- BODY: Aurora
- WHEELS: Vincent
- TIRES: Road Race Replicas
Yes, dear readers, this here is theeee first of the original Aurora bodies I added to my collection! At the time I bought this, all I had purchased up to that point were complete Auto World cars and a couple of the Mustangs from the great Road Race Replicas. I really didn’t know how it would work out, but I remember getting it for a laughable price-I think I paid $12 for it, an amount that wouldn’t even cover the postage now (yep, way back in the day…2.25 years ago!) As you can see its definitely not mint; it has plenty of battle scars and the lower third of the driver’s side A-piller is missing as it is on so many of these Lolas. The front screw post does have a small split in it which, along with its less popular cream or “off white” color probably accounts for the very honest seller’s low asking price, but it was in-tact with no missing parts or carved up wheel openings, and a good buffing with Turtle Wax and little bit of a touch up to the stripes with some paint pens shined it up pretty good. Due to my experience with the RRR Mustangs I had already had my introduction to having to pull a few tricks to fit a body made for an original Aurora chassis to the slightly larger Auto World Ultra G, but while this was no exception, it was actually easier than a lot of them; only a light shave to the sides of the front and rear screw posts was required to get it to go together very nicely.
Observant T-Jet collectors will note that this is an early version of the Lola body with the smaller rear wheel arches before they were dramatically radiused to accommodate the larger rear wheels that accompanied the release of the “Tuff Ones” chassis. Thus it can only run atop low profile tires, and so for the best possible performance those are provided by Road Race Replicas. Over the time I’ve owned it its been fitted with 3 different sets of wheels, but I settled a while ago on what it wears as seen here: the Vincent “Alpina” style in red with the gold webbed insert.
This car has some interesting “personality traits” which have really won my heart over the years; for a while it was quite a dog on the track, although I believe that can be attributed to a wheel wobble which I later corrected. But after nothing more than a simple tune up and cleaning one day something “woke it up” and it started really going, and even won a “truncated” sports car tournament a while ago, beating competition it had previously shown no ability to even keep up with. It was an impressive performance, the kind that defines the word “underdog.”
Which brings us to my favorite part where I bore my loyal readership with The Lore! A performance like that is worthy of a story, so this rare car was blessed with the name “Charlemagne” after the great Holy Roman Emperor, and is driven by Dutch-born California resident Tiberious “Typhoon” VonTripps. A veteran who started racing on the tracks of Europe such as Spa-Francorchamps and Ascari, he immigrated to the states in his mid 30’s, where a brief and contentions stint as a team driver for Panoz caused him go out on his own as a privateer, eventually acquiring this uber-rare piece of automotive history from its previous owner in England. A very high dollar rebuild to the Ford 260 V8 and the chassis was completed early last year, and the car is now in top form just like its driver! VonTripps now plies his trade at numerous tracks on the US west coast, but admits that Drag City is one of his favorites. “It’s a very challenging track, but its fast; running her down that straightaway going into the banked turns is the biggest rush I’ve ever felt.”
With a tournament win under his helmet, “Typhoon” and “Charlemagne” will surely be back for more!
The battle scars certainly give it character and I still love seeing all the peeps in the background. As part of your loyal reader ship, I LOVE the lore and hearing the “backstory”. It gives the cars even more personality, as if they needed more!