Going back to one of my very first “Meet The Fleet” posts, I profiled the first of several beautiful ’65 Mustang Fastbacks I got from Road Race Replicas, making a point that getting them was double exciting, not only because it is a beautiful body and one of the best looking slot cars ever made, but also because the original Aurora Mustang was such an utter disappointment. The original Aurora body, created when the real car was new, is poorly proportioned and, frankly, goofy looking. I have never intended to own one.
In spite of this, high premiums are paid by collectors for rare variations of the originals, such as the bright red fastback and the very rare black painted models. To each their own, I said, and didn’t give it another thought…until I started getting interested in the original T-Jets.
While I was still unwilling to pay collector’s prices for one of these, I happened upon a couple of vendors with a good selection of reproductions, and these were not only faithful copies of the originals but, like the originals, available in all 3 body styles: a 2-door notchback coupe, a convertible, and a fastback. They were all remarkably cheap-under $10 each-which is a screamin’ deal for any HO slot car body. Since I have an overstock of chassis at the moment thanks to a flurry of building from junk piles, I figured I’d order one of each just to have them as part of my originals fleet; I figured they would add a little more to the vintage “flavor” of the collection. I made sure to mount each on a chassis that realistically reflected the performance of each body style, so, in terms of “lore:” the black ‘vert is a 289 2V single pipe 3-speed, the white coupe is a 289 4V twin pipe Cruise-O-Matic, and the candy green 2+2 Fastback is a “Hi-Po” with a 4-speed.
Look, I’m not going mince words: the Aurora model of this car is awful. Not only is it absurdly proportioned, but even the details are clumsy. They did, at least, give us separately molded front and rear bumpers and light assemblies, but the way the whole thing fits together is just utterly wrong. One wonders how they messed this up so badly, when at the same time they were making some beautiful models of other cars; the ’62 and ’63 Galaxies and the ’63 T-bird come to mind, but even the ’63 Falcon and Fairlane-which are not Aurora’s best efforts-are worlds better than this.
Although I am a GM loyalist at heart, I have always loved early Mustangs; a real one is still on the short list of cars I’m considering the financial outlay to put in my garage. In the meantime, I have copious amounts of scale models of them from nearly every manufacturer that made one in 1:87 – 1:64. And now, for the first time, that includes the Aurora model I used to say I would never own. They may not be genuine originals, but for <$10, they’re close enough! It’s probably not fair to compare to them to the RRR model from the recent past or anything else, for that matter; they are what they are, and they do have a vintage feel to them that is “charming” in its way. The 3 colors I selected for each body please me, the red and black driver I added to the convertible looks pretty sharp, and now that each is mounted a rebuilt original “closed rivet” chassis, I can skate them around the track with the rest of The Road Crew without them looking out of place.
I saw the title of unwanted Mustangs and thought is there such a thing. These do have vintage charm about them and with your modification, I think they are neat!