What is your favorite piece and why? Bob Beers

My favorites are my Petty Allison set cars (tycopro). They aren't great 'slot' cars or anything like that - but I wouldn't race them anyway. They take me back. They evoke memories of a simpler time and an emerging NASCAR where the race cars still looked like the street cars. Silly reason I know, but that's my story.

My latest modeling creation is always my favorite. But then I turn around and sell it or give it away then its time for another.

Roger Corrie

One always catches my eye and I think if I could just have that car right there my collection would be complete with that perfect car. I get it and then another catches my eye.
So I guess I would have to say the last one I got and soon it will be the next one I get.

Mine is my Aurora Tuffones #21 Cougar. It is my favorite because I remember walking to the local hobby store on bridge street in Ansonia with my friend Nick and buying one for $3.00. When I was first told about ebey in like 2000 I tried and tried to get one for under $50 and it just wasn't going to happen then. My friend Steve who introduced me to ebey also introduced me to the Bob Beers HO Slot Car Swap Meet and I picked one up there for $40. It was the one with the yellow glass. When I learned there is a green glass version too I realized I didn't know what color glass one I had as a kid, so now I have both versions. My original one was thrown out in the 1980s along with my train stuff.

There are a few cars that I have acquired recently that I have distinct memories of from when I was a kid that are among my favorites, but the Cougar is my all time favorite.

Here is mine .I bought it new at GLPerrys from the case with a key.It was green then a whole lot of others .Not long ago stripped and redone with nos tyco chassis ,I like it now more then ever.

http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/500/sssslotss0006.JPG

My original yellow Nomad!!!!Best time I ever had racing was with that car!
DRAGjet

Favorites are that for different reasons.....

http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/500/medium/100_2030.JPG

tan XK140 tjet came with my first set in 1966, haven't even tried to clean it up. It always ran, even in AFX days it was my "track cleaner," and it was one of the first to run again out of storage.

An equal is the first car I got separately, the green hot rod roadster, though I replaced all the parts that broke off.

Favorite aquisitions are HoHT auction MM Mustang, green vibe hot rod hardtop, and the sweet vibe galaxie that came in a big box lot off epay from some awfully nice ladies at an antique place in Pennsylvania. Oh, and the MEV Maserati that I bought a week before it was introduced for sale.

There were two 1:1 cars that meant a lot to me as a kid that I will replicate in original t jet form - a turquoise Falcon and a white 63 Galaxie with blue interior. They'll be favorites too.

I'm partial to an old TJet Charger that was red with a black "vinyl" wantabe top and rear deck stripes that I picked up to go with a '69 Blue Mach One that came in a set back in '69 or '70. Man if I'd only kept them. :freak:

rr

A Blue GTO that I purchased in a record store in Northeast Philly. The owner liked the cars so he sold them from a display case at the register. What a combo - 45's and slot cars!

Can't beat that, go in and pick up record and a TJet. :cool: rr

I'm more into AFX cars. I likes the street car customs!!! Here's a 2 toned, lowered, 55 Chevy gasser, an Austin with hood scoop & aluminum wheels, curently working on a tubbed out Henry J. heck, I like em all!!! Hope you enjoy them!!! Randy

Easily my hands down favorite is the big bad blue AFX #5 Javelin transam which is in amazingly great shape considering its age, the fact that I literally ran the hell out of it all these years, numerous seasons in the attic, being moved cross country twice, and mailed once. It was one of my first ever, inherited from my uncle along with some other very desireable AFX cars and some random hacked up t-jets. But being a jeep nut, you have to love AMC. And the javelin and AMX are easily the most noteworthy cars they ever built. Plus, its just the right color, and my birthday falls on the 5th so it seems that car was MADE for me. Some of my earliest X-mas memories were of running that car against my dad, younger sisters and random friends and its always been tough to beat. If I could only keep one car out of my entire collection (400+) that jav is the one that I would never EVER let go of.

