DRAG CITY RACEWAY

Drag City Confidential — “Wardglenn Pirate Radio”

A smiling woman with blonde hair wearing a black leather jacket and a red shirt stands outdoors near a drag racing track, with a sunset backdrop and traffic light gantry visible in the background.

Neon sign reading 'DRAG CITY Confidential' against a dark background with palm trees.

My name is Roxy Calder. I started writing things down because I noticed how quickly this town forgets. By Monday, the crashes are rumors. By Friday, they’re legends. Somewhere in between, the real story disappears. Call it Drag City Confidential, call it self-preservation — I don’t mind. I just don’t like loose ends.

A detailed miniature scene of a bustling city street filled with toy cars and buildings, featuring a variety of vehicles parked and driving along the road. — Static rides the coming storm…

This town can be loud all day — roaring engines, radios, jukeboxes, gossip — and then, after midnight, it turns that volume down like it’s hiding something. That’s when the old names start circling again: Whitcomb’s Emporium. The Back Room. The Sinisters. And if you’ve lived here long enough — if you’ve driven Bear Valley Road at the wrong hour with the heater blasting and the dial hunting for anything but your own thoughts — you’ve heard the rumor that refuses to die: a pirate station that shows up maybe once a year, plays music that was never released, and vanishes before you can prove you weren’t imagining it.

A nighttime scene of a small model town featuring a deserted road, streetlights, and buildings, highlighting a detailed parking lot and power lines.

First Confirmed Hit

Close-up of a vintage car radio with illuminated buttons and dials, set against a dark interior backdrop.

Nobody “discovers” Wardglenn’s pirate station on purpose. You don’t tune in like it’s a ballgame and tell your buddies to hurry into the room to catch it. It’s the opposite of that. It’s something you catch by accident, when your guard is down and the night is doing what Wardglenn nights do — thinning out, shadows getting long, making every familiar streetlight feel like a question.

Classic muscle car with a faded black exterior and a white vinyl roof, parked on a dirt surface.

The earliest report I can pin down with a date — and with something more solid than bar talk — comes from a guy named Lenny Vargas, who used to work nights over by the supermarket loading dock. Not a mystic. Not a scene kid. Just a normal, tired man with nicotine on his fingers and grease in the creases of his hands, sitting in his car on a late break because it was the only place he could be alone without somebody needing something from him. The car matters, too: a sun-faded ’71 Plymouth Barracuda Gran Coupe, a brown 318 car — exactly the kind of used muscle-era hand-me-down a grocery store guy could afford in the mid-’80s, especially in a town where racing was practically a second religion. And tucked into that dash was one of those strange Chrysler-Plymouth options that feels like it was invented for a night like this — a stereo cassette tape system with the ability to record right off the radio, plus an available microphone for dictation. (xr793.com)

A woman sitting in empty bleachers at a racetrack, holding a notebook and pen, with a contemplative expression during sunset. — Your intrepid reporter in the grandstands at the end of a day of qualifying at the track.

Lenny wasn’t a Sinisters fan, but he knew of them the way everybody in Wardglenn knew of them — as local trouble with guitars, the band your cousin swore he saw at a backyard party, the name you heard attached to fights, broken hearts, and one too-many stories that always ended the same way: and then they were gone. So when he told me he was half-listening to the radio at that hour — not for music, just for proof that the world was still running — I believed him.

He was scanning the AM band when the static… changed. Not “got stronger.” Not “faded in.” Changed — like somebody turned a corner in the dark and suddenly you can hear their footsteps on a different surface. The hiss pulled back, the frequency locked, and for maybe ten seconds the signal was clean enough that Lenny thought he’d stumbled onto a small town station from out past the desert.

A miniature scene depicting workers unloading boxes from a green truck at night, with glowing windows in the background and parked cars surrounding the area.

Then a guitar snapped in — sharp, trashy, bright as chrome — and right on its heels came a voice that didn’t sound like a DJ at all. It sounded like the edge of a stage: half-mic’d, half-shouted, the kind of voice that doesn’t “host” so much as announce.

And it said, clear enough to carve into memory:

“KEEP YOUR ENGINE RUNNING.”

The song hit immediately after — fast, feral, upright-bass thump under the guitar, the whole thing riding that psychobilly gallop like it was trying to outrun its own shadow. Lenny couldn’t have told you the title. He couldn’t have quoted a verse. But he told me one thing with absolute certainty: it sounded like Wardglenn. Like grease and desert air and trouble pretending to be music.

Close-up of a vintage car dashboard showing fuel, oil, temperature gauges, and a clock, with a hand adjusting a control knob.

He reached for the cassette unit and hit RECORD — not because he had a plan, but because the moment gave him no choice. The tape started turning. Sixty-three seconds of hiss, a burst of that song, and then — right in the middle of it — a low, steady tone that swallows everything like a hand over your mouth.

A man and a woman sitting at a diner table, both holding mugs of coffee. The man has a beard and wears a dark blazer, while the woman has long hair and wears a blue jacket with patches. The diner has a retro vibe, with neon signage visible outside the window.

That’s Exhibit A in this file.

You can hear the moment Lenny realizes it’s happening. His breathing changes. He laughs once, under his breath, the way people laugh when they’re not sure if they’re about to be embarrassed or scared. Then, just as fast as it came in, the station is gone. Nothing dramatic. No big final scream. Just a slip back into static, like the dial closes up behind it and pretends it was never open.

A bumper sticker from a popular LA-era radio station of the time…but it was just a name! What happened in Wardglenn was the real thing….

