HIGH BUILDS: The Ghost of Mr. Shelby Returns!

I’ve made the case several times over the last few months that I’m slowing down significantly on my slot car builds and acquisitions because over the last 4.5 years I’ve managed to obtain a great deal of what I want. That’s not to say there aren’t a lot of “whales” out there I’d love to have, but the really valuable ones that sell for many hundreds of dollars may never be in my collection because I’m simply not willing to spend that kind of money on them, even when I have the money to spend. There are exceptions, however, and here’s one now!

On Jan 16 of 2021 I did a “NEW BUILD” post about another of these Road Race Replicas Shelby GT350 racers, and in that post I recounted the rather amusing detail of a car collector’s value guide published in 1983 talking about the contentious nature of the classic car market’s treatment of the Shelby Mustangs, including the assertion by one collector that “we’re seeing the top cars being advertised for upwards of $12,000-$15,000.” How would like to buy a genuine ’65 Shelby GT350 for that price now? In 2020, one such car sold for $3,850,000.

Taking things down to 1:64 scale the price reduction was proportional but, only that; I probably do a little too much of hanging price tags on things on this blog, so while I won’t state the figure, I will say there were 3 of them and the first one was not a “1.” And, regardless of the scale of the car, as it so often is for your HB: it was all about the color! This light blue and orange livery is-I’m sure I need not tell you-inspired by the Gulf Oil racing colors of the early 70’s, a color scheme which has been enjoying renewed popularity in recent years thanks to a line of really cool Hot Wheels releases decorated in these famous colors. Citing another older post about a similarly colored car, this post from January 17 of ’21 about one of my Aurora Ford GT-40’s mentioned my family connection to this famous era, as my grandfather worked as a chemical engineer for Gulf Oil for years, and traveled the world as a result. Here was my chance to do up another famous Ford in those colors, and all I had to do was pay through the nose for it, because, as with the black and yellow Ferrari 250GTO, this was a limited release that was already sold out by the time I became aware it had been made! They were gone within weeks, and I can remember calling Phil Pignon of RRR in 2021 and pleading with him to sell me one from his “private stash,” which he agreed too, for an astronomical price. I decided not to take him up on that offer…another bad decision, because what he asked for then was a bargain compared to what I wound up forking over for this one when I finally found it earlier this month!

OK, so let’s put it bluntly: I got pretty well raped. But then again, no one had a gun to my head forcing me to buy it, and by now, you know that when I get a “vision” in my head of what I want a car to look like, virtually nothing will stop me from getting it, and I had just such a vision for this car. Last week, after 3 years, I made that vision a reality!

It isn’t as if I didn’t have guidance, though; this Greenlight release of their 1968 Mustang Fastback which lives in the Inspection Area of the diorama provided that inspiration: this is one of the most beautiful die-casts on my layout, and I wanted to make a slotty as close as possible to it!

To get there, I bought another set of the once impossible to obtain “TA” style wheels and a set of low-profile tires from JAG Hobbies, and then dropped by the local Hobby Lobby to pick up a can of Testor’s bright gloss orange spray paint to use one time, to shoot those little wheels and nothing more. To guarantee the outter rims would stay chrome, I ran a bead of Vaseline around the edges with a Q-Tip before painting them, allowing me to merely wipe the paint off once dried, leaving a nice, clean look. It worked great, and the next step was obtain another of the translucent orange Auto World chassis from one of their ridiculous “Space Jam” releases, which I bought from an ePay vendor who always sells the bodies and chassis separately. I didn’t do much to it at first, although I “fiddled” with it later after finding its performance initially unsatisfactory.

It all fit together remarkably well! I’ve assembled a total of 8 of these RRR Mustangs of various styles and some of them required a lot of little “modifications” to get them to fit the slightly larger Ultra G chassis, but on this one, just the right shims employed on both the front and rear screw posts cleared everything; no grinding to the wheel wells, the bottom of the rear window, or anything else!

All that remained then was to add the racing number-an UltraCal in orange-and a few other subtle decals marking it with the logo it was clearly designed to have from its inception! The 70-series numbers are largely unused so I had several to choose from, so I decided on 79. This 1965-born Mustang is a restored but genuine Shelby-built car, brought to town by Florida native Hunter “HIGH ROLLER” Hogan, an adrenaline junkie who, like Charger driver Jaryl Garen, wins and loses fortunes as a professional gambler. Piloting a full-race spec GT350 on the dangerous curves of Drag City just comes with the territory, so he named his car “DEUCES WILD.”

It came out awesome. Was it worth it? Well…yeah, I’d say so, because it’s a goal achieved: a vision made reality. Whether it’s something as grand as a seaside mansion or as small as a slot car, few things in life are more rewarding then seeing something inside your head take shape in the physical world!