone “Wide-O” tires. She runs great-fast and smooth-and the weight of the metal rear bumper may help with traction, so another Cigar Box model gets a new lease on life as a racer! Not bad for a cold snowy Tuesday night!
That was a lot of detailed work but worth the result! I bet that rear bumper does give you some traction. Seems like a lot of things that need to be customized to get to the end goal and it looks great!