Well here we are on a Saturday and I’m still digging out from out latest Springtime Snowmageddon which dropped well over a foot of heavy wet snow in my yard from Wednesday night to Friday morning. Fortunately that gave me a couple of work-from-home days, which means more time for toys! YAY!
While still chasing many of the Aurora originals I want for my collection (barring those that are just too expensive for me to ever pony up for), I’m also trying some new things to either enhance a few of my existing cars or just to do something different for a change, so this installment of “Road Crew Expansion” will feature a “grab bag” of new additions to the cars that run on the Model Motoring track. For starters, in this post I’ll profile some newly acquired old-school originals…
Aurora ’62 Galaxie Police in TAN with BLACK ROOF
The most expensive recent edition to my collection was also the most infuriating, and this experience provided another important lesson about what can happen to consumer-grade plastic when stored in a very hot environment for decades. I bought this original vibrator as a body-only (which suits me fine since I can’t run vibrator chassis). It not only looked good online but it also looked good when I first took it out of the package. But looks can be deceiving; what appeared to be a good body was in fact extremely brittle, as I found out when I tried to insert a typical screw into the front post. The screw was not oversized, but the post fractured on the first application of the slightest pressure, and not only vertically (along the length of the shaft) but also horizontally, essentially destroying the post, and the rear one cracked as well, although not as badly. Perhaps there were already hairline fractures that I couldn’t see, but I always examine the posts carefully before putting an older car together, mindful of just this kind of disaster, and since it happened anyway, it appears that what I have here is a body that has been weakened over the years by exposure to extreme temperatures.
Undaunted, I went ahead and fabricated my own posts as I have now learned to do, but it sure was a pisser to take something I thought I’d gotten a fair deal on and devalue it by half just putting it together. Even so, when finished it looks good sitting next to another of its department brethren, and since the black-roof police car is harder to find that the one with the white roof, I’m not complaining too much. Now mounted on a good reconditioned closed-rivet original T-Jet chassis, speeders on the HO Highway now have to double-beware of “Big John Law!”
Aurora ’63 T-Bird in OLIVE GREEN
While I admit it isn’t the most attractive color on this car, the olive ’63 T-Bird is a bit harder to come by than some of the other colors, and I came across this one at what I thought was a reasonable price and grabbed it. This car has had a bit of work done-the driver and the windshield are replacements-but so what? They look good, and the rest of the body is tip-top: good screw posts, good wheel wells, and minimal scratching; even the chrome is pretty good. It came on a period-correct closed rivet chassis with good wheels that needed very little work to get going; just a little corrosion removal on the pick-up shoes, some oil, and a new set of tires on the rear; this must have been stored for a long time in a dry place due to that lack of corrosion and the dried out tires, but a better set from the parts bag and a good dose of my PTFE “Super Lube” got her going great without even a full rebuild! This is another of the original Aurora bodies that I’m very fond of, so still looking for a good white one and maybe one in tan as well, but as with all these cars, the “slate blue” model is probably out of reach…a shame, for this car looks particularly good in that rarified color…
Aurora ’67 T-Bird in TURQUOISE
Probably the most interesting of the recently added originals, I thought I’d gotten a pretty good deal on this one even though it wasn’t cheap, since right before buying it I bid another one up to over $100 before losing it to someone who wanted it more than I did. This body has been the subject of a previous owner’s very good repair; one of the front windshield posts-often broken on this car as they are so thin and delicate-has been carefully replaced, and it appears that it may have been from a different colored car and painted, and if that’s true, then whoever did the work did a killer job finding a paint color that matched the body.
That’s all the more impressive since this body has discolored slightly due to its age to a color that is even more beautiful than it originally was! Time has given the outter surfaces a slight greenish hue which my usual cleaning methods did not affect, and this can be clearly seen when turning it upside down in the light: the color seen on the underside of the body is the original, and appears more blue than the outside. Like the patina seen on corroded copper, this discoloration has actually made the car prettier, and it really pops lined up by the track with the rest of my collection. Mounted on a correct closed rivet chassis, the motor in this one is tired so its slow and gets hot even after a full cleaning and rebuild, but I have spare motors, so I can deal. The ’67-‘69 “Glamour-bird” is one of those cars that I’m not super fond of IRL, but I love the Aurora model. I’m still looking for a good one in red (very hard to find) but this addition is really beautiful, and even though it wasn’t cheap, I’m very happy to have added this to my fleet.
Model Motoring ’67 GTO in CANDY GREEN with black roof
This is another “body box special” of the type I’m getting used to doing up when I’m trapped inside due to weather. This is one a pair of these bodies I bought in the candy-colored hues (red and green) a while back just because I found them cheap and I love these 1967 Model Motoring muscle cars, and let’s face it: they may be plentiful now, but they’re not going to be cheap forever! During the latest storm I was digging around for something to do and thought this was a good subject, so it got mounted on a very clean original open rivet chassis with a set of those awesome Vincent chrome 5-Lugs, and shod with Jel Claws on the back, its ready to do battle on the interstate!
Not a bad roundup for the ol’ Road Crew! Next up: some more experimental additions to this fleet, so you can tell me if I’m coming up with cool ideas or just making a mess!
I’ll say these are some good ideas and additions. I’m still fascinated by the the history and mystery of some of these cars, like the one with previous restoration and how he did it. These are looking great and like a ton of fun!