While still reeling from the package pirate attack (and still pissed off about it, enough to roll out this lengthy rant), I have pulled the brake on any more acquisitions for my slot collection until my home security has been fortified, but there’s still some stuff in the pipe to build, rebuild, or present here for the first time for my throngs of loyal readers! Here’s a look at some more recent additions to the Road Crew that are all via Dash Motorsports, one of their cool originals and a couple of excellent reproductions.
VW bus
While I certainly never have had a desire to own a real one, the Dash model of this notoriously slow moving vehicle that was once a staple on the California roads of my childhood was just too cool to pass up. I’ve seen it offered in several colors and bookmarked and watched a few, and this black and while one was actually not my first choice since I don’t’ recall ever seeing a real one this color, but it still looks pretty good, and this is the one I wound up winning. Mounted on a stock open-rivet chassis, the little van turned out not to be quite as little as I thought; it would just barely clear the supports under the viaduct, so close that it just scraped the roof. A couple of quarters placed underneath the supports gave me the fractional lift I needed and now she buzzes along happily just like the real thing. What surprised me most about this little van is how stable it is on the track; thanks to Dash Motorsport’s excellent design quality, I can drift it through the turns. So maybe that isn’t quite so realistic…but its fun!
’63 Fairlane hardtop in green
I bought this one from a seller who was a little less than honest about its condition, although I can’t complain too much, since even though he described it as having in-tact screw posts he also showed a picture of the underside and if I had looked carefully enough I could have seen they were both split. Odd, since otherwise it seems to be in nearly mint condition. I know how to deal with cracked screw posts, though, so I was able to mount it up on a nice running open-rivet NOS chassis and take it for a cruise. I used one my last sets of good shiny stock wheels on this one too, which it seemed to deserve to match the clean grille and bumpers. This is a rare color even on the reproductions and I don’t have enough greens in the Road Crew so it made a nice addition, especially because I had this repro body as a convertible but, until I acquired this one, I did not have it as an original-style 2-dr hardtop. I plan to get an original one of these at some point, but for now these high-quality Dash repros will do just fine.
’63 Falcon convertible in dark gray with red interior
Ah HA! I finally got this one in this color! I’ve been looking for it even since I foolishly passed on buying a brand new one a couple of years ago when the supply was plentiful and the prices were lower. It may be a repro, but finding this body in this color has taken me a long time! Oddly, it came mounted on an Auto World Ultra- G chassis fitted with original stock T-Jet wheels, so I took that over to the racing fleet, giving me a 2-fer in a way. The previous owner had also added the driver and passenger, saving me the trouble since I would have done the same thing! I mounted it on another of my NOS open-rivet chassis on which it now runs around the track as speedy as you please! This is a really good looking car, glad I was finally able to get my hands on one!
So there’s a few new fleet members that thieves didn’t get their hands on, and they are now safely locked inside my basement toy room, where they will soon be even safer once I have my video system and electronic locks installed. After all, it has become painfully clear that those of us cursed to live in our once beautiful but now deteriorating cities are pretty much on our own! Hopefully I can hang on to what I have!