Lenny kept the tape for years without playing it much. “Felt like bad luck,” he told me. “Like checking to see if something dead is still dead.” He finally handed it over after the Sinisters story ran — after enough people started talking again, and the old rumor found fresh oxygen. He didn’t want his name in print. He didn’t want to be the guy who “believes in ghost radio.” He just wanted one thing written down plainly:

It happened. He recorded it. And whatever that station is… it knew exactly what it was doing.

Exhibit B: Lenny’s Dial Log

After the station vanished back into static, Lenny did something that doesn’t feel dramatic until you realize how few people do it: he wrote down what he could remember before his brain could sand the edges off. It wasn’t a confession. It wasn’t a diary. It was a grease-smudged scrap of paper folded into his wallet like a receipt — the kind of thing you forget you’re carrying until years later, when you find it and your stomach drops.

A crumpled, handwritten note with time and location details, reading '2:30 AM', 'DOCK / WEST LOT', 'AM 1600??', and a reminder to 'KEEP YOUR ENGINE RUNNING'.

Exhibit B is that scrap. A dial log, four lines long:

a rough time stamp
a location note (“dock / west lot”)
a frequency guess on the high end of AM
and the phrase, written in block letters like he didn’t trust himself to remember it later:
KEEP YOUR ENGINE RUNNING

When I finally got the scrap into my hands, I did what Wardglenn has trained me to do: I made copies, I put the original somewhere safe, and I started looking for repeats.

Not proof. Repeats. Because one witness is a story. Two is coincidence. Three is a pattern. And patterns are the closest thing this town ever gives you to truth.

A nighttime view of a small supermarket with a green exterior, featuring large windows, and an illuminated sign. An ice vendor is visible in front of the store.

The Once-a-Year Rule

Here’s the part that always makes people lean back and squint like I’m trying to sell them something: the station doesn’t show up every night. It doesn’t show up every month. It doesn’t even show up every year the way the first cold morning does.

Close-up of a recording device displaying a digital timer at 1:03 and an audio waveform on the screen, with control buttons for REC, PAUSE, and PLAY.

It’s rarer than that.

The best I can tell — based on what I can actually corroborate, not what people swear they “remember” after a few drinks — Wardglenn’s pirate broadcast hits about once a year, sometimes missing a year, sometimes coming back twice in the same season like it’s making up for lost time. The window is narrow: late summer into early fall, the stretch of nights when the heat finally loosens its grip but the town hasn’t fully exhaled yet. The hour is usually the same, too — not midnight, not 3 a.m., but that strange in-between time when you’re either going home or you’re realizing you never really left.

And it shows up where Wardglenn keeps its secrets parked:

A close-up view of a deserted road at night, featuring construction equipment in the background, a red gas tank labeled 'safety', and streetlights casting a warm glow.

industrial edges
service roads
empty lots behind familiar businesses
the kind of places nobody admits to spending time unless they have to

That’s the pattern. That’s what makes it feel less like “some guy with a transmitter” and more like a glitch that opens only when the conditions are right — weather, mood, atmosphere, whatever you want to call the invisible stuff that makes a town feel haunted even when it’s wide awake.

A model city scene featuring a hospital named 'Wardglenn Hospital', a blue telephone booth, and various toy cars and figures. The setting includes a yellow garage with 'ENGIN' displayed and a power pole with wires.

3 More Witnesses

I needed two more people who didn’t know each other, didn’t share the same rumor pipeline, and had no reason to inflate the story. I found them. One came with a second artifact. The other came with a detail I wish I could un-hear.

Witness #2: Marisol “Mari” Vega, Wardglenn General Night Orderly

A female healthcare worker in blue scrubs stands outside Wardglenn General Hospital next to a parked silver car.

Mari worked nights at the hospital in the mid-’80s, the kind of person who stays calm when everyone else is panicking because panic is a luxury you can’t afford in an emergency hallway. Her story wasn’t “I heard a spooky station.” It was almost annoyingly practical.

She was sitting in her Celica ST on a break, parked where you park when you don’t want to be seen from the main entrance. Radio low. Lights off. Just trying to keep her head together before going back in.

Then the station cut in.

Close-up of a vintage car radio display showing AM and FM radio frequencies, with illuminated buttons and a clock reading 2:42.

Not gradually. Not fading. Cutting — like a switch thrown.

She didn’t know The Sinisters personally, but she’d heard the name. Everybody had. She remembered two things with crystalline clarity:

Three individuals engaged in conversation in a hospital hallway, featuring a man with a red cap and beard, a woman in scrubs, and another woman taking notes.

The sound was wrong for radio. Too close. Too room-like. Like the microphone was hearing air move around it.
Between songs, a voice read something flat and reluctant, like a man forced to say it. The only line she caught clean was the same one Lenny wrote down years earlier:

“KEEP YOUR ENGINE RUNNING.”

She didn’t record it. She didn’t have the option. She just sat very still until it went away, then went back inside and didn’t tell anyone because, in her words, “I already had enough nightmares.”

A vintage emergency ambulance parked outside a hospital entrance, illuminated by overhead lights, with a modern ambulance in the background.

Witness #3: Cal Rourke, Tow-Truck Driver

A man with a beard and a cap stands in front of a Chevron gas station and a GMC tow truck with emergency lights.

Cal had the kind of job that teaches you not to believe anybody’s version of events, including your own. He didn’t come to me because he believed the legend. He came to me because he recognized a detail in the Sinisters write-up and it bothered him.

