A few well placed orders won me a slew of additional 9” Model Motoring straight track pieces, and with these, my original Golden Gate set has expanded to fill the entirety of the table in my toy room. Now, with the exception of the corkscrew, in many ways it resembles the 2nd HO Highway, with its long viaduct and straightaways. The “speed control” terminals have been fun for a while but I think in the near future I’ll be swapping back to controllers for a more “interactive experience” (yes kids, I know its not digital but you’d be amazed how “interactive” the real world can be)!
Even more exciting are the cars I’ve added, because what does your humble blogger always say? More cars is always good! As I’ve mentioned several times in the last few months I’m not buying as much cool stuff as I was last year due to “the state of things,” but if there’s any money at all, there’s money for toys. So, here’s a look at the newest members of The Road Crew family!
AC Cobra
I finally got an original Aurora Cobra! I already have 3 Johnny Lightning copies of this body; these originals are almost always >$100 in decent condition, but I found this partial restoration (with a replacement windshield and driver’s head) for half that amount, and it came on a beautifully refurbished closed rivet chassis that needed nothing: plug n’ play! It even came in an original jewel box with the Aurora and Model Motoring logos embossed on the lid; never seen that before! What surprised me about this car was how faithful the Johnny Lightning copies are! I expected this car to be smaller, but its almost the same size as the JL’s meaning that its significantly bigger-to the point of being out of scale-to its contemporaries. Surprising, interesting; glad to have it in my collection.
’68 Mercury Cougar in blue
Up to now the only Aurora Cougar I’ve obtained was a very rough white version which was originally a tampo printed racing car that a previous owner had sanded all the tampo printing off of. It seems that white, yellow, and red are the most common colors to find this car in, with tan being a little harder and turquoise the rarest; the green and blue ones seem to be somewhere in the middle, not really “rare” but a bit more difficult to obtain. I actually wanted a green one, but after bidding on 3 of them and losing all 3 to what I considered prices too high to pay, I happened on this blue one. I didn’t think I’d get it so I kept my bid low and I was surprised when I won, and at a price I considered to be a bargain! The postage made it quite a bit higher but even so, I was pleased with the results: the body is in superb condition. The chassis was fairly rough, being very dirty and shod with a set of those period threaded aluminum slicks on the rear. I opted to ditch those in favor of stock wheels, although I did keep them for posterity, but after putting it through the whole regimen of cleaning processes I’ve developed and trading out the weak stock field magnets for a better set, I soaked it in oil and broke it in, and within half an hour it was running like a song! This car looks so good in blue that I’m now glad I didn’t get those green ones!
’63 Buick Riviera in tan
Sometimes you get lucky. I’ve been outbid on a lot of things lately, but this tan version of one of my favorite T-Jet moldings was won unopposed for a low price, and its in superb original condition, mounted on a closed rivet chassis so clean it had clearly been little used and stored for decades in a dry place. It needed only a little oil to run around the track like new; even the tires are in good condition. I had initially thought I would eliminate the decals, since the racing numbers and stripe don’t look right on a big luxury car like this, but they have such a cool, genuine vintage look to them that for now I’ve decided to leave it as-is. I may still remove them someday, but at the moment it seems like a piece of history that should be left alone.
’65 Mustang Fastback in bright red
The only one of these 4 new additions that isn’t strictly an original, this is nonetheless a Model Motoring-branded reproduction of the original Mustang. I did an entry on this body a while ago talking about how I’m not fond of its off proportions and how I originally never wanted one, and now here I am buying a 4th one, the 2nd fastback. My reason for doing so is that, as the economy continues to come under attack from Russia’s wars and chinese expansion and the WEF’s “Great Reset” plan to eliminate the middle class, supplies of absolutely everything are running out, and these reproduction bodies, which were plentiful and affordable when I got into this hobby in early 2020, are now getting more scarce and expensive. This was the first “resale red” fastback I had seen in a while, and I jumped on the chance to get it even though it cost quite a bit more than the last MM Mustangs I bought. It runs on a salvage closed rivet chassis and wears Jel-Claws 2030’s in the rear, which are sized like the original tires but have the grip of new synthetic rubber; helpful for a short wheelbase car with a good amount of torque!
So the next step for the “Golden Gate Highway” will be to add power taps, which is a lot easier to do with these old MM tracks with exposed terminals than it is with the later AFX and Tyco stuff that depends on proprietary connectors. Trouble is, the wiring is different between the speed control terminals VS the controllers, so I’ve got a little bit of figuring to do. Stay tuned, race fans, to see what the next expansion to this old-skool track brings!
Those Riviera’s look great in any color and I even like the decals on it. I think they look great. The Cobra with the box and driver is awesome too and all are spectacular. I love how you get these cars, do the restoration work, and get them all running properly. I can’t get over how good the track set up is looking. That wiring must be a challenge to figure out. It definitely sounds complex but I know that you can figure it out!