| When I was younger, I was bored by the slow,
poor handling ThunderJets. Due to lack of space, I haven't had a serious track
up for quite a few years. But now that I have a house, I have been getting back into setting up my HO Slot
Car tracks for this great hobby. Nostalgia
Hobby hosted a "First Annual Model Motoring Invitational." I had also
recently come across a link to the new "Model
Motoring" web page. Due to a vast supply of "NOS", (New Old Stock),
T-Jet chassis, a new company has formed by purchasing the rights to Aurora
Model Motoring and has begun to create reproduction bodies to place these
chassis on. Most hobby stores that sell Slot
Car parts will probably carry these, as well as have a number of T-Jet
chassis on hand to sell, making it easy to get parts and/or find high performance
T-Jet chassis. I am becoming more and more a T-Jet fan. I am now bored
by cars like the Super G-Plus and G-Plus cars which have such strong traction
magnets and fast motors that the only challenge to driving them is to remember
not to floor it in a turn. T-Jets, AFX and even Magnatraction cars are
far more of a challenge to drive. They are highly tunable so that you
can truly effect the overall performance of the car by tinkering with each
chassis in a large number of ways. I don't think I've ever known a slot
car racer that didn't love watching one of the older cars fishtail in the
turns, it just looks so cool and real. The speeds that the newer cars run
at when translated from real to scale speeds are ridiculous. Also the T-Jets
were physically a smaller car and closer to true HO scale. The newer cars,
starting with the AFX cars through the current Super G-Plus cars are in
a 1/64th scale, noticeably larger than HO scale. Thus the T-Jets are far
more realistic looking in an HO scale environment. The only problem being
that it is expensive to find original T-Jet bodies in good condition. There
are good reproduction bodies to be purchased out there, but most of them
are also expensive.
Model Motoring
is doing a fine job of packaging and manufacturing their line of T-Jets.
Their prices are reasonable starting at $19.95 a piece and rising to $24.95
on some select models. I look forward to more releases by them, currently
they are only selling 4 body styles, a '67 Chevelle, a '70 Chevelle SS454,
a '67 Camaro SS, and a '41 Willy's Coupe. |
Thunderjet500's
