Happy September, dear readers! The Labour Day weekend starts off right here @ Drag City with rest, relaxation, and a gaggle of cool new vintage acquisitions! I have just taken delivery of a 4-some of Aurora Vibrators, 1 in mint condition, one very good, one good, and one trashed, but ALL running on their original chassis, which is a rarity for these old “Vibes!”
The purchased lot consisted of a trio of 1962 Ford Galaxies; 2 in monotone yellow with red interior, one in mint condition and the other, sadly, carved up, and a red one with a black roof. Prior to this, my collection consisted of my “unmarked cop car,” the tan one with the white roof and red sets, and, of course, the two actual cop cars, both tan with black rooves, so it was a kick to get these; I had been after the solid yellow one for a while, ever since I was watching one on ePay a year ago that the seller wanted an insane $300 for! I paid nothing near that for these, and into the bargain I got a very nice and clean red Ford F-100 Unibody, another one I’d been after for a long time! Previously I had only a Dash Motorsports reproduction, though it was a very nice one in turquoise and white. Though I was really after a tan one, red was my second choice, and since these early “Vibes” were only made in 4 colors (red, yellow, tan, and white) this lot does a great deal to expand my collection!
The one with the carved up wheel wells was actually an intentional purchase, and since I usually avoid such cut-ups, you may wonder why I bought this one. Well, I’m in the process of a new “evil plan” for which I am trying to collect a small handful of really bad condition cars, so I will be seeking out a few cut-ups like this when I can get them cheap; this, then, will be the first one of what will eventually be a little herd of them for a specific purpose, and while it will likely take months for me to complete that plan, you’ll find out what it is eventually! I will say that the decals on this car make it perfect for my purposes, which was the icing on the cake and why I couldn’t pass it up! For now, this one gets set aside from the others, although it is interesting to note that the chassis it was mounted on was by far the fastest and best running of all of these!
The mint yellow one was also a great runner, while the red one and the truck both required a little “coaxing” to come back to life, but they did, and soon I had all 4 of them running around the track making their hilarious characteristic “door bell buzzer” noise. Of course, you’re not supposed to run Vibrators on a DC track since they weren’t made for it, and I don’t want to burn then up, so I only ran them for a few seconds each, and of course they barely had any traction due to those original vibrator tires being all dried up and skinny as a fingernail, but it was still fun!
The yellow car is so pristine that it’s going to remain on its original chassis for now and will sit on the Road Crew parking lot as a display piece, just like the high-dollar white ’62 Country Squire wagon. For the remaining two, I turned to a pair of old closed-rivet Thunderjet chassis I’ve been saving and started the conversion process!
I made sure I put the two decent running original Vibrator chassis aside, clearly marked as to their origins, should I ever decide to put them back together as they came (though as we all know, who’s to say if those are the chassis they came out of the boxes with? They could be!) and then set about shimming and mounting the bodies on chassis that are much more compatible with my Model Motoring track. Within just a few minutes each I had both mounted on a new chassis and running around the track happy as clams!
You’ll note the red truck has some of those cheesy decals on it and I discussed my feelings about the old decals in detail in this post. I realize I am very much at odds with many T-Jet collectors on this issue, but I don’t care, this is my collection, so the decals stay; I’ll let the next owner remove them should he so choose.
Not that I’m looking toward the next owner any time soon! I’m buying, not selling, at this point in my life; I’m sure that will change in time, but for now I’m having a ball down in the basement watching cartoons and playing with my toys, and I ain’t comin’ up anytime soon! So stay tuned if you like this sort of thing, ‘cuz there’s always more fun coming at DRAG CITY!
I think these are some cool little models and that “vibratey thing” you mentioned certainly is different and kinda neat. I think it’s a great idea how you document those chassis’s and you are a true artist with these cars!