- BODY: Aurora Model Motoring
- WHEELS & TIRES: Vincent
It should go without saying that there are no cars in my T-jet fleet that I dislike because…why would I buy something I didn’t want? When it comes to T-jet collecting I am not a rabid completionist. As I’ve mentioned Ad Nauseum I am primarily a collector of Lesney-era Matchbox cars, and in that world I am a completionist, acquiring all but 2 of the most hated castings, because-as a serious collector-it makes sense to have them all. When it comes to Thunderjets, there are several I still want, although they are the sought after early models which are very expensive (the ’60 T-Bird, the ’63 T-Bird, the Olds Toronado, and the DeTomaso Mangusta are just 4 that spring to mind). There are, however, some I may never get because the combination of the market value and the level of interest I have in the body design create a buy-in price I’m not willing to opt for.
That would have been the case with this car, had I not happened on a very clean Cigar Box model at an abnormally low “Buy It Now” price. This is my conversion on the Aurora model of the Chaparral 2A/B/C. The real car is awesome and there are some great scale models of it, but-let’s face it-this is a car that probably should never have been made as a slot car, because the structure required to envelop the chassis and motor resulted in a shape that looks nothing remotely like the real thing. Other than the nose profile and the air stacks sticking up from the engine, you really can’t tell that this is supposed to be a Chaparral 2; the body seems over twice as tall as it should be in proportion to its width and length, and while moving on the track it resembles nothing so much as a high-heel shoe, leading me to refer to it as “The Rollerskate.”
While not graceful in motion, it sure has a lot of motion: the car is one of my best handlers, with a perfect combination of traction magnet strength and height in relation to the tire size, wheel base, etc; its not fast enough to be competitive against the upper eschelons of my fleet, but it always shows well and can beat faster cars by winning in the turns. That, after all, is where a lot of races are won, and it in spite of its looks, it gives it some legitimacy as a Chaparral: the cars of Jim Hall seemed like they were always poised on the edge of greatness; they were pioneers in racing and they certainly made their mark, but it has always seemed to me that they never quite achieved all that they could have.
Due to its lacking a wing, we can figure this is a 2A or a 2B (although I believe a small number of 2C’s were made sans wings, or perhaps the wings were later removed). When I first built it, it bore the #13, but my triskaidekaphobia soon reared its head and I changed it to #24. As a result of my recent “Nickname project”, described in painful detail in a previous post, it now bears the name “Cold War.” This is almost certainly the only copy of this car I will acquire because I just don’t like it enough to spend the scratch to get another one, but it’s still nice to have it in the fleet, and it’s in nice condition besides. I guess they can’t all be beautiful!