He swore he heard the broadcast out by a service road on the Whitcomb’s side of town on a night he was waiting on a call. He had a cheap portable radio in the cab because the truck’s unit was acting up. The station came in rough, but there was one moment of clarity — a line delivered like a stage tag. A phrase that meant nothing to him until he saw it in print.

KEEP YOUR ENGINE RUNNING.

A woman in a denim outfit sits with a notepad, engaging in conversation with a man wearing a cap and a dirty work shirt, amidst a rustic backdrop of tires and an old truck.

Cal didn’t have a tape. But he had something I didn’t expect: he’d scribbled down the frequency on the back of a work order because he planned to tell a buddy who was into radios.

That scribble matched Lenny’s dial log closely enough to make my pulse pick up.

Not exact. Close. The kind of close you get when you’re dealing with something that doesn’t behave like a normal station — something that drifts, slips, refuses to sit still on a clean number the way legitimate broadcasts do.

Now we’re not talking about one guy in one car on one night.

Now we’re talking about a repeat.

The FULL Record – Witness #4: Mike Herrera, High School Student

Exterior view of Granite Hills High School with students milling about, featuring an American flag and a sign that reads 'Granite Hills High School - Home of the Eagles.' Several cars are parked in the foreground.

Mike Herrera was sixteen that fall. He wasn’t chasing pirate radio. He was chasing songs — the kind you waited up for, finger hovering over the RECORD button, praying the DJ wouldn’t talk over the intro. His stereo was wired into a secondhand boom box so he could get a clean copy straight off the FM band. He had the routine down. Level check. Pause engaged. Timing dialed in.

At 12:14 a.m., the signal bent.

A young man sitting at a desk with a boombox and cassette tapes, looking at a cassette tape he's holding. A lamp illuminates the workspace, and an alarm clock shows the time as 12:14.

Mike swears he didn’t touch the tuner. Swears he didn’t bump the antenna. The station he’d been taping — some safe, corporate rock block — thinned out like it had inhaled too sharply. Then something else slid underneath it. Not static. Not interference. Something deliberate.

A guitar line that sounded familiar in structure but wrong in tone. Darker. Slower. As if the chords had been tuned down half a step and left out overnight in desert air.

A young person riding a bicycle at night in an empty street, with a diner illuminated in the background.

Then: the voice…If you’ve heard The Sinisters, you’d recognize the timbre immediately — that smooth restraint, that way the vowels flatten at the end of a line. But this wasn’t any track anyone could place. Not on the EP. Not on the bootlegs. Not on the live tapes that circulate quietly between collectors who pretend they don’t collect.

Mike didn’t stop the tape. That’s why his copy runs the full 3-minute length and includes an entire song that, quite possibly, had never been heard until the night be captured it…or at least, not by anything human.

A collection of old cassette tapes piled on a surface, with a cigarette and an ashtray visible, creating a nostalgic and cluttered atmosphere.

No DJ interruption. No station ID. No collapse into hiss. Just a clean, deliberate fade — like whoever was transmitting knew exactly how long the song was supposed to last. And then, without warning, the regular station snapped back in mid-sentence. Same DJ. Same song rotation. Like nothing had happened.

Mike labeled the cassette in block letters:
11/2 – 12:14 AM

He played it for two friends the next day. One said it sounded like The Sinisters. The other said it sounded like someone pretending to be them.

Mike stopped playing it after that. He says the second verse feels wrong. Not musically. Structurally. Like it doesn’t belong on any album because it wasn’t written to belong anywhere.

The Herrera recording: a complete song that sounds like The Sinisters but matches no known recording by that band. cleaned of hiss years later, this is the best evidence on tape of Wardglenn Pirate Radio

Exhibit C: The Thing Under the Tape

I’ve listened to Lenny’s sixty-three seconds more times than I want to admit. Not obsessively — carefully. On different equipment. At different volumes. Through headphones. Through speakers. In daylight and in the wrong kind of midnight.

A nighttime street scene featuring an industrial building with illuminated windows, an orange crane structure, and parked trucks on a quiet road.

Most of it is what you’d expect: hiss, a burst of music, the shift when the signal collapses. But buried in the middle — under the guitar, under the noise — there’s a low tone that arrives like a pressure change. You can feel it more than you hear it. It doesn’t sound like a transmission artifact. It sounds like a deliberate marker… except it doesn’t behave like a normal test tone. It swells. It chews up the music. It’s almost physical.

A young woman wearing headphones sits at a table in a dimly lit motel room, listening to music on a cassette player. She is surrounded by cassette tapes, a notebook with writing, and a steaming coffee cup, with a neon sign from the motel visible through the window.

And right at the edge of that tone — right where your brain wants to give up and label it “static” — there is something else. A human shape in the noise. Not a sentence I can quote without lying. But a cadence. A breath. Someone speaking too close to a microphone, then stopping abruptly as if they heard something in the room with them.

If that voice is real — if it’s not just your mind trying to find faces in clouds — then this wasn’t a broadcast meant for the public. It was something else bleeding through.

Known / Unknown / Next Lead

A woman with wavy hair wearing a denim shirt and high-waisted jeans stands next to a vintage vehicle in a dimly lit parking lot at night.

KNOWN: A station cuts into the AM dial in Wardglenn roughly once a year, in a narrow seasonal window, late at night. More than one person has heard it. Two separate scribbles — from two separate lives — land on roughly the same frequency range. Two recordings exist, captured because the right people were in the right place at the right time with the right equipment.

