For the first time in a long while, I’ve just spent a wad of serious money making some new classic Thunderjet acquisitions. My last addition was the battered ‘63 T-Bird I rescued from the 50¢ bin @ CoD, the results of which were almost awesome but taken down a notch toward the end by a shattered screw post. Prior to that, the last time I added anything to The Crew was in February of last year.
Although I bought quite a few cars, my focus was on two goals. Now, one of those goals will be the topic of a future post, which I plan to drop a week from today; the other is the one you see here: filling some holes in the Road Crew collection that I had originally left intentionally but recently had a change of heart about. Specifically: I decided to acquire some good copies of a couple of models I I’ve held in low regard and originally didn’t want: the Chaparral 2A and the McLaren Elva Mk1A.
While I still feel that both of these bodies are among the most disappointing of the Aurora originals, what has changed is that I have a more completionist outlook now, that of a small-time collector, which is NOT how I started out in this hobby! I now want all the Aurora originals represented in The Road Crew, even those that are not amongst my favorites. In addition to that, the sports/racing car section of The Crew is far smaller than the road car/muscle car section, so I thought it needed some punching up.
To satisfy this goal I went looking for less obvious colors and the best examples that I was willing to pay for, and I’m happy to say I scored some really good buys, and also picked up a couple of much more desirable models along the way. These last two were very expensive, but as I’ve said many times, my collection has become extensive enough that the cars I don’t have are the expensive ones, and to continue adding cars is going to cost. So be it: that’s why it’s been so long since I last added anything!
SO! Here’s an up-close look @ 5 of the more recent additions to the Road Crew!
“2 & 7” – The Pair of Chaparral 2A’s
I went for turquoise and red. Neither is “rare”, really, but these are desireable colors that carry price premiums over white and yellow. While hunting for these, I actually had a hard time finding in-tact models, as most of the ones that I saw listed were missing the driver’s heads and some of the exhaust pipes and intake tubes at the back! The turquoise purchase, the first one I made, was a little messy, arriving as it did on a later Tuff Ones chassis with TO wheels, but it was complete and intact, if a little dirty and dusty. Considering the lack of the correct-style chassis, the price was fair but not a bargain (there are few of those left in the wild, kids!) so when it arrived I added a good original closed-rivet chassis of my own and cleaned it up quite a bit with a good warm bath. Some of the images you see here were taken before the more thorough cleaning, but once done it looked pretty good. Subsequent to these pictures being taken, I added a set of Jel Claws to the rear for better traction.
Shortly after the turquoise one, the red one arrived, and it was very nice indeed: “VG+” for sure, to use a term that record collectors are fond of! This one needed virtually nothing; just a little cleaning on the chassis including a set of replacement brushes and we were “off to the races,” pun totally intended.
A Near Mint McLaren
I struggled to choose between blue and green for the Elva, but the green was definitely more expensive due to scarcity, and once I happened upon this extremely clean blue version, I pulled the trigger. Glad I did: it was the right choice! This little jewel is in superb condition, about as good as you can find for a car that has been raced and not in its original packaging. The body was flawless and the chassis, though showing some evidence of racing on the pickup-shoes, was clearly a low mileage original. It did have a lot of corrosion from years of disuse as all long-stored T-Jets do, so it was not operable at first, and I needed to disassemble and clean it to bring it back to life. It didn’t take much, though; I reused all the original parts and had it running in less than an hour! Its tires were too dried out to keep so I replaced the rears with a set of wide Jel Claws 2031’s, and it now sits beside my equally clean red one, the two looking superb side by side in the sports car side of the track parking lot! This may not be one of the best of the Aurora bodies, but these are two fine examples of it nonetheless!
