Flea Market find!

[noddaz]

I don't find them often, but once in a while I do find slot cars or track.

This weeks find?
A small box of Model Motoring track with a transformer and two thumb killers. $5
A few of tables later, A G-Plus with an AF/x body. No pick up shoes or springs. $1




And a few weeks ago, this:


A Speedline isn't a slot car. But for $2 I could not leave it there! Sure, the chrome is gone, but the windshield posts look great!

Scott

[vins123]

nice find

Sylvain

[TuscoTodd]

Great find / prices!!!

[dge467]

Nice! And the Ferrari can always be put on a T-Jet chassis.

[BIG E]

Ya did it again, Jeff, cool.
Getting harder and harder to find HO stuff around here, even while being in close proximity to the original Aurora factory in West Hempstead, but I keep at it. Just met a guy about my age yesterday at one of the local hobby stores who says he has some Vibes, T Jets, and misc. stuff squirreled away that he 'd be willing to sell. He needs cash to continue the restoration of his vintage 1/1 scale Cadillac. He's got some older model kits, too. The guys from our Long Island club (LIARS) will be pleased about that!
Got the phone number so I can bug him every few weeks...
Enjoy! -- Ernie

[HO RacePro]

I have wondered what one might find excavating landfills around West Hempstead. It was something I touched on in my story "Raiders of the Lost Slots".

[BIG E]

Living less than 30 minutes away from the West Hempstead factory location, I went there when demolition of the buildings finally began. I salvaged bricks from the outer facing of the building, as well as the exit sign from the employee door, and a few dozen feet of the grey 2 conductor intercom wire where all those great ideas passed from office to office. Cool for hooking up a set of old controllers and power pack! I was hoping to get the big glass window over the front door with the large gold number 44 on it, but it had already been replaced by a piece of plywood. I hope that it's in the West Hempstead Chamber of Commerce, and not just the victim of some vandal's rock. That's the door that actually faced Cherry Valley Ave. -- not Cherry Valley Rd., as all the Aurora packaging was marked. Aurora thought for some reason that "Road" sounded better (or more rural?) than "Avenue", why I'll never know, perhaps it had something to do with the company's original roots in Brooklyn, NY. But I cannot claim to being a "dumpster diver" - in the 1960's that would have a been a long (and forbidden) bicycle ride for me!
A very cool sidebar to all this - I was told by some of the town workers that many of the bricks from the original building were ground up and used in the construction of the sidewalks and curbing of the new Stop and Shop center that now resides on the location facing Hempstead Turnpike (NY RT24). I hope that's true, because then the spirit of Aurora still lives there! -- Ernie :>)

[RichD]

Thumbkillers is a great name for those controllers, we tried them as a replacement for the original Aurora steering wheel controllers in the mid '60s, but quickly switched to Atlas controllers.

[BIG E]

My friends and I used to use the Aurora Racing Controllers upside down on the plywood tables the tracks were assembled on, which wasn't very efficient, to say the least. Not any better than using the steering wheel controllers set wide open and simply blipping the power on and off with the "brake" button! That method made you think in reverse! The Atlas controllers became my secret weapon at the local hobby store's Friday night HO racing competitions. I believe I had 60 and 85 ohm models, I still have a box full of them for FUN running. Those Atlas controllers, along with using TYCO S series tires on the Aurora chrome "racer" hubs on the rear axle of my cars worked very well. That is, of course, until Twinn-K (aj's) came on the scene with their line of silicone tires! Thumbkiller controllers indeed - that was a wide spread nickname, if memory serves. Aurora's Mark II plunger controllers came along too late and were not good enough, even the TYCOPRO plunger controller were smoother and more reliable. -- Ernie