UNKNOWN: Who is transmitting. Where they’re transmitting from. Why the signal behaves the way it does — drifting, arriving suddenly, vanishing cleanly. Whether the music is truly Sinisters material from the lost Sinister Rhythm sessions… or something meant to sound like it. And what, exactly, is happening under that recording — the tone, the voice-shape, the sensation of a room you can’t see.

A woman with flowing hair stands outdoors against a dramatic sky during sunset, resembling a moment of contemplation or introspection.

NEXT LEAD: The frequency range is consistent enough to hunt. The places are consistent enough to triangulate. And the names that keep circling this story — Whitcomb’s Emporium, the service roads, the edges of town where you park when you don’t want to be found — are starting to overlap in ways I don’t like.

Next time the air goes thin and Wardglenn turns the volume down like it’s hiding something, I’m not going to be listening alone.

A man with a beard wearing a black jacket stands closely beside a woman with long blonde hair in a denim jacket, both gazing off into the distance at night with a vintage vehicle blurred in the background.

Tipping the Scales: “Italian Ice” @ 1:43

A collection of die-cast toy cars displayed on wooden shelves, showcasing various vintage and classic car models in different colors and designs.

Three men with beards working on a car outdoors, with a haus and a tree in the background. — The “beard brigade” at work on the real thing: your HB with my ragtag crew of schemers

On this sunny winter Sunday, while a couple of my partners in crime try to figure out what ails one of our Hoopties in my front yard, I’m taking you to the basement on another 1:43 scale detour. If you’ve read any of my previous posts on this topic, you know that I’m not a big collector of 1:43 scale, but I have obtained a few of them because some are just too cool to pass up!

For the most part, I have stuck with the vaunted British brands, Dinky and Corgi, because they are the best. But sometimes it’s good to remember that, despite their familiarity to North American audiences, the British-made models were not the only game in town; at 1:43 there were several other players that I’m slowly getting more interested in, giving me yet another way to spend money!

Underside view of a vintage toy car with details of tires, exhaust pipes, and a label showing 'POLITOYS-M' and 'Lamborghini 500 GT'.

Today’s post focuses on a disparate mashup of recent purchases in this scale, all of which have an Italian connection in one way or another…

Grifos Galore!

A detailed blue toy car with an open door, showcasing a yellow interior.

A close-up image of a toy car, featuring a shiny blue exterior and a detailed design, including headlights and a black hood stripe.

I am a big fan of Iso cars. Have been ever since the excellent Matchbox model of the Iso Grifo, my favorite car in my childhood, gave me the bug. For years I’ve known about the most common 1:43 scale version of the Grifo, that made by Corgi…and for years, I’ve refrained from buying it because I’ve been searching for the one with the ”clover” pattern wheel variant, which I think is a lot better looking than the 8-dot “pepper pot” -style wheels, but in years of searching I’ve only ever found two or three of them for sale and they’ve always been extremely expensive because, let’s face it, they’re rare and collectors want them. Recently I came across this decent example of the common issue for a very low price, so I decided, what the hell…and grabbed it.

Close-up of a toy car interior featuring a blue exterior, golden steering wheel, and a white seat.

What puzzles me about this Corgi model is why they elected to make it so similar in so many ways to the Matchbox 1:64 which was still in production at the time: a nearly identical color, ivory interior which was very common on Matchboxes of the day, and right hand steering as if the car were made for the British market, are all similar to the series #14 Lesney OG. It makes you wonder why they chose a medium metallic blue; why not silver or orange or yellow or something just…different from what Lesney was doing?

Two toy model cars in blue, one on top of the other, positioned on a black and white checkered surface. — The famous 1:64 Matchbox with the 1:43 Corgi: definitely boids of a feather!

Close-up view of the open hood of a model car, revealing detailed engine components and textures.

What does differ is that the Corgi model is of the rare “7 Litri” Grifo, the 427 big block model, which may have been the fastest road car of its day. The silver stripe spanning the B pillars across the roof tells you that, even though the tail cove is not offset in black. Under the opening hood-which features the raised section to clear the air cleaner-is the Detroit “iron lump” that made the Grifo one of the coolest Italian GT cars in all history.

Overall, this is a good, well-proportioned model with nice detailing and the signature diamond headlights so preferred by the British manufacturers of the day. My only regret is that this car was made only during the “Whizzwheels” era (now there’s a name that hasn’t aged well!), and thus lacks the 2-piece metal hub/rubber tire combo that made the early Corgi models so appealing

A classic dark blue sports car with wire spoke wheels, parked on a street surrounded by greenery. — No denying it looks good in blue! The real thang: the Grifo Series 1 7-Litre: one of the most beautiful GT cars of all time!

But wait, there’s more! It was months ago during a previous Tipping the Scales post that I promised you a little more detail on one of these, and I’m only just now getting around to it! Here you see a pair of Italian-made models of this famous Italian car:

Two red die-cast toy cars positioned side by side on a light surface.

Two red toy cars, one with an open door, displayed on a light gray surface.

These are early variations of the Politoys rendering of the Grifo. This car was made in a total of five colors throughout its production life, and the two you see here, the dark metallic red and the bright orange red, are the most popular. There was also a silver model, which I feel is the most attractive and, while it is not here at the time of this writing, I have purchased one of those…which I hope is on its way to me!

Bottom view of a vintage toy car model labeled 'POLITOYS EXPORT N° 553 ISO GRIFO MADE IN ITALY 1/43'.