A Very Desirable Cobra
I have a yellow and a tan original Cobra roadster in The Crew already, but I wanted a turquoise one. This is one of the more expensive Auroras due to collector interest and turquoise is a particularly expensive hue, so I had to fork over a lot of scratch for this one, and I was pretty chapped to find when it arrived that the front screw post was badly split. I haven’t been able to find any of those metal repair sleeves for years (they appear to no longer be available, although if anyone out there knows differently, please let me know when I can find some!) so I had to treat this one very gingerly as I took it apart to clean it. The front post held, though, for now. Over time its only going to get worse so if I don’t find a repair sleeve I’ll eventually be fabricating a replacement, but I really don’t want to do that due to this car’s value, so its presence on the track will be spare.
Even so, it ran great after cleaning and oiling the chassis and replaceing the front wheels, which were both banged up from “hammer installation” by a previous owner. I like the way the driver’s head is cocked to one side; that means its not original, but it does give it some nice character; I wonder, how did someone do that? Did they crack the head off and re-glue on it in a different position, or were there some drivers available in years past that came that way? Don’t know, but I like it, and the driver’s red shirt is a nice offset to the turquoise body. So not a perfect purchase, by any means: for the price I paid, that post should NOT have been cracked. Even so, it is beautiful, and other than the cracked post its in superb condition and displays perfectly.
And over on the road side of The Road Crew…
Lastly, we have one that isn’t a sports car: I’ve been looking for another Mercury Cougar to round out my brace of those, but have never been able to decide on a color. I thought I wanted a green one, but that’s one of the harder colors to find and very expensive, so one night last week I decided I wanted a red one! Turns out that was expensive, too, because I bought a really good one and paid accordingly, but it came out of the box needing nothing. A previous owner had clearly already giving the chassis a thorough going-over, as the pick-up shoes were bright and freshly sanded and the whole car was clean inside and out. A dot of oil on the main bearing and it lit up and ran perfectly: didn’t even need tires! Hmmm…that was almost too easy, almost boring! But this is what you should get when you pay what I gave for this one, and it looks great with its blue and white sisters at the east end of the parking lot!
Bonus Round! An old-timer gets a new look and a new attitude!
As mentioned above, the turquiose Chaparral-the first of these arrivals- came on a later Tuff Ones chassis. It didn’t run at first although it had life in it, so I did what I do: a disassembly, cleaning, and rebuild with new pick-up shoes and new brushes, and I also replaced the rear wheels and tires, which were discolored and worn. Once I had it running, I decided to do something I’d been considering for years and swap it under a T-Jet I’ve owned forever: namely the “tri-color” Mark Donohue AMX. This car would originally have come out of the package on a Tuff Ones chassis. I bought it on ePay as a body only back in 2021, originally planning to add it to the Auto World Trans Am fleet, but I then decided the use Auto-World’s own reproduction for that purpose. Since then, the body was mounted on a Frankenstein chassis I cobbled together from a mess of junk parts. It ran very well, mind you, esp since it was equipped with the hard-to-obtain “Hop-Up” 12-tooth rear pinion and associated crown gear and was shod with Jel Claws 2031’s at the rear, making it a very fast car! Even so, it wasn’t “right,” and now that I’m more “collector-minded” than in the past, I decided to use that TO chassis to restore the car to its proper look! It still runs great, and I’m happier with it now! And that Frankenstein chassis? It’s been set aside with a couple more originals that have been gone-through and running clean and strong, ready for whatever bodies I may choose to mount them on in the future!
And so there you have it, fellow slot-heads: the latest additions to the Road Crew here at the HO Highway, an “Enclave” of Drag City Raceway in Wardglenn CA! As mentioned, these aren’t the only recent acquisitions: there are 2 more that I have more elaborate plans for, and I’ll be revealing those plans soon enough, so check in with me from time to time, since-ya know-there’s always something exciting happening here at Drag City!
This is really cool and some neat new additions. I can understand about the completionist idea. It’s akin to those matchbox and hot wheels cars we had as kids and now we have to get the same models in all the available colors! You have done some amazing with these cars, and I think it’s awesome!