Not to leave the T-Jets out, I do remember buying this body at a Super X drug store. This dark orange Willys came on a card of 3 push cars. I belive it was with a Thunderbird and a Porshe. There is no rear bumper or tag molded in the body. I've always liked the Willys bodys. This is a T-Jet with AFX wheels. Enjoy RLM

nice group of nomads Dragula

nice group of nomads Dragula
Wanna hear something sick...thats only like a 1/16 of my nomads.
DRAGjet

I schwicked by dads ice cream truck when I was about 15. hid it in my collection of 20 cars and threatened to kill my younger brothers if they told.
It's one of my original cars I will always keep, my dad has passed away since and the car still means the world to me (and yes, eventually he knew I had it)

favorites of my own right here

the willys w/flames always rule, I have a pic of the red and yellow (original)ones but can't find it.
the S&D motors car was a gift from someone from the board here (i'm sorry I think its mike king or tjd)
the jeigermeister was another fine hobbytalk gift from Claus (and not Santa, that fat bastard hasn't got me a slotcar for years).

I love the Charger.

Not the Best but my Favorites -
Chassis - A/FX Magnatraction
Bodies - BRE Datsun 240Z, Porsche Carrera (Blue and Orange) and for Detail in my opinion the BEST Aurora EVER offered was the Yellow and Red Ferrari Daytona Coupe!

Having started in '62 with a Vib set for christmas just watching the JagXK and Mercedes circle the track at eye level - the thrill cant be described!
Then when the T-Jets came along it was like a dream come true. Aurora even offered an upgrade to the T-Jet called the TUFF ONES and if you could afford it the Super II - I think both as an answer the TYCO-PROs speed - never the less they too were great.
Then, just about when we the Vib / T-Jet generation were just about to suffer burnout AURORA was working on something New and the R/D dept had a Brain Storm! ! ! They even ran magazine articles showing a car under cover called the A[FX. (My god did that ever sell model magazines) What It was -was a very simple add which simply stated "The A[FX are comming"??? Seemed like the adds ran for years (although Im sure it was only a few months) THEN finally Finally the cover came off and the A/FX were available. We the HO community Finally had Real speed with Detailed bodies that could finally compete with 1/32s.
Then FOR Me the REAL Kicker - A couple of years later A/FX Big Brother came along and The A/FX Magnatraction was Born! Not only did the MT give us Speed we had handling and Great detail to go with it!
The AURORA A/FX series ALONE put me Back into the hobby and has till this day kept my interest!
Thanks now to the likes of Johnny Lightning and/or AW, MM and RRR we are still getting Beautiful Bodies and what a DAMN SHAME we cant say the same for the chassis and motors. After all guys the Bodies are what we are really collecting BUT It would just be SO NICE if SOMEONE would come up something totally new - another A/FX (or AW/FX could come along that would give rebirth to the driving experence as much as their bodies have the art &/or the collecting aspect!
Lets face it guys until the A/FX series all we box stock guys had were toys. Oh yea there were a few guys hopping up the T-Jets long ago to run good and I still love and collect the old bodies as well BUT for we the Box Stock Guys the A/FX has to be the best thing AURORA ever came up with PERIOD!
Thats the 'WHY' Mr Beers.

My Favorite is my Candy Tyrell.. Only because I desperatly wanted it as a kid and never had one.. well I do now and its mine I say MINE!...Plus its a good color combo.


Dave

I like my Minolta Toyota best because it wins so much. :thumbsup:

'doba

My Favorite car that is not mine is Dragulas 55 blue car with the blue chassis to match. Way cool.

I love this Orange Datsun Pickup made by Dragula as it is incredible but, had to flip a coin and My Bill Hall Tour Bus was heads up. Chris you know how cool I think your stuff is.

Why are these my favorites? Because the people that built these cars put detail in them that a mass production company would not bother with and the fact that both of these guys are incredibly nice helps also. Everyone else is nice also...don't get me wrong here folks. lol Everyone is incredibly nice here at HT.

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g282/bobhch/achris1.jpg

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g282/bobhch/ahall.jpg

My favorite slot car friends are all here on Hobby Talk. Without you guys what would be the point. :thumbsup: :thumbsup: 2 thumbs up for everyone at HT! :hat:

Bob...zilla

Hi Mr Aurora :wave:
My most sentimental piece is a very common Ford J T Jet white/blue flamethrower. My older cousin gave me for my birthday back in the day. Right after that he was deployed to 'Nam, and never came back. He was/is a POW that was never found, so that makes that little car very special to me. It has a very special place in one of my display cases.

My favorite car has to be my blue Willys T Jet that, again, I got when I first started. I still have it. :woohoo:


The one I loved that I wished I still had is the A/FX Dodge Magnum that is white red blue & orange, yep the "0" body in your book. That car came up missing one day at the local raceway, and it was never seen again. :cry: I would love to get another one, even if it was just a body.

