“The Replacements” Episode XIII

Oh no, its dreaded 13! My triskaidekaphobia is rearing its head because I never thought that I’d get to 13 episodes of “The Replacements!” I guess that’s what happens when you want to limit your racing fleets to something resembling a manageable number, but can’t help yourself from buying more cars!

Following on last Thursday’s post about the retirement of the few remaining stock cars in the muscle car racing fleet, we come to one of my most difficult retirements: saying goodbye to “Old Reliable,” the mist green ‘64 GTO raced by Case Cunningham, a driver who became known as “The Comeback Kid” a good half a dozen years or more before that same moniker was bestowed upon a particular president, who at this time was yet to be elected.

Cunningham‘s nickname and the name of his car are obviously related, and they stem from Cunningham‘s initially poor showings on the track in the earliest days of Drag City. These were the days of the Mark I track, so long ago and so primitive that even photographic evidence of it is scant. I’ve searched through my archives, and I’ve only found a few pictures of the green GTO as it was delivered, and that may be because I distinctly remember being disappointed with it when it arrived. I bought it online without seeing it in person, and when I opened it, I discovered that the body was smaller in scale than the other AW T-jets I had bought up to that point, and since it was made by the same manufacturer as the others, it just seemed like sloppiness to me: why was this car rendered smaller than all the others? The other thing that I didn’t like was that it was a single piece body, with the bumpers and grill merely being painted with silver paint even in this earlier era, rather than being separate pieces of chrome plated plastic, so overall, it just seemed like a lower effort than the other cars that I had bought to that point. These design issues caused me to take a disliking to it right off the bat.

Well, it didn’t take long for that to change, because once I started running it on the track, it was clear I had a hot performer on my hands. It wasn’t the fastest car, for sure, but it had a stability to it that was impressive: shortly after acquiring it (or maybe shortly before; details are a little sketchy) I built Drag City Mk II, which, as you may remember, was the gray Tyco “Ferrari Face-off” track extended with additional black pieces from other sets. I quickly discovered that all of the twisty curves of that track couldn’t shake this GTO down! She kept winning races, and often doing so even when she was down in the ranks, coming from behind after initially mediocre showings, beating other cars that-while faster-didn’t have the sticking power and couldn’t stay on the track as well!

Not long after this, she was fitted with the MEV 5-lug wheels, which I felt improved the appearance without affecting the performance. The car proved itself to be so predictable in racing that after only a few months it earned the nickname “Old Reliable,” and she may have been the very first one of my slot cars to get a name, before I made a conscious decision-which I blogged about here-to name every car!

All of this history explains why I was reluctant to make any changes to this car. It would’ve been a matter of utter simplicity to modify the chassis and put a set of custom wheels on it, or just mount the body on a new chassis, and keep it in the fleet; but because this car has earned my respect, I wanted to keep it exactly as it is. As a result, I have decided to put her into semi retirement whole, now that she has reached the point of fatigue-after 5 years of racing-where an overhaul to the chassis is inevitable anyway.

Another idea I considered was buying another copy of it in this same color, which of course I would have to do online since its been out of production for years and I’d pay a mint for it. I certainly could have done that, but I decided against it, instead electing to use a newer release of the same body in a color that I’m extremely fond of. It is true, though, that “Old Reliable” remains the only slot car I’ve ever owned painted this particular shade of green, which makes me wonder if someday I’m going to buy a second copy of it anyway,* so don’t be too shocked if you find her replacement being replaced again in the near future!
_{(*edit – subsequent to the initial post of this entry, I did just that!)}

As for this new build: This is #4 from the “OK Used Cars” set from about 2 years ago, the other being the deep teal green, which I also set up for the Muscle Fleet. This car has been hanging on my wall for some time as an unused display model, but I decided to take it down and replace it-for the time being at least-with the recently purchased black Ford Thunderbolt, which I still haven’t exactly decided what to do with!

It is not mounted on the chassis it came on; I took that one, which came out of the package with a set of redline tires, and set it aside carefully, choosing to use one of my new complete chassis purchases instead. Due to the car’s small frame, I opted to use a set of “A-size” Vincent wheels and tires on shortened Aurora axles. These wheels are skinny and do not put the meat on the ground the way many of the other designs do, so it can make the car skittish, but I have a couple of others running on similar sized wheels and tires that perform quite well so, as is always the case, it really depends on the car. One unusual feature I opted to use on this car is the guide pin: though I initially was going to use the new-style Auto World threaded metal pin, I found that even with the small front wheels, it didn’t penetrate deep enough into the slot, so fishing through my parts bin, I found an old unused translucent red guidepin from the early Aurora days. The idea behind these was that they were created as rear pins, primarily for people who wanted to use their Thunderjets not as racing cars, but to augment their model train displays, and thus didn’t want their cars sliding all over the road. I found that this pin was just a perfect depth, and prevented me from having to use one of my few remaining long OS3 pins and grind it down, since that one would’ve been a little bit too long! I knew I was keeping that old pin around for a reason!

The chassis I used has exceptionally stiff springs upfront, so the front wheels just barely touch the track, but I’m going to depend that the breaking-in period will take care of that, and that I won’t have a front end that bounces around and causes poor performance. If that does turn out to be the case, I will have to make an “adjustment.”

So, then! I mentioned that, despite being one of the oldest drivers on the track, “The Comeback Kid” is not retiring from racing! So now it’s time to come up with The Lore for this replacement for “Old Reliable!” It’s kind of ironic that this is the second ‘64 GTO that is now going to wind up with a complex backstory, because it’s the second time that one was put into the fleet and then taken back out and replaced. You may remember the involved but exciting saga of Robert “Rotor” Rotowski’s “Shadow of Light” and its sister car “II,” which you can read in all its glory here. Not wanting to do the same sort of story twice, and especially with the same make, model, and year of car, I figured that the most sensible story is that this is not a different car at all, but the same car after a complete overhaul, including a color change. After all, the name “New Reliable” sounds stupid, and why would the same driver trade out to a different car of the same make, model, and year? (Although it has happened; sometimes I can make up legit-sounding reasons for it!) What makes the most sense is that after 5 long hard years on the track, “Old Reliable” spent just about a year being professionally rebuilt from bumper to bumper: reconditioned engine and driveline, body repairs, and a new paint job: extensive, expensive work that almost any car that does hard duty on a racing track has to undergo regularly. Hey, its an expensive sport, dear readers: that’s why I do it in 1:64 instead of 1:1!

Thus, what you are looking at here is “Old Reliable” with a new lease on life! That keeps the name and the driver still racing at drag city, and helps keep the original car in our minds and in our hearts. That sounds like a win-win to me! So now let’s see if “The Comeback Kid” can live up to his name again!