A close-up view of a vintage gray toy car, slightly dusty and showing signs of wear. — Purchased and allegedly on the way from France…the Politoys Grifo in silver

Unfortunately, due to these models’ European origins they tend to be rather hard to find in the US, so that silver model I just bought is coming from a seller in France. Now, I don’t mind telling you that over the past couple of years I’ve had some bad experiences buying from overseas sellers, so at this point, I’m not counting chickens before they’re hatched; I’m not sure I’ll ever actually see this model. Fortunately, with the site I used and the method of payment I chose, I should be able to get a refund if it never shows up…so time will tell!

A toy model car in bright red color, featuring detailed bodywork and wheels, placed on a wooden surface.

A red toy car model with an open door, displayed on a wooden surface.

Close-up of a red toy car with an open driver's door, showcasing its detailed interior.

There are two much more rare variations of the Politoys model: one in orange and another in bright blue. Both of these are very hard to find. As an interesting postscript, this model carried into the later Polistil era with cheapened one-piece wheels, and can commonly be found as one of the Soviet-made copies, which have the ugly wheels of the later Italian-made cars combined with cheap plastic baseplates. My only interest is in the original Politoys models, again with the attractive, metal hub/rubber tire wheel set up and the metal base: this is a nicely made model which is remarkably heavy; the heft and detail make it an appealing collectible.

The 1st “Lambo”

A close-up view of a blue toy car model, showcasing its sleek design and shiny finish.

Staying with Politoys but leaving Iso, we come to my most recent 1:43 purchase, which is really worth bragging about: this superb copy of the Lamborghini 350 GT.

The timing is interesting because my last Modelo En Bofus post about the Lamborghini Miura lamented that most of Lamborghini’s early cars have been neglected by scale modelers. While we still don’t have a 1:64 scale model of the 350 or 400GT, which I feel we should, this excellent model of the 350 was a must own!

A close-up view of a miniature blue toy car with an open door, revealing an interior with tan seats and a steering wheel.

A close-up view of a blue toy car model with an open door, revealing a detailed interior with brown seats and a steering wheel.

Classic blue sports car parked on a stone driveway with greenery in the background. — Lamborghini 350GT: the real thang…what a great color combo!

Made in an attractive steel blue with pumpkin interior, and featuring all four opening ports including a detailed V-12 engine under the hood, I was thrilled to get this car for the price I paid for it. It’s not in mint condition: the hood doesn’t close properly and there are a couple of minor paint nicks here and there, but for the price I gave for it I can’t complain. It’s a really beautiful model from top to bottom, and seeing this has definitely driven my interest in this brand up a notch!

A detailed model of a blue car with open doors and hood, showing the interior and engine compartment. — Despite the “Redneck tech” toothpick prop-rod added by your HB, this Politoys version of the 1st production Lamborghini is a very appealing model!

Other European Players

(the following pics grabbed from the web)

A red toy car model with open doors and an open hood, showcasing the detailed engine inside. — The Ediltoys model of the Grifo is rare and sells for many hundreds of dollars in top condition

There are several other European brands in the 1:43 scale that I’ve been aware of most of my life, but never collected. I have a handful of French-made Norev “Jet Cars” I bought at Kay Bee Toys during the brief period in the mid-1980s when they were carrying them. I have a few instances here and there of Solido models (also France), but the generally high prices on the vintage originals have kept me from buying more than a just a handful of them. A couple of other brands that I have not a single copy from include Mercury, Mebetoys, and Ediltoys, all of which are Italian, but again, the price is for admission for these can be very high.

A green die-cast model of an Aston Martin Vantage displayed on a yellow packaging box. — A mint example of the Solido Aston Martin DB4: the model dating from the era of the real car

Now, since you are reading this, you must be a die-cast collector yourself, so I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know! Just giving my perspective and experience on it.

A scale model of a blue ISO Fidia car positioned in front of its vintage packaging featuring the car illustration and branding. — This is one I am actively looking for: the Mebetoys model of the uber-rare Iso Fidia S4

All of these brands either went out of business or cheapened their products dramatically as the economic stressors of the ‘70s arrived, so IMHO it is only the models from the golden era of the ‘60s and back that are worth having. Since I’m not a serious 1:43 collector, it’s unlikely I’m never going to pay extremely high premiums to own any of these cars; I would rather spend that $ on Thunderjets! Yet, bargains can be found, especially on examples like these here that are somewhat play-worn and in less than perfect condition; when I find those bargains, I’ll probably jump on them if the “petty cash pool” allows. And if I come across any more interesting 1:43 finds, I’ll make sure to share them with you here! After all, my bear family needs toys to play with!

Three fluffy teddy bears sitting on a patterned table, each holding toy cars, with a background featuring shelves and items in a playful room.

DIORAMA DETAILS – Shakin’ It Up Big!

A detailed model race track featuring miniature toy cars and figurines of people watching the race. The scene includes various classic cars, vibrant colors, and a curved track.

Happy Saturday, dear readers! And it is happy indeed, because for the first time in what seems like ages, your humble blogger has a weekend day entirely to hisself, free and clear! What better opportunity to head down to the toy room, the happy place in the basement, and spend some quality time at Drag City Raceway!

A close-up view of a model car being held in a hand, showcasing its detailed underside with visible components like the chassis and wheels.

A close-up view of a white and blue racing car model on a black and white checkered flag background.

A detailed model of a race track featuring a BMW race car with a colorful livery, surrounded by various other model cars and pit crew figures. — This beautifully detailed Hot Wheels “Elite 64” ’75 BMW gets an up-front place of honor at the track

A close-up view of a miniature car racing setup featuring various colorful model cars on a track, with spectators and pit crew figures nearby. — This beautifully detailed Hot Wheels “Elite 64” ’75 BMW gets an up-front place of honor at the track

Thanks mainly to the awesome skills of my cub The Hot Wheels Hunter, the last year and a half I have added hundreds upon hundreds of Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars to my die-cast collection. I have amassed such a huge stockpile of cool, newer, die-casts that my hand has been essentially forced into another round of diorama changes.

