As the countdown continues to 96 cars in the Auto World Ultra-G numbered sports car fleet, the second of the final four builds has arrived. This one started off with a somewhat amusing misfire which explains why it took me quite a bit longer to build this car than I had planned!
In my latest installment of Road Crew Expansion, I mentioned I had added a couple of really nice examples of the original Aurora Chaparral 2A to that collection. This is a model I never cared for much because I’ve always thought it’s a poor representation of the real car, and therefore up until just recently, I only ever owned one of them, which also happened to be a cigar box free-wheeler conversion. After adding the turquoise and red one to the Road crew, I looked at the colors available and decided I wanted a white one for the sports car fleet; white was, after all, the color that all Chaparrals originally wore on the track back in the day! So I found one at one of the usual sites and ordered it. The problem was, when it arrived: it was an absolutely pristine virginal original in mint condition that looked like it had never even been put on a track! It was mounted on a period-correct closed rivet chassis with all the copper bright and shiny. The moment I saw it, I knew that this was a collector’s piece.
Now, when I started in this hobby, it wouldn’t have bothered me a bit to turn this into a member of the ultra G racing fleet, but not anymore: so I really had no choice but to add this one to The Road Crew as well, where I now have a colorful trio of Chaparral 2A’s! And having done that, I then had to go back to the web and hunt for another one!
This time I was determined to get one of a caliber that I would have no compunction about converting to an Ultra-G, and since this particular car is very commonly found with the driver’s head missing, I knew I was just going to have to contend with that, so I decided to buy the cheapest one I could find that was still mostly intact and mounted on an original chassis. I found what I wanted soon enough, and when it arrived, I knew I bought the perfect car for my next conversion.
Recall my discussion about vintage decals on these old Auroras, and how I often tend to leave those on the cars when I find them. I don’t always – each case is a little different – but in this case some of the original Aurora decals on this battered car gave it that beat up patina that made it look like an original, real, “lived-in” 1960s racer; a car that has seen a lot of track duty and was covered with burned-in grit and grime: a battle-hardened warrior.
There was one decal that I couldn’t keep: the Porsche logo on the back, which, although it looked kind of cool, was obviously wrong, and there were a couple of others that were already flaked off badly enough that I just scraped the remnants off, but some of the others, including the Autolite and Gulf logos on the front and the amusing Cherry Bomb logo on the back, had a cool enough vintage vibe that I decided to leave them. I may change my mind about this in the future, and I can always scrape them off later if I choose, but for now they’re going to stay, as is the car’s factory-sprayed racing number. It’s a duplicate, of course; the existing #3 belongs to the black Lola GT named “Shotgun,” but as long as it’s in a different racing group than that one, it will pass muster.
Of course, I had to replace the driver’s head, so again I went into my parts stash and picked the second to last of my two-piece drivers that I bought several years ago (I don’t remember where I got these and I haven’t been able to find any like them recently, so this may be just about the last chance I have to replace a severed head unless more show up somewhere), but it worked OK: the peg of the neck fit into the headless body just fine, and with a little bit of glue and a touch of paint on the top, he now looks a lot like he did when Aurora put him there almost 60 years ago.
No modifications were needed to the body on this one: all I had to do was deepen the notch at the back of the Auto World chassis just a little to get it mounted. For wheels, I went with my last set of Vincent “Steels” in red, which I thought complimented the red interior of the car nicely. He got a set of low profile Vincent tires on the rear with full size Road Race Replicas tires on the front: that’s an odd combination and I have not often used, but it looked right on this car, with the right combination of clearance and wheel well fill. As planned for all of these four final builds, the chassis is brand new and therefore is a fierce performer. It’s extremely fast and looks like it’s going to grip and corner very well.
Jetstream is a 1965 Chaparral 2A—a Texas-built experimental racer born from aerospace obsession and outlaw ingenuity. Designed by Jim Hall and his engineers at Rattlesnake Raceway, the 2A featured an aluminum semi-monocoque chassis with bonded fiberglass panels, a rear-mounted Chevrolet 327 small-block V8 producing over 450 horsepower, and a bespoke GM-sourced automatic transmission modified for road racing. Independent suspension on all four corners and inboard disc brakes gave the car razor-sharp handling, while its wide track and low profile make it a weapon on the long fast straightaways at Drag City. Behind the wheel is Tennessee-born David “Delta” Dorn, a former Air Force fighter pilot whose background in high-speed precision flight bleeds into his driving style: smooth, silent, and deadly. He doesn’t talk much in the paddock—but when Jetstream howls down the straight, people stop and stare.
I could’ve done more cleanup on the body than I did before finishing it. I did clean it up a little, but I intentionally left some of the grime on it along with the tattered decals to keep that “brawler” look. We all know that often the toughest car is on a racing track is not the prettiest. “Delta” Dorn and Jetstream clearly mean business: their competitors are advised to take notice.
I guess there are worse things that buying something and realizing it is a pristine original and a true collector’s piece! It is a kinda neat little car, it makes me think of the vintage fantasy stuff from the 50’s and 60’s, over the top, sure, but not wildly outlandish. It is a cool racer, and the road wear look fits perfectly!