–WHALE HUNTING– Scoring a trio of RARE Aurora Thunderjets!

I have recently had the pleasure of making the personal acquaintance of a slot-head name Joe Feruli, a Colorado native who’s been into T-Jets since he was a kid. Many years ago, Mr. Feruli began making his own slot cars via old-school style molds. Over the years he has cast and hand-built many interesting and unique cars and trucks to fit the Aurora chassis, but, as you might expect, he also has a vast collection of original factory-made cars, including some real rarities.

After we met at the Colpar’s swap meet last summer, we exchanged contact info, but I didn’t hear from him until I returned from my X-mas vacation. Then, right after the first of the year, he called me out of the blue to say he was looking at selling a lot of his collection, and asked if there was anything I was looking for.

Heh heh…. “Well, lemmetellya….” So I did. Bear in mind your humble blogger is not made of money, and some of the really rare T-Jets sell for astronomical prices, so I wasn’t going to throw out insane ideas like that slate blue Buick Riviera. I did mention a few rare ones I was after, which generally sell for prices that are high but not ridiculous. Did he have any of those? Well…he would check and get back to me. A week later, he called again and asked if we could meet. I gave him my address. He came over to my crib “Spider Acres” one night after work with some things he’d found in his collection.

And that, in a nutshell, is how I came to own 3 of my most valuable members of The Road Crew all in one shot!

Olds Toronado in BLACK

The ‘66 Oldsmobile Toronado is one of my favorite T-Jets because it is a model of a beautiful car that I love IRL, and the hardest color to find it in is black. It’s not as scarce as some of the slate blue models or those odd colors for the Dodge Charger, but its still mighty hard to find, and all colors of this body are difficult to find in good condition: the A-pillars are almost always bent or broken on this model, and as you can see from these pictures, this one is no exception, but although one A-pillar is bent and the other is bent and cracked, they are still there, which is a find in and of itself! While not mint, its still mighty good, having in-tact screw posts, in-tact wheel wells, and good chrome all around. This is a great add to The Road Crew!

Jaguar E-Type in GRAY

The 2^nd rarest color to find this car in (second only to, of course, slate blue), this gray example of the XKE coupe is a “driver quality” original. The chrome shows some wear-especially on the wraparound sections of the rear bumper, but the body is almost perfect, with no stress cracks, bent pillars, or damage to the screw posts. The chrome on the wheels is also a little worse for wear but its not awful, and a little bit of “patina” never hurts. Though I’ve always said this is not the best model of this car due in part to the oddly shaped wheel arches, which I radius out for the versions in my numbered racing fleet, this one is going to stay original! I made one concession to modernity when I fitted the rear with Jel Claws tires for some like-new traction.

Maserati 3500GT in GREEN

The jewel of this trio due to its near-mint condition, and also the rarest of these three, this is also “one that got away,” since on my first ever visit to PSH they had one of these and I almost bought it but decided against in favor of some others, and someone else got it before I got a chance to go back. That one, however, did not have the offset stripe which the green one often didn’t, and yet this one does, making it even more desirable! You can bet I would love to see this beauty mounted on an Ultra-G with Vincent or RRR wheels and racing numbers, but, no way! As hard as this one is to find, it stays completely stock! There is an even more scarce version-the dark blue one is worth many hundreds-but this one isn’t far behind. This is likely now the single most valuable T-Jet I own, and while I may run it on the track for a few seconds at a time, its condition makes it more of a display piece than anything. Regardless, I’m thrilled to have gotten it!

All 3 of these cars run on old-style closed-rivet Aurora T-Jet 500 chassis, and as you’ve heard me say a million times, there is no way to “numbers-match” the chassis to the bodies, but with the condition these cars are in, they may well be the original chassis the bodies left the factory on. Even if they’re not, they are period-correct, which is all you can ask for. And that’s how they will all stay: no alterations or customizations are in the future for these babies: these are colletor’s pieces that will stay as they are, lined up with the rest of The Crew for short runs on those weekday morning meditations before work. I get as much pleasure out of running these old slow cars on my vintage track as I do racing the high-speed Ultra G’s on the Tomy AFX track, and now there’s even more fun to be had!

Of course, this isn’t all I got from Mr. Feruli that day! There’s even more goodies that resulted from his visit, and I’ll be doing reveals on those in the near future as well, so stay tuned, fellow slot-heads: there’s more T-Jet action to come here at DRAG CITY!