• Happy 2021! Let’s ring in the new year by upgrading some old toys!

The Cigar Box Conversions: everyone is doing it!

Anyone out there who may be collecting pristine original Aurora Cigar Box models may want to hang on to them for a while before you think about selling them, because I have a feeling they are going to be getting a lot more rare in the future.

Almost everyone who is into slot cars knows that Aurora made a line of free-wheeling toy cars using the same bodies they used for slot cars. This must been Aurora’s attempt to grab a slice of the lucrative 1/64 toy car market, but its hard to believe they were trying to compete with Matchbox and Hot Wheels. As a very young kid I remember hating the Cigar Box models: they were plastic, fer crissake! Why buy a plastic car when you can spend $0.15 more and get a metal one?

In truth, they seem to have sold quite well and probably did make Aurora a tidy sum, but they were nowhere near as popular as many other similiarly sized toy cars of the era, so that-combined with their relative fragility-have made good condition examples somewhat hard to find today.

Plentiful are the later and cheapened “speedline” versions in the chrome colors; I guess this was their answer to the Hot Wheels “spectraflame” paint look. I personally don’t like these, preferring the earlier models moulded in the same colors they used for the slot cars. These earlier versions are much harder to find and are also of higher quality, with their aluminum wheels and real rubber tires; they are actually quite nice, and thus can be quite expensive when they show up in good condition. But…not as expensive as the identical body as a Thunderjet! And there’s the rub; it’s the same body, why pay more? Why not use buy a Cigar Box car and put a T-Jet chassis on it?

Its not always quite that simple, because on some cars-not all-there are some differences to the screw posts in the casting, where posts were either lengthened or shortened to accept the shape of the metal chassis that was riveted to them. Obviously a longer post is no problem as an adjustment can be made, but there’s some work involved in that, and a danger that you could damage the body in the process of doing it.

Those are the exceptions, though; the majority of them will bolt right on, or, if they need adjustment, it would be no more than the adjustment needed for an equivalent T-Jet body when fitting it to the Auto World chassis.

There is another reason not to do this, which is that some people might feel it is destroying a vintage toy. As an avid die-cast collector I am sensitive to this; however, in the case of this process, you’re not destroying it, you’re just changing it, and likely changing it into something more valuable that more people would want. There’s some nobility in that, so except in the case of the most pristine original example of a Cigar Box car still in its original packaging, I don’t lose too much sleep over doing these conversions. Even so, I do try to limit myself to slightly more “distressed” cars that are still nice enough to be worth putting on a chassis…and that’s also more affordable, which is a plus as well.

The first step is to drill out the rivets; in actuality they are screws, not rivets, but they have a smooth head to prevent kids from taking them apart; only the very earliest models have a slotted screw that you could actually turn with a screw driver. These are not ordinary screws, however; they have an unusual spiral thread pattern and were machine installed, and are clearly not designed to be removed and reused; thus it is necessary to grind off the heads in order to remove the chassis from the body. Once this is done, the remaining shank of the screw can be twisted out of the post with a pair of needlenose pliers. As long as your screw posts aren’t cracked, you are now in possession of a Thunderjet body!

Discard the interior insert (many are identical between cars) and test fit your Thunderjet chassis; some adjustment may be needed, so keep that Dremel ready! Once you’re happy with the position and have done whatever “shaving” or installed whatever shims are needed to get your chassis to fit the way you want, fasten it together with the same screws you use for your standard T-jets, and Voila! You now have the slot car you wanted, at a discount!

As an added bonus, the original chassis of the Cigar Box car need not go to waste; the axles in these early cars are of high quality and can work great as front axles on a Thunderjet to install your custom wheels! I wouldn’t recommend using one as a rear axle since they are not splined, but they are ideal for the fronts, meaning you can save your splined axles for rear installations only. The aluminum wheels could likewise be used on an old-school Thunderjet chassis if you were building one with the original skinny tires; I think the polished aluminum looks better than the often tarnished chrome plastic used on the old T-Jets (although using them will increase unsprung weight).

As I continue to build my way to my goal of 2 fleets of 64 cars each, I’m going to show you some of the most recent builds as I put them together. This is similar to the  “Meet The Fleet” posts, except that there we’re looking back over what I’ve done in the last year; these are the ones I’m cranking out of the shop even as I’m working on these posts.

My New Year’s Eve gift: a beautiful original Aurora body of the famous Ford G.T.40. This one is turquoise, one of the harder to find colors for this body, and its in almost perfect condition. Although it wasn’t cheap, it would have been more expensive had the front screw post not been split. Of course I have a fix for this, but more on that later…

After fixing the screw post, I finished it with a brand new Ultra-G chassis fitted with Road Race Replicas wheels in the style RRR called “Bullets” (and which I call Torque Thrusts); I chose a black center to offset the black stripes on the car and used white on black roundels.

Mind you, it wasn’t easy overcoming my triskaidekaphobia to use this number! I’d been holding out on using #13 not because I was saving it for something good but because I didn’t want to use it at all! But, truth is…I have so many cars now that I’m beginning to run out of numbers! Until I acquire the hardware to make my own decals, which I am planning to do but haven’t gotten there yet, I have to dive into my stash of pre-made decals, and since I needed the right size for the hood and doors and wanted white on black roundels, scary #13 was the only one that fit the bill! As a final touch, I added a set of headlight decals specially made for this car; these are fairly hard to find, but I have seen them show up on ebay from time to time.