A display of miniature race cars, including a blue sports car with orange stripes, a white car with the number 23, and a red sports car, alongside two figures resembling race car drivers in white suits. — A high-detailed HW “Car Culture” Toyota 2000GT, complete with Japan-spec fender mirrors, also appears up front in the “next run” hold pen. Close examination with the camera shows a slight deformity to the front end around the right-side driving light, something I did not notice in the package at the store but, now that I see it, I kind of like the way it gives the car the look of having sustained slight damage on the track while also creating an aggressive “snarling dog” countenance

A close-up of a blue and white toy racing car with the number 23 displayed, parked among other model cars in a miniature setting. — A high-detailed HW “Car Culture” Toyota 2000GT, complete with Japan-spec fender mirrors, also appears up front in the “next run” hold pen. Close examination with the camera shows a slight deformity to the front end around the right-side driving light, something I did not notice in the package at the store but, now that I see it, I kind of like the way it gives the car the look of having sustained slight damage on the track while also creating an aggressive “snarling dog” countenance

This round represents the biggest changes that I’ve made in a while, with several new cars being introduced to the layout and others moving around or being re-positioned to new areas, adding some realism by enforcing the idea that these are snapshots of a living, dynamic world where the cars don’t just sit still indefinitely, but migrate from place to place.

A green vintage car parked in a model scene, with a miniature figure of a person standing beside it. Other cars and figures are visible in the background. — Beautiful Hot Wheels “Silver Series” ’70 Poncho GTO in the parking lot

A miniature car scene depicting various toy cars parked in a detailed diorama, with several figures standing around. Notable cars include a black truck, a blue convertible, a green car, and a yellow car with flames. The setting features a realistic road, parking spaces, and miniature scenery. — Beautiful Hot Wheels “Silver Series” ’70 Poncho GTO in the parking lot

In addition to the cars, I’ve also added some more peeps, as the last year has seen me add several more multi-packs of American Diorama die-cast figures to my collection as well, all of which have been stacking up and waiting to stretch their legs. Now, a few lucky figgys are getting the chance to make the scene!

A miniature diorama featuring a blue vintage car alongside various figurines of people, including a man in a gray shirt and a woman in a yellow outfit, set on a race track with advertising banners in the background.

A detailed scene of miniature model cars and figurines. Several classic and racing cars are displayed, with toy figures interacting and standing nearby. The setting resembles a model car exhibition or racing event.

What you may notice about the figures is that I’m trying to utilize clay as a base more often than the glue or tape I’ve used in the past, because the clay is easily removed and replaced, allowing the figs to be easily re-positioned…a luxury the glue does not afford! I haven’t decided for sure yet if I like the results better or not yet, so here’s your chance to tell me what you think!

A detailed miniature scene featuring various vintage cars and scale figures of people watching a race. The blue truck, pink car, and several other colorful cars are arranged on a dirt track. Figures include spectators, some taking photos, and others appearing excited.

A scene featuring miniature toy cars, including a red vintage car and a yellow sports car, alongside miniature figures of people engaged in conversation and activity on a textured surface.

The hardest part was deciding what to remove from the layout, but the second hardest part was picking which ones to add, since I had so many awesome candidates that it’s taken me months to decide what should get the honor of being displayed!

Close-up of a miniature diorama featuring toy cars, a water tower, palm trees, and buildings, including a Coca-Cola shop and a small house, on a racing circuit layout. — A completely new addition: this Datsun 4×4 joins the Greenlight Toyota, Johnny Lightning Jeep, and another HW Premium Dodge Power Wagon on the water tower mound, giving us a lifted truck on all 4 compass points on this elevated hill, a special place open only to automotive journalists and professional photographers and cameramen.

A red and white Datsun 720 toy truck positioned on green artificial grass, surrounded by miniature plants and scenery. — A completely new addition: this Datsun 4×4 joins the Greenlight Toyota, Johnny Lightning Jeep, and another HW Premium Dodge Power Wagon on the water tower mound, giving us a lifted truck on all 4 compass points on this elevated hill, a special place open only to automotive journalists and professional photographers and cameramen.

One of these cars, a very special and unique one, is displayed where there was no car before it, making it a new tableau on the scene.

Miniature display featuring two toy cars, a Corvette and a racecar, under a Chevrolet tent in a model car setting with small figurines observing. — This super-cool HW Treasure Hunt “The Chevrolator” is a new addition, displayed as a vintage “point of interest” at the Chevrolet kiosk in the infield, where hopeful sales-types hope to take orders for new Corvettes and Camaros

A close-up view of a colorful model racing car with a blue and orange design, surrounded by miniature figures observing it, set against a backdrop of toy vehicles and racing memorabilia. — This super-cool HW Treasure Hunt “The Chevrolator” is a new addition, displayed as a vintage “point of interest” at the Chevrolet kiosk in the infield, where hopeful sales-types hope to take orders for new Corvettes and Camaros

A miniature diorama of a race track scene featuring toy cars, race team booths for Ford and Chevrolet, and small human figures interacting in a bustling environment. — And behind the Ford Kiosk, what was a black ’65 Galaxie racer has been updated to a late ’80s T-Bird Pro-Stocker in an insanely “period” color scheme!

