I love stone-stock original classic cars, and I also love kustoms and ‘rods. I have never had a problem reconciling these 2 sides of my personality, as to me, its all part of loving cars.

But one area where I can’t compromise is wheels. I’m not alone here: as any lover of muscle cars knows, the right set of wheels can so completely change the character of a car that they are more than just an accessory; they are an essential part of making a car what you want it to be.

Slot cars are no exception! As much as I like the Auto World “Thunderjet 500” Ultra-G chassis, no one wants to see the same boring set of wheels and tires over and over again. That’s why every slot car I build has a set of custom wheels and tires.

I can already hear the hardcore racers carping about losing 1/1000^th of a second off lap time by using wheels that aren’t 101% “true” or tires that aren’t matched in size down to the micrometer.

So to answer the obvious question: no, a set of custom wheels will not improve your T-Jet’s performance, and in fact may impair it somewhat; the stock Auto World wheels and tires are well designed and of high quality, and provide a good balance of traction and stability… which is great, if you don’t care that all your cars will look the same from the wheel wells down.

There are 2 principal suppliers for custom wheels and tires for Thunderjets: Vincent and Road Race Replicas. I have used both firm’s wheels extensively and found them to be of excellent quality and consistency. Excellent; however, not perfect; barring a flawless installation, they may introduce an infinitesimal amount of wobble.

I don’t care.

I’m in this for the style as much as the speed, and I want my slot cars to look GOOD! And you know what?

THEY DO!

When it comes to racing cars, decals can dress up a slot car a lot too, so I make sure to have some of those around for decoration. I also insist that every car in my sports/racing fleet have a unique number:

To me, this is the most fun aspect of this hobby: BUILDING THE CARS! Decorating, painting them, tuning them, seeing how good I can make them look and then how fast I can make them go! Considering the cost of potential disappointments, I can honestly say I’m having at least as much in this scale-if not more-as I did when I was building REAL hot rods 20 years ago!

• BODY: Aurora
• WHEELS/TIRES: Road Race Replicas (Wires)

I have a been Jaguar nut all my life; I think they are amongst the coolest, classiest cars ever made. Of course they rust, squeak, rattle, overheat and fall apart with the best of them; so do Ferraris and Lamborghinis, but you never seem to hear anyone complaining about how “unreliable” those cars are!

Actually – awful British Leyland years aside – a lot of the scorn heaped on older Jaguars is a bum rap: I drove a 1986 XJ6 Series III sedan for years and had very little trouble with it, mainly because I am fastidious about maintenance on my cars, which is what it takes to keep a Jaguar running right: a lot of attention. Happily, I’ve had very little trouble with my little Aurora model as well! In fact, its one of the faster cars I have, owing to its light weight due to its small size.

I bought this as a body only on ebay and paid very little money for it because, as you can see, its missing its windshield, as they often are. Other than that it was in great condition, and I didn’t want to pay the premium for a perfect one-yet-because I wasn’t sure whether this small body, originally designed for a Vibrator chassis, would fit over an AW Ultra-G.

Well, it not only fit, but it fit with absolutely NO modification, which came as a total surprise, because less than 50% of my cars go together that easily! That being the case, I’m looking forward to acquiring two more in the colors I want most, gray and white: IMHO amongst the best colors for an early “XK” sports car. As for this red one, reproduction windshields are available, but I haven’t been too hot to buy one; I kind of like it sans full windshield, thinking it looks like a period track car with a “Brooklands screen.” I haven’t yet figured out a way to adhere a small piece of clear plastic in front of the driver in such a way that it will hold, but I’m thinking it over, and holding off for now on buying that replacement windshield.

By mid-March of this year, the tone of the news began to change; for the first time since 2015 some “news-ish” organizations took a breather from hating on the president and began reporting on a serious and scary development engulfing the world. As regions across the country went into lockdown, I was one of the fortunate ones; I have an “essential” job that has been unaffected by the shutdowns (in fact my office is busier than ever) and a house with a yard big enough to stay in for days at a time without going stir-crazy. My new hobby that I’m blogging about here has been very helpful in making it through this.

With ebay, the USPS, and the savings on fuel and car maintenance brought on by being forced to work from home, I found myself quite content to spend my free time in the large room in my basement I have designated as my “toy room”, in which my collection of die-cast and, now, slot cars and tracks resides. Precisely because of the social isolation enforced by the lockdowns, I accelerated my journey into “Thunderjetting” and ramped up my purchases, not only building a car almost every day but also designing and building new tracks and beginning work on what became a sprawling and quite detailed diorama.

I am not making light of the situation: as I sit here and write this, my 75 year old mother is suffering through the severity of the Wuhan Flu; she has already been in the hospital twice, and my brother has just tested positive for it; I have an 82 year old aunt who only barely made it through her bout. I have friends and co-workers who have fought this thing, and while I am fortunate enough not to know anyone personally who has been killed by it, I do know people who know people who have. There is no question that the virus is very real and, irrespective of all the “interesting” theories about how it came into existence, it is clearly something we are now going to have to live with for the rest of our lives.

This requires a great deal of forbearance from all of us, and I’ve been lucky in my way: thus I have made myself a solemn promise to stay away from politics on this blog; there is entirely too much “politics” in our society today and I have no desire to contribute to the white hot hatred that has replaced political discourse in the age of anti-social media. However, it is probably impossible to discuss anything that happened in 2020 without mentioning the elephant in the room: that state and local governments have decimated our economy and upended millions of lives without any idea whether their edicts would be beneficial. As a result, we have all been subjected to vastly less free living, shocking those of us who thought that, here in the USA, the government doesn’t have the right to tell us who’s businesses-and whose jobs-are “essential” and whose are not. I guess I’m showing my age, aren’t I?

So, let me express again my gratitude to the hard working men and women of the postal service, to my employers and co-workers (we help keep your water running), and for all those folks out there who aren’t letting this get them down; who are contributing to this hobby by buying and selling, building and sharing their results with others. This is what makes it fun…and we need a little fun right now!

Some spectator and press shots from the early days at Drag City…

• BODY: Auto World
• WHEELS: MEV
• TIRES: Auto World

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Few of my cars have names, but this one does; it was originally derisive, because the thing was so slow I could barely get it lumber around the track. Changing out the magnets dramatically improved the performance, which is when I learned how much variance there is in the production of the Auto World chassis: I removed the original stock magnets and stuck in another set of stock magnets, but the difference was night-and-day.

I’m a sucker for all of the 1959 GM line-there’s not a single one I wouldn’t love to have-and when I saw this for sale, it was instant buy-it-now.

Originally she wore a set of chrome baby moons. I later decided that, as an Impala, it needed a set of whitewalls, so I swapped those out for a set of stock-sized chrome reverses so I could fit this hard-to-come-by set of white whites from Auto World. Like the real thing, it is a big and heavy car more at home on straightaways than curves, so its always in the lower ET’s and gets eliminated early, but dammit, it sure looks good doing it!

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