Larry

I guess for me it's the Tyco Rough Rider Gremlin. It was the first slot car I bought with my own money, back in 1978, and it beat all my friends cars, none of them had Gplus cars, which could've beaten it. As I grew into my teens and gave up slots for girls, my younger brother got them, ruined all of them.

When I "discovered" the Bay.. in 2001... it was the first car I looked for, and it was hard to find. I finally came across on great shape, minus the decals. Thank God RRR made replacement decals that allowed to fully restore my childhood treasure!

If I had a choice of any car ever, it would have to be one of the Banana Split cars that where never produced wholesale.

So Mr. Beers........whats you favorite???

My favorite in the vibes is the Country Squire station wagon. As a kid I made mine into a hearse. My favorite tjet is the AMX. Hey, I like Ramblers....I learned to drive on one. My favorite AFX is the Peace Tank. Hippies, what can I say! -Bob

So it means a lot to me. It is up with the good stuff. A Slot car Hobby Store with "me" outside. Gotta love it........... -Bob

The four favorites I have are the blue #7 Daytona Charger, Orange '57 Nomad, red Ford Baja Bronco, and the L&M Lola. My dad got me and my brother an A/FX Golden Gate Race Set for Christmas in 1974.

We had hours of fun. :woohoo: Randy.

i have a yellow orange 43 satellite. and the black and white mercury stocker.i had given my collection to my brother when i started driving.then they got sold at a yard sale . 10 years ago i ran into the friend of my brothers that bought them ,,,iwas able to purchase a few bodie back and all 10 of my chassis which i still have,the bodies were a total loss.only ones i need to finish my want list is the red white and blue matadoor stocker [bathtub body ] ,blue 55 chevy belair and blue dodge daytona,,lighted..had alot of fun overnights and snow days with my buddies and our afx cars.great holiday memories ;)

That store is super cool Bob. You have one of my other favorite cars in front of it too, the Tuffones Camaro. I had one of those as a kid too. I got it around the same time I got the Cougar.

Bob,roughly how many cars do you think you have in your collection?
DRAGjet

Thanks Bob, that store is awesome - put that out in kit form and see how fast they sell out lol. What a nice gift (to TM "See that?").

You have one of my other favorite cars in front of it too, the Tuffones Camaro. - Micyou03-

I guess I missed out on the Camaro when Tuff Ones were sold new. But when I discovered ebay and slots therein, a nice T/O Camaro was one that I hunted for. I think the Penske/Donohue colors are one of my all time favorites 1:1 or small scale, I was and am partial to them on the AFX Porsches too.

Best piece? My Aurora G+ Ligier. Had great fun with that car and won many races with it. That car stuck to the track like glue.

I have an original brown GTO with the brown roof that I bought at a Ben Franklin store for $3.95 back in the '70's. I had to shovel several long driveways to get that and a few other cars. I also think the yellow '57 vette is one of the coolest AFX cars ever made.

This is mine!!! Because it takes me back to the old Hobby shop in Franklin Square where I spent some of the best days of my youth.

The Afx semis are among my favorites. Still have one I bought in the early 80's.

First off, I wish I wasn't so prone to customs as a kid as I cut up lots of nice cars I now wish I had.


Some that made it through the cut and paste years are original
AF/X Peace Tank and Rolls Royce and my original Barris Batmobile. I had the Green Hornet too but lost it in a move. Nobody wants to fess up at home. I have a snomobile I fancy too but I got tired of the fact it was so easy to fall off the track so I tubed it a virtualy ruined the look. about 35 years ago.

Dumb kid, yep that's me.

Hi everyone,

I'm new to this board and this thread seems to be a good opportunity to introduce myself. :wave:

The best piece in my collection is the turqouise Hot Rod Coupe, and there is a little story behind it.
My Dad worked for Aurora during his college-years. Aurora had a kind of european headquarter in the City of Nijkerk, Netherlands. They manufactured some L+J-tracks there, too.
Most of the time he worked at the costumer-care-center, building plastic-kits for displaying purposes or sending missing pieces to customers. In around 1965 they attended at a hobby-show in the City of Enschede, including a racing layout where the kids were able to race the Tjets...maybe the Dutch Grand Nationals? :D

http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/511/aurora1960er01.jpg

After the show they gave a box full of tracks and some Tjets (Hot Rod, E-Type, Indy Racer) to my Dad, and he kept it through the years until I was old enough to race with it. The Hot Rod was my absolutely favourite. This is me in our basement in early 1977, getting the maximum out of the Hotrod:

http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/511/aurora1977.jpg

I continued racing through the 1980s (together with a friend who had a Faller-layout), adding some Afx-cars. But through the years other things became more interesting and the Aurora-stuff was forgotten.

