Some time ago I mentioned my surprise at finding that closed rivet versions of the original Aurora Tuff Ones chassis exist, as I acquired one quite by accident by winning an auction for a car I wanted the body from for an Ultra-G chassis. I recently went looking for another and found it; it wasn’t cheap, but it made me realize that although they are uncommon, they’re not exactly “rare.” Even so, it stands to reason that these versions are amongst the earliest releases of the “Tuff Ones” format with the nickel rather than copper electrodes and the low gearing with the 15-tooth rear pinion. Since various purchases of bodies and junk lots over the years have left me with a small pile of obsolete parts, I thought it would be cool to build a “period correct” hot rod of sorts using hop up parts from the same bygone era; the recent removal of one of my original Aurora Cheetah bodies from the numbered racing fleet presented what seemed like a perfect opportunity to pursue this.
It seems like, in the early ‘70’s, both Aurora and Tyco were experimenting with some new things to spice up their product line and entice buyers into the toy stores. I well remember my first electric racing set, which I got as an X-mas gift in 1975 or ’76, was a Tyco Pro set with a pair of Porsches-a silver 908 and a Gulf blue 917-which both had working headlights and ran on smooth soft white rubber rear tires. I always thought those white tires looked mighty cool, even if they weren’t as “grippy” as they were meant to be. Well, it turns out that Aurora used these as well, although I can’t say I know which company used white rubber first (perhaps a more knowledgeable reader might enlighten me?) One of my “junk lots” from a while back came with a set of aluminum wheels and a threaded axle which were allegedly a high-end aftermarket “hop-up” accessory. I suppose the motivations here were two-fold: to reduce weight and to get a truer running wheel and axle assembly with no wobble. The axle is very thin and weighs almost nothing, and has splines only on a small portion of the shaft where it is meant to engage the ring gear, so it has to be installed in the chassis in the correct orientation. Although it’s a cool idea, the thing that puzzles me about it is that you would expect the threads on the axles to be reversed from side to side so that the threads tighten on the axle with forward motion, but they are not…which means that, inevitably, after enough racing time, one of the two wheels is going to work itself loose from the threads and fall off. Strange!
I guess the idea is to put them on as tight as you dare without stripping the threads, so that is what I did when I decided to set up this closed-rivet Tuff One. Another set of period correct wheels and tires went onto the front, and the chassis was completed with a set of stock white/brown field magnets and a new pair of brushes. It all went together beautifully!
Next up, the body was looking a little naked without its racing number roundels which were donated to the replacement for “Catapult”, the Cheetah in the racing fleet. I remedied this with some great looking 60’s era adverts courtesy of one of the excellent decal sheets from Road Race Replicas. The front got a cool “Mobilgas” logo with the red Pegasus that I’ve had laying around for ages, and it all fit together with a great late ‘60’s look that I really love. The stance makes it look almost like a gasser, which isn’t quite right for a Cheetah (although a few Cheetah’s were drag raced!) but it IS right for the era and I’m very happy with the overall effect.
This car is an “oddity” and likely will remain so; I have one other set of these aluminum wheels with a threaded axle, but for no tires for them. I have seen that they made tires in red as well as white, so if I ever run across a set in good condition for the right price I might considering doing this treatment one more time on one of those excellent Model Motoring ’67 Malibu bodies, but until then, this period correct “Tuff Cheetah” stands alone as a period-correct racer in a fleet of cars meant for the highway. It ain’t practical, but it sure is cool!
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