What makes the Wild/Tuff Ones different from other t-jets? The only difference I see are the white bodies with bold numbers. Is there something else that i'm missing here?

AfxToo made a reference in another post re: different armatures, are the parts actually different?

I thank you for your guidance in this subject. ;)

Tjets and Wild-Ones chassis are similiar with a few differences:

Tjets have all copper electric components and gray-lam armatures.

Wild-Ones have copper chassis, red-lam/green wire arms (Tuff-Ones arms), silver pick-up shoes and silver comm brushes. New WO chassis also have a red 'HONG KONG" sticker on them where tjets have a black 'HONG KONG' sticker.

Tuff-Ones have all silver electric components, and a larger gear that meshes with the crown gear on the rear axle. Also notice the crown gear is surrounded by plastic spacing, where a tjet/WO has all that spacing opposite of the gear teeth. This is so the gear will mesh with the small tjet gear.

WO/TO cars also have stronger magnets.

Thanks dw for the cram course. Am I correct on the bodies, are they all white w/ bold numbers?

The arms on the wildones and tuffones are a lower resistance wind than the arms in the original TJets. The green wire/red lam arm in the tuffones is the same arm used in the original AFX.

Yes CarGuy, WO cars are mostly white. I wonder why only a few bodies were made. Was it because the progran didn't run long enough to work in more bodies?

I think the wildones also came with skinny sponge foam rear tires. They worked okay when new but tended to fall off.

The wildones and tuffones were both marketing programs by Aurora to address the competition and buy them more time to develop newer and better products. The tuffies came out around the time the original fixed pan TycoPros were starting to garner some attention. The tuffy was scoffed at by the magazines because they were over promoted but still no match for the Tycos. But it bought Aurora a little time and the AFX soon followed. The AFX was really no faster than a tuffy and some folks complained that it was not the TycoPro killer that Aurora really needed, what with the antique pancake setup and all. But the AFX proved its worth with handling that more than made up for its lack of top end speed.

Slot cars evolved radically and rapidly in the late 60s to mid 70s. Some ot the proposed designs that Tyco had on the drawing boards were amazing. I'm sure Aurora had similar ones pending and the G-Plus is a marvel.

Competition is a wonderful thing.

What were the Ones Tyco had on the board?

Just roughly the technology.
Curious.
Thanks,

Keith

Thanks dw for the cram course. Am I correct on the bodies, are they all white w/ bold numbers?

Yes for Wild Ones, no for Tuffies. There were only 4 Wild Ones: a Mustang 2+2 with black/red numbers and stripes, a Camaro with blue stripes/black numbers, a Cougar with red stripes/black numbers, and a GT40 with orange stripes/black numbers.

There were many more Tuff Ones than that, and a couple seemed to mimic paint schemes on some 1:1 race cars, though I don't think any were meant to be exact copies:

orange/blue GT40
blue/yellow Camaro (similar to the TransAm Sunoco Camaro?)
red/white/blue AMX (also came in white/blue and red/silver)
white/butterscotch Cougar
yellow/black Firebird (also came in white/red and solid white)
orange/b/w Bug
orange Cheetah
black/pink Lola (also came in yellow)
white Chapparal
red Ferrari
yellow Willys
yellow dune buggy

had to refer to the Bob Beers book for that...

--rick

Yes for Wild Ones, no for Tuffies. There were only 4 Wild Ones: a Mustang 2+2 with black/red numbers and stripes, a Camaro with blue stripes/black numbers, a Cougar with red stripes/black numbers, and a GT40 with orange stripes/black numbers.

--rick


So, only 4 Wild One bodies, that's it? No vari's? 1 version of each, that's fine, only looking for Mustangs anyhow. :thumbsup:


Thanks guys, you've been a real help... :thumbsup:

What were the Ones Tyco had on the board?
Tyco was working on variations that looked much more like 1:24 scale brass pan cars, but much more refined than the Boss Riggen and DynaBrute. They used true can motors that were significantly smaller than the ubiquitous HT50 open frame motor, enough so to fit between the rear wheels so that the pinion meshed inline with a gear mounted on the wheel hub.

There are other interesting historical legends of that same era. Supposedly there was a "real" Super II design that boy wonder Tony Porcelli came up with when he was hired by Aurora out of high school. The Super II car that ended up in the fake velvet lined silver box bore little resemblance to what Tony really wanted. Then there was the cost reduced follow up to the Super II that some people call the Super III. These cars show up every now and again. No quadralams, but instead a blue drag arm. I suppose Tony could write a very interesting book on HO slot car history because he was with both Aurora and Tyco. There was also a designer who claimed to have designed and built a prototype of a magnatraction version of what became the Riggen car years before AutoWorld started selling magnet traction conversion kits for the AFX car, which were largely based on Tom Bowman's magnet modifications.

HO slot cars have a rich history. I wish someone would write a history book about it that crosses all the brand lines. Please, we don't need any more price guides.