As it turns out, that triskaidekaphobia was misplaced: this has just now taken the title of the fastest car in my entire fleet, turning in an unbelievable lap time! And considering the magnets and motor are completely stock, it can only be the car’s small, low weight and low center of gravity that give it that amazing performance…in other words, exactly like the REAL CAR!

Auto World makes their Ultra-G Thunderjet chassis in 4 colors that I have seen to date: in addition to the standard very dark gray (let’s call it black), there are transparent red, transparent blue, opaque white, and a light brown. This last version was created for the “Barn Find” and “Graveyard Carz” series of releases, allegedly to simulate rust.

These colored chassis usually have to be purchased from specialty vendors on ebay as they are not readily available at hobby stores; even most of the online stores do not stock them. As a result they tend to be quite expensive, in some cases costing more than time and a half the price of a “bulk” black chassis. Having now purchased many of these, I have noticed some patterns: the light brown chassis seem to be the fastest and best performing I’ve come across. The blue ones, by contrast, are significantly slower than the standard black ones, while the red ones are essentially useless; every one I’ve purchased has been a disappointment.

This is more than just a matter of magnet strength; the light brown chassis are lightning fast on their stock magnets, and the red ones, even fitted with OS3 Black Dragon high performance magnets, can barely get out of their own way. I’ve had mixed results with the blue ones; most of them have been disappointing, but one, fitted to my yellow Cheetah, has made the car so fast that it has won more sports car tournaments than any other car in my fleet; it’s been given the nickname “King Of The Hill.”

Sadly my few remaining cars with red chassis will be losing them soon: I’m tired of their disappointing performance and at this point feel that I’ve done about all I can to improve it, so I’m planning to ditch the aesthetics and replace them with functional black chassis, relegating the red ones to the junk pile. I hate having to do this since it reduces the cars’ visual interest significantly, but as I’ve said before, there’s a balance to be struck between looks and performance, and I try not to let one suffer too much for the cause of the other!

With only 2 exceptions, the fastest cars I have are the ones running on the light brown chassis, especially those few I did fit with aftermarket performance magnets.

Everyone has their preferences about aesthetics so I can only say what I’ve done and why; I tend to like the look of the light brown chassis on cars with blue, green or black bodies, while I avoid them for cars that are white, red, or yellow. As for the transparent blue and red chassis: the pictures above tell a lot of that story. In particular some cars with large “glass areas”, like the Ferrari 206S Dino, the Ford GT-40 or the Lola GT, which show a lot of the chassis, seem to benefit aesthetically from a colored chassis where ever they can be sensibly fitted. This is especially the case with the transparent chassis, as you can see the armature turning inside them through the windows of the car; a very cool looking affect. As for the white ones: I have thus far only acquired one of these, since they are usually only available on the expensive “White Lightning Chase” cars, which I don’t like the look of overall and won’t pay the premium for. The one white chassis I have has been very satisfactory and I do like the way it looks; I wish these were more readily available.

I have been amazed at some of the older non-traction magnet chassis made by Dash Motorsports back in the day; they seem to have made them in nearly every color imaginable, from bright red to lime green to clear to glow-in-the-dark! Cool stuff; wish they had the traction magnets!

This brings up the topic of maintenance and rebuilds. As a still relative noob I have not yet gotten into removing the pinion gears and replacing armature assemblies, but maybe I should. I don’t recall seeing armatures for sale on their own but maybe there are some available . How difficult a task is it to replace a motor, and how reliable are they after that pinion gear has been removed and replaced? Maybe if I can put some decent windings in my red chassis I can salvage some of that color-coordinated beauty that looks so good on the starting line!

Anyone have any input on this topic? Would love to hear from you on what your experiences have been in improving performance, as well as any other “exotic” Ultra-G chassis colors out there I may have missed!

A 5-lap timed musclecar shootout at Drag City: press photos

• BODY: Johnny Lightning
• WHEELS/TIRES: Road Race Replicas

I have never owned one of the original Aurora Cobras; when I find them for sale they are either missing the windshield or driver’s head-or both, or they are $100. And I would pay that, if it weren’t for a reproduction being available. What I don’t know is how close of a copy to the original the Johnny Lightning/Auto World variation is. I know its close; it may not be exact.

One thing I know is different between the original and the repro is the new version lacks a driver, leaving me to add my own. This is another thing I would do differently if I did it now; at the time when I was first building these cars and before I conceived on of a full racing fleet, I chose a jaunty looking Sunday driver with his arm casually resting on the top of the door frame; having put numbers on the car and taken it racing, I would today prefer to have a helmeted pilot, but hey, maybe he’s just a really experienced and relaxed racing driver! The size and position of the driver is certainly right, though!

Released before Playing Mantis split into 2 companies (selling it’s Johnny Lightning diecast rights briefly to Tomy, who in turn sold them again to Round 2), the T-jet reissues were sold under that name rather than the Auto World moniker. That was when this body was released. I choose the classic American racing scheme of white with blue stripes over blue with white stripes in deference to Briggs Cunningham, but when it arrived was a little disappointed to find that it is pearlescent white rather than gloss. Not that I have anything against pearl white but it doesn’t seem quite right on a racing car.

The wheels are right, though! What could be more appropriate than a style of wheel called “Cobra” on a Cobra? Yeah, thought so! So that model of wheel from Road Race Replicas adorns this wicked sports roadster, shod with a set of their own excellent silicone tires.