:wave: I see that RadTrax still has the American Line cars for sale. Are these still being produced or are they simply discontinued NOS ? I did not see any of the Harvey or Willard Indy cars listed on the site. Are they still available ? I remember first buying them in the early ' 90 's after I got back into the HO hobby in 1989. If I recall correctly the Harvey & Willard Indy cars had an original Aurora T-Jet 500 Tuff Ones chassis while the others had a standard T-Jet 500 chassis but I am not sure this was completely correct.The ones I have seen use the NOS T-jet 500 chassis. Can any body provide some info on this ? I also did not see the Indy cars on the RadTrax website.Were they discontinued?
The AL cars were sold as a kit with the body, chassis , screws & guide pin for about $9-$10 at the shows. The Indy cars did not come with drivers.Proper assembly was no simple matter & required extensive modeling skills .First of all the bodies were made from a plastic compound that was that much more brittle than the other slotcars & if you tried to install the body screws the posts would crack.The post hole was narrow & needed to be at least widened with a 1/64th' drill & a tap screw for it not to crack when the body screws were installed. Also since the bodies were not originally designed to fit T-Jet chassis's (they were from the old MARX HO car tooling) the rear posts always had to be "Dremelized" down so the body would fit on the chassis properly.as I recall all of the AL cars used the old MARX tooling only & produced only a few of the original Marx bodies. The AL cars were as follows;
Rolls Royce -Had no glass-too bad, also had poor clearance for the p/u shoes.
' 63 T-Bird - had glass with bompers molded in
' 63 ' Vette-had glass , always confused with the Lionel version
Harvey & Willard Specials Indy cars-came with their respective sets of glass & pipes, no drivers.
Any other info appreciated, Neal :dude:
Here is a link to check out:
http://www.radtrax.biz/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1190

' 63 ' Vette-had glass , always confused with the Lionel version


I have an AL '63 Vette and two Lionel 'Vettes. I'm not at home to compare the two right now, but if I recall correctly, the AL is short wheelbase where the Lionels are long wheelbase... which is odd, since the bodies are the same length or close to it. The Lionel just has the wheelwells pushed to the corners, I guess. FWIW, the AL 'Vette makes a great racing body... it's amazing how low you can get it to sit if your racing rules allow trimming the fronts of the gearplate rails. But as you said about the screwposts cracking... mine is pretty brittle and looks like it might not last much longer.

Also, the AL 'Vette requires a great deal of Dremeling behind the front bumper for pickup shoe clearance...

This is what my AL 'Vette looked like when I got it:

http://www.scaleracers.com/ul/5D2_amlvette04.jpg

This is what I did to it:

http://www.scaleracers.com/ul/CF1_vhorsvettecomp.jpg

--rick

Dear Rick ;

Brittle bodies are not good for racing . AL needs a better plastic compound like 3R & JL use. You are 101% right about the p/u shoe clearance issues. I forgot to mention that. Perhaps a Long wheelbase version of that ' Vette body in Resin like what I did with the AL / MARX Rolls is in order !