Two years ago I discovered the box full of Aurora in my parents home. First I was only interested if the cars were still driving (of course they did, after getting some cleaning and oil), but soon I was back in the hobby again.
Now I've got a small permanent racing-layout at home (the wobbly Tyco-tracks were soon replaced by lock+joiner-tracks), and I became a member of a regional HO-Racing-Club. In addition to the racing, I'm attending a group of H0-enthusiasts building a modular layout not for racing but "common" traffic, with scenery, structures etc.. I'm using L+J-tracks there, too, surrounded by Faller-tracks. Faller is still quite massive here in Germany, although they went out of slotcar-business 20 years ago. Afx-cars were sold by Faller from 1975 to around 1985, but the Tjets and L+J-tracks hardly never made it to the German market.

To come back to the topic, I've still got the turqoise Hot Rod and it will always own a special place in my collection. Here it is, together with a remake from Dash:

http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/511/hotrods.jpg

That's the history of the best piece in my collection...sorry for the long post, I hope you guys weren't bored too much. :cool:

Greetings from Germany
Frank

Welcome Frank. Thanks for sharing that very interesting story.

First off, I wish I wasn't so prone to customs as a kid as I cut up lots of nice cars I now wish I had.


Some that made it through the cut and paste years are original
AF/X Peace Tank and Rolls Royce and my original Barris Batmobile. I had the Green Hornet too but lost it in a move. Nobody wants to fess up at home. I have a snomobile I fancy too but I got tired of the fact it was so easy to fall off the track so I tubed it a virtualy ruined the look. about 35 years ago.

Dumb kid, yep that's me.


I never intentionally modified any my cars as a kid. I burnt them.

When I first got back into this hobby I never wanted to mess with my car bodies, but I finally got over that and am enjoying the hobby much more than when I tried to keep my cars original.

In the future if the original cars are selling for much more than my modified ones I'll just remember how much more I enjoyed modifing them than I can ever enjoy admiring the original look, or the money I could have gotten for them.

The best piece in my collection is the turqouise Hot Rod Coupe

That's a great story Frank and welcome aboard ! !.... Your a man right after my own heart. My favorite is a tan Hot Rod Roadster. It was my first re-captured piece of youth. Back in the 60's my neighbor used to let me run his older brother's tan roadster when he wasn't around to catch us. His older brother had bright red hair. We used to call him "Hot Rod Rooster"... behind his back. In 2001 I was just starting a collection again, saw one at a show, and had to have it. It's not mint, but neither was Rooster's. lol :p

nuther dave

Great story Frank!Love the pics and the storyline that accompanied them!
Christian

Frank, I enjoyed your post very much. I wish I could find pictures of me with t jets - that would have been 1967 too. Thanks for sharing.

@all:
Thank you very much for the friendly welcome! :wave: I'm glad you enjoyed my little story. :)

@Dave:
My Hot Rod isn't mint anymore, too. But like you mentioned right, this old car re-captures a piece of youth. It brings back some childhood-memories like endless night-races (with lighted model-railroad street-lamps), 1980s music in the background and the typical smell of the Tjet in my nose. I like my shiny brandnew-looking cars, too (mostly remakes of old 1960s Auroras), but they can't provide the memories like this old Hot Rod does.

There's only one car that didn't survive my childhood days very well. I tried to fit an E-Type to the Indy-chassis, due to the lack of NOS in Germany back in the 80s...didn't work out to good, but i still have it. Looks kind of interesting with some truck-wheels under it...rather like a SUV than a sports-coupe. :D

http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/511/medium/etypesuv.jpg

We used to call him "Hot Rod Rooster

:D I've got some experience with red haired...my sister is red haired, too. :p

Greetings,
Frank

Frank, Welcome to Hobby talk and thanks for a great story and history of the hobby we all love so much...


Coach!

Best car in my collection,easily hands down..an orange 67 gto by model motoring.My wife went to our local hobby shop and had "just married" lettered on both sides as a pre-wedding gift.That car means more to me than anything in my collection.
Christian

Welcome Frank! It's cool to hear stories like yours. :cool:

Great stuff Frank!

Frank,
Welcome and thanks for the story! :) rr