As for the others, take a look at the new additions and the new looks and tell me what you think: were these good choices, or would you have chosen to pull something else off my dining room table?

A close-up view of a toy car racing on a model track, featuring a 'Psychlone' design, with additional toy cars and a detailed backdrop.

A colorful display of toy cars on a racing track, featuring various model vehicles including a blue car, a red sports car, a white car, and a bright yellow car. Small figurines of race car drivers are positioned near the cars, adding a dynamic racing scene.

A detailed model scene featuring a vintage car show with various miniature cars and people. Prominent in the foreground is a black convertible car with red accents and the number 12. The background shows a crowded display of cars and onlookers. — Just about my favorite purchase of the last several months: this matte black Austin Healy hot rod with it’s blown V8 and red and white stripes and scallops is Anglo-American Rockabilly perfection! It gets a prominent space in the racer’s paddock next to a silver Alfa Romeo GTV coupe, also a new addition!

A miniature car racing scene featuring various model cars and figures of spectators on a sandy track.

New spectators, new competitors, and new action! Its always MORE & FASTER at Drag City!

The Persistence of Memory: The Future Gets Faster — So the Past Gets Louder

A surreal landscape featuring melting clocks draped over a barren tree branch, a table, and a white figure on the ground, with a serene body of water and rocky cliffs in the background.

Grandmas sit in chairs and reminisce
Boys keep chasing girls to get a kiss
The cars keep a-goin’ faster all the time
Bum still cries, “Hey, buddy, got a dime?”

~ Sonny & Cher

On January 13, I wrote a post called “What Keeps You Up At Night?” Not long after it dropped, one of my friends remarked, “Your blog is getting a little AI heavy.”

A blonde woman in a red racing suit stands next to a vintage red Datsun sports car with racing numbers. A crowd and tents are visible in the background. — Racer Roxy with her 240Z in the paddock at Drag City on qualifying day

I guess he was right. It didn’t go over well. I know I lost @ least one sub over it. But why? Is it because people are just bored by the “impressions” of Drag City in photo-realistic mode? Or is it something more reactive, more visceral? I find myself asking: are we in the middle of a great upheaval…or a great revival? As always, the truth is liable to be somewhere in between…

A model car, resembling a classic muscle car, in a sleek dark gray color with chrome wheels, positioned on a slot car track. — This awesome ’68 Camaro is a physical object…but is it *real?!*

The Renaissance didn’t spring out of nowhere. It grabbed the bones of Greece and Rome and built something new on top of them. Romanticism looked backward too — myths, ruins, folk tales — and turned them into a new kind of electricity.

Classic race cars competing on a winding track with spectators in the background during a sunset. — On the other hand, these scenes from the track are entirely conceptual

A gray classic car racing on a winding track at Drag City Raceway, with a red car trailing behind. Spectators are visible in the background watching the race. — On the other hand, these scenes from the track are entirely conceptual

Even the 1980s, our decade that people still argue about like it’s religion, was full of borrowing: old sci-fi dreams, mid-century modernism, noir lighting, the chrome-and-neon future that started in the 1950s and finally got the budget to go all the way.

Two men walking side by side on a dirt track at a car event, with a crowd in the background and palm trees lining the area. — Baden and Jason at Drag City on race day: facsimiles of real people @ 1:64

So when people clutch their pearls and say, “AI is just throwing our past back at us,” I want to say, “Yeah. So did we.” AI doesn’t invent the impulse to borrow. It just makes the borrowing easier. And that matters, because there’s something psychologically stabilizing about it — something a lot of us feel but don’t quite articulate.

A driver in a racing suit stands beside a green and orange vintage car at a motorsport event, with other cars and spectators in the background. — Matthew “MACHETE” Maitland with “Pump It Up“…ficticious, and part of the fun!

When change gets high-velocity, people don’t just want novelty. They want continuity. They want anchors.

Cars.
Music.
Film.
Cultural memory.
Shared references that confirm you’re not crazy and you didn’t hallucinate your whole youth.

When everything is updating itself every six minutes — jobs, norms, technologies, rules, prices, language, identities, the whole operating system — the human brain reaches for something steady… something that still makes sense.

And that’s why the past gets louder when the future gets faster. It’s not regression. It’s grounding.

Two slot cars racing on a track, one gold with a number 76 and the other red with a number 80, with spectators in the background. — ! will always maintain that physical toys, even with their limitations, are superior to dots on a screen!

Here’s the deep irony, and it’s hard not to admire it even if you’re nervous about where all this is going:

A group of vintage race cars competing on a racetrack, passing under a Dunlop archway during a sunset.

The same technology that may destabilize institutions also lets you recreate the feeling of 1987 in 4K with perfect audio.

It accelerates the future while thickening the past. Call it dystopian if you must….but its also strangely poetic. Because it means we’re entering a weird era where the past isn’t fading the way it used to. It’s becoming… accessible. Callable. Revisitable. Remixable. Like a place you can return to, not just a story you tell.

A view of a racetrack featuring a row of vintage Airstream trailers and tents along a dirt road, with palm trees and a distant grandstand visible.

The danger isn’t that people will go back. The danger is that they’ll go back and stay.

Because nostalgia has two modes:

Nostalgia as energy — a home base you can refuel at.
Nostalgia as anesthesia — a sedative you use to avoid the present.

And I get why people want the anesthesia right now. The present has been running pretty hot. The future looks like a blender full of buzzwords. We’re all expected to be adaptable, resilient, rebranded, re-skilled, re-optimized, and smiling through it like this is all normal. And sure, I get pissed off and even scared about that…

But…you can’t build a life out of sedation. You can’t build art out of avoidance.

