Project XL500: A Rare Cigar Box Toy Causes A Conundrum: To “Thunderjetize,” or NOT to “Thunderjetize?”

The seller’s ePay listing read as follows:

Now, I realize that there are some toy car collectors out there that are really into these “error pieces,” and I know sometimes they carry a small premium. Thing is, your humble blogger has never been that kind of collector: I don’t really care. I was interested in this car not because of the backwards interior insert but because its’ a dark blue Ford Galaxie XL500 fastback, a body that is very expensive when found as a T-Jet! The seller’s opening bid was high-ish but not outland-ish, so I bid the minimum and won it unopposed, with the intention to do exactly what the seller said the buyer would probably do!

When it arrived, though, I hesitated…these cars are rare and hard to find, especially in decent condition, which this one was; decent, though not mint. Did I really want to drill the rivets out? Wouldn’t it be cool to leave it stock?

I noticed that the back wheels would not roll forward, which I took to be the result of interference with that reversed interior insert, which made me wonder how it had survived for so long in this condition, since it couldn’t have had much play value for a kid. And the more I looked at it the more I began to wonder about this “error piece” status, because I realized that if I tugged gently on the metal baseplate, I was able to get the headless screws to pop out of their posts just enough that when I pushed the base back into position, the screw heads stood proud of the flush base. I’ve taken apart several of these Cigar Box cars and turned them into T-Jets, and I’ve never seen one do that before; I’ve always had to drill the heads off the screws, but here, I was able to get the screws to raise enough that, if I were patient and careful, I believed I could get a pair of pliers on them and twist them out without damaging anything!

So I did! It took a while and I used 3 different pliers; the back screw was harder to get out than the front due to the interference from the gas tank impression cast into the base, but eventually I got them both out just by twisting: no drilling, no cracking, nothing broken or damaged!

I am aware that if this really was a factory-made “error piece” I have just neutered its status as such, but as I said earlier, I don’t really care about that; what I do care about is that if I ever decide to put this car back together as an original Cigar Box free-wheeler, I can do so with almost no effort…a lot like a hot-rodder keeping the original 283 and Powerglide out of his Chevelle in the corner of a shed to sell with the car someday in the future if the next owner wants to remove the built big-block and 4-speed he replaced it with and return the car to a “numbers-matching original.” So now, just like that stereotypical hot-rodder, its time to hop her up as a T-Jet!

I already had a good early closed-rivet chassis all gone-through and ready to go, so all it needed was a set of wheels and tires for installation, but the body needed one significant piece of work: as I have discovered over the years (and you probably have as well, dear reader), many of the T-Jet bodies had their screw posts shortened when they were used as Cigar Box bodies in order to fit the die-cast chassis. My first encounter with this was years ago when I tried to “Thunderjetize” a Speedline Mangusta. It would take a couple of years for me to experiment and learn enough to realize I could work with these, but I’ve gotten quite good at it now with the right materials, so I cut myself another tiny piece of styrene tubing, epoxied it to the front screw post (in such a way that it can be removed with a little effort in the future), and ground it down little by little until it was just the right length: fortunately I had my stock original yellow XL500 as a model for that, which helped. I then carefully threaded the front screw once the adhesive dried and then put it all together and even ran her on the track for a “test run” with no lights or bumpers.

That was the next thing to be addressed: since this is one of the many Cigar Box cars that had the grille and bumpers cast as part of the die-cast chassis, I would have to obtain a set of plastic ones identical to those used on the slot body. “Ratherboring” to the rescue again with his excellent reproduction parts; I placed an order for both ends and had them within less than a week, and during that time I got out my Meguiar’s Plast-X polish and my dremel and went to town removing all the micro-scratches all over the body, and except for one bad rub area on the boot lid I was able to buff it to an almost like-new shine!

Once I got that front and rear assembly I put them on with glue and they fit perfectly. I colored in the tail lights with a red sharpie aaaaaand…Vo-EEE-Laa! A rare, expensive dark blue XL500 T-Jet for half the usual price!

Not that it was cheap, mind you; with the purchase of the car, the chassis (wheels, tires, axles) and the front and rear bumpers I have about $120 invested in this, but if you think that sounds like a lot, trying buying an original T-jet body in this condition in this color and see what you have to pay for it! Sure, I know its not as valuable as “the real thing,” but it still looks mighty good, and rather than it being a “fake,” I think of it as a kosher customization, an aftermarket redo made with correct factory parts!

Due to the Galaxie XL500’s long tail, I like to put Jel Claws 2030’s on the rear wheels to prevent the rear from sliding out too much and spinning the car around on the track in the turns, so it runs just great now, cruising along with all the other T-Jets in the Road Crew without anyone being the wiser that she’s really an imposter! She’s got a few battle scars and the A and B pillars on the driver’s side are a little tweaked, but overall this is a good “driver quality” car that looks great lined up with my collection. Regardless of value, this was a fun project from start to finish, including disassembling the original toy without fundamentally altering a thing, and fun is what collecting toys is all about!