A man with a beard and glasses stands holding two colorful controllers in front of a detailed model racetrack with cars and miniature figures. — Your REAL blogger at the table in the physical world

Your humble blogger is a storyteller by nature: I say that straight-up in my “About” page; its a big part of what this site is for. I am a car enthusiast, a music lover, a technician, a mechanic, a historian, and a philosopher. There’s room for all these things on this blog. Often, I write about the nuts and bolts of Thunderjets and Hot Wheels, but just as often I write stories about the world I’ve built with those toys, a world that recaptures some of what I knew in my youth-and probably some of what you knew, too!

So yes, I’m using AI to reach back and grab the texture of the past. I don’t think that’s dangerous. I don’t think it’s cheating. I think it might be one of the more human responses to this moment. I am cognizant of overdoing that-of letting thunderjetheavencom devolve into a patchwork of computer-generated imagery…but when the images augment the stories I’m trying to tell and the mood I’m trying to invoke, that, IMHO, defines the proper use of a tool.

A blue race car with the number 98 on its side competes in a drag race, leaving behind a trail of smoke on the track, while a large crowd watches from the stands. — Luke “Flat Out” Flanagan lives up to his name, blasting “Nemesis” past the grandstands, open just as far as she’ll go!

A muscular man with a beard smiles while standing outdoors during sunset, showcasing a large tattoo on his arm that features a skull and the word 'Gearhead.' He wears a red cap and denim shorts. — I’d rather be @ Drag City in 1987…and look, my avatar *is!* You ought to join me, and bring some friends; its a fun place to be!

Just don’t confuse the home base for the destination. Use the past like a garage, not a bunker.

Go in there. Restore something. Tune it. Steal a part. Learn what made it work. Get your hands dirty. Remember who you were — and what mattered.

Then come back out and put that energy into something real, now!

Keep the past.

Ride the future.

Build something in between.

And the beat goes on
The beat goes on….

– WHALE HUNTING – Firebird Sequence Complete!

A collection of vintage toy cars in various colors lined up along a track, with a supporting column in the background.

I’ve said it many times before throughout this blog, and happily I’m saying it again: sometimes you get lucky! I’ve been after the original Aurora ‘68 Firebird in RED for 3 years, if not longer. It wasn’t that I could never find it: I just could never find it at a price I was willing to pay! Every time I tracked one down, the seller wanted over $200 for it, often a lot over. Even the local collector that I connected with a couple of years ago, who sold me some incredible pieces, wouldn’t let go of his no matter how I pleaded, and another guy in Missouri that I’ve bought some things from via email took the same position: he was selling a lot of stuff, but he wouldn’t sell that one!

And so I continued to look: at conventions, at swap meets, on forums: and I found it from time to time, but only for ridiculous prices. Until one day last month….

Aurora TJet #1429 El Camino slot car, white color, displayed on a track with a green boat on top. — This insanity is typical of the seller I bought this car from!

There is a vendor on ePay who appears to be a professional or semi-professional Thunderjet dealer, who has some amazing and rare pieces for sale on a continuous, rotating basis, and all of his prices are absolutely top-shelf, some of them bordering on the ridiculous: I look at his stuff only for cataloging purposes because I’m not paying those kinds of prices for these toys; I’m an enthusiast, not an “investor.” And yet, one day, that vendor, of all dealers, listed this car for less than $100!

A red toy car on a model racetrack with several other vintage toy cars parked in the background.

It seemed too good to be true: I scrutinized the pictures copiously, thinking that I was missing something: were the wheel wells carved out? Were the screw posts destroyed? There had to be something wrong with it! But after looking at it for a day I realized I couldn’t wait any longer, and I hit the button. When it arrived, and I opened it, I couldn’t believe my eyes…

It’s almost PERFECT!!!

A red vintage toy car on a slot car track with a blurred background featuring stuffed toys and other model cars.

Not mint; I won’t go that far. There is some wear on the chrome front bumper, but because of the way it’s designed, you’ll see some of that on this car even on copies that are untouched in the original packaging. But there are no broken roof pillars, no cracked posts, no cut-up wheel wells: not even a significant amount of surface scratches! It is as it was presented… Which makes me wonder how or why that dealer would’ve asked such a low price for this car! Did he make a mistake? Or did I just…get lucky?! 🍀

Top view of a vintage toy car with a red body and metal chassis, showing the undercarriage and wheels.

Now, I will admit that the chassis is disappointing: the closed-rivet base that it came on is a dog and runs very poorly, even after a complete cleaning and tuneup. The motor has red windings, so it could be original to the car, but we all know it’s never possible to tell that and therefore it’s not really important either. As a result, I will be giving it a second going-over in the near future and will probably try to punch it out with a pair of blue/white Dash Motorsports or Auto World field magnets. If that doesn’t help, then the motor is just on its last legs, and if that is the case, I have a replacement motor in the cooler I can install with the right tools.

A vintage red toy car on a slot car track, with several other toy cars visible in the background.

But even so, the chassis is an easy fix, even if the fix is a swap: what’s important that I now have the full rainbow of the ‘68 Firebird: I own every color it was made in, including the most desirable and hardest to find. Honestly, I would’ve paid more for that privilege than I did! I wasn’t willing to give $250 for it, but on this car, there is no question that I got a bargain! Bargains are really hard to find in today’s “investment culture”-driven world, but every now and then… Well, you know what I say!

A collection of vintage toy cars in various colors lined up on a model race track, with additional cars and track elements in the background.