102 replies to this topic

[Vay Jonynas]

Most difficult to find is the McLaren-Elva kit with the vacuum formed pre-painted body, kit # VSR2418, the "V" standing for "vacuum" to differentiate it from the # SR2418  kit with the injected body. The box was adorned with an sticker indicating that an extra set of AJ's silicone tires was included.

 

So I take it that only the VSR2418 kit with the vacuum formed body came with AJ's silicone tires?

[TSR]

Vay, it appears that way, since the RTR came with molded sponge tires.

[Vay Jonynas]

Therefore if we ever stumble across a SR2418 McLaren-Elva kit with the sticker and AJ's silicone tires it will be an amazing find. But!!! What if there's no sticker but the interior includes AJ's tires? Then we'd have to wonder whether the kit was issued from Monogram's factory like that or whether somebody, perhaps a dealer, added AJ's tires after the fact.

 

 

[MattD]

I bought the Mclaren with box, sticker and silicone tires on Ebay for under $150, a year or two ago.    It's not an interesting car to me and I passed it to a friend.  Maybe he will send a Picture of it to me.    Most all of this stuff shows up now and then.

[Vay Jonynas]

It had I'm assuming the vacuum-formed body.

[MattD]

It was the last issue red vac car in the box with the silicones and the sticker on the box.    Just not an interesting car to me.     

[MattD]

My friend just sent these.

 

Not much of a car to me.   I remember another guy finding one of these a couple years ago and I passed it on to top collector BB.   

[don.siegel]

Not sure why you guys think it was only the vac body version with the silicones - and Philippe and I have already discussed it, and I think it's posted here somewhere. Bought this a couple years ago from a guy in Belgium. Built up and used, but seems all original. It's P/N SR2418-900 - that's 9 bucks of course. It only had the regular foam tires, the extra silicones probably went to another car. 

 

Don 

 

 

 

 

[TSR]

Don,
it is likely that Monogram added the AJ's also to some unsold standard kits.
In any case the McLaren-Elva RTR never had the AJ's, so if one is found with silicone tires, they were customer or dealer added, but not factory.
Proof being in the pudding, if someone can show a picture of a SEALED RTR with the AJ's, I will be proven wrong. The clock begins ticking now.

Regarding the "VSR2418" kit, as of now, only one intact example is known to exist. The (very) few other known examples have been built or partially built.

[Vay Jonynas]

it is likely that Monogram added the AJ's also to some unsold standard kits.
 

 

Here's crossing my fingers hoping to stumble across such a kit!

 

[Vay Jonynas]

Here are my two latest acquisitions, both of which I believe rank among the tougher Monogram M.I.B. slot car kits to find:

 

I'm not sure why these images disappeared since they were hosted here on Slotblog. I can't find precisely the pictures I posted at the time but here are the best I can find right now:

 

1/24 '58 T-Bird

 

 

 

1/32 Lola GT

 

 

The picture of the Lola GT I posted thirteen(!) years ago was the same as the one I just posted but was about three times as big.

 

 

Hopefully I'll be able to add a few more pictures of acquisitions in the next six to twelve months.

 

[TSR]

There is a very rare version of the T-Bird kit, with the body set in the center of the display tray. I have only seen one example, and stupidly, sold it to a customer. It should have been kept for the museum, but at the time, in 1992, there was none being planned.

[Vay Jonynas]

Mine has the body set at the bottom of the tray as per the picture. The box is also emblazoned with a whopping three factory stickers proclaiming the inclusion of the Powerful X-200 Motor:

 

 

 

I wish though I could find the pictures of the Lola I posted all those years ago.

[TSR]

Your kit is of the second series in 1965, after Monogram found out that the smaller FT16 motor simply did not have the oomph to propel these heavy things to a reasonably competitive speed.
The earlier versions can be a bit scarce to find as an unbuilt kit by now.

Here is one to amuse you, decorated in period by an artist with gusto!









 

[Half Fast]

 

Here is one to amuse you, decorated in period by an artist with gusto!



 

Gusto but no talent!

 

Cheers

[Bill from NH]

I have a static kit of the '58 T-bird, but it'll never look like that.  

[TSR]

 

Gusto but no talent!

What do you mean, "no talent"? You are insulting generations of worshiped artists worldwide, from Vincent van Gogh to Juan Miro to Paul Cezanne! Such a fine and refined brush work! That T-Bird should be in the Metropolitan or the Prado! In any case it even made it in "Slot Car Dreams" on page 267, sub-chapter "Marvelous Mutilations and Mutations"...

[bradblohm]

I was most impressed by it being an early example of Cycledelic Art.

[TSR]

We all need to visit our cycliatrist! 

[Vay Jonynas]

I just purchased this absolutely over-the-top magnificent Monogram Indy Lotus kit from 1966:

 

 

 

 

It's one of Monogram's very best slot car kits in my opinion.

 

[don.siegel]

Good move Vay. 

 

Not only one of Monogram's best, but one of the best of all time! 

 

A very smooth runner too... just an all-around great slot car. 

 

Don 

[Vay Jonynas]

It's interesting. When I was in my early teens and slot cars exploded onto the scene in 1964-66, it was the Le Mans sport prototype cars that most appealed to me. Then in the early 1970s I became a more avid fan of both NASCAR and the NASCAR Canada racing at tracks in my corner of the world. Plus drag racing! So while I watched the Indianapolis 500 on TV every year, I wasn't that much of a fan of open wheel racing.

 

Therefore when I first started collecting unassembled kits of Monogram slot cars, I wasn't at all interested in the Indy Lotus or Grand Prix cars. But over the last twenty years or so I've acquired a fascination with the last of the cigar shaped open wheel racers, such as the Type 38 Lotus. I'm not sure when I first laid my eyes on a picture of the Monogram Lotus kit, but it skyrocketed to near the very top of my want list after I bought Philippe's great book just over a year ago.

 

    

[Vay Jonynas]

It was this ad in Boy's Life magazine in 1964 that was seminal in sparking my lifelong interest in slot cars: 

 

 

It left me with a palpable longing to get a slot car kit, build it and race!

 

I didn't find any of the cars that were pictured overly compelling though. It was the Le Mans sport prototypes that fascinated me at the age of twelve.

 

Still the presence of the two Ford Coupes left an impression on my fertile young mind. When I discovered Pete Millar's Drag Cartoons magazine less than a year later, my interest was further piqued by the magazine's partially tongue-in-cheek hucksterism for flathead Fords.

 

 

 

 

As a result, I always stop to admire 1930's Fords at any custom car show but I scowl if I find that their original flathead mills have been replaced by small block Chevy engines.

 

Since I bought my first vintage Monogram slot car kit some 35 years ago, I've managed to acquire five of the nine kits pictured in the ad including the (rare) Deuce Roadster and the '34 Ford Coupe. But just two weeks ago I was absolutely annihilated and left gassed on Ebay when I tried to score two of the remaining kits from the ad:

 

 

 

 

 

It seems I was bidding against a Swiss museum for whom price was no object. 

 

The '36 Ford Coupe and the '40 Ford Pickup remain at the very top of my Want list together with a 1/32 scale Monogram Ford GT. But hey, I've got the rest of my life to keep looking!

 

[Vay Jonynas]

And indeed the whole detail of this will be described in great detail, year per year, in the new book .... A listing of everything (kits and RTR) ever produced is located at the end of the book, with stock numbers.

 

 

I´m afraid this forum will die down the day you release your "lifework"

 

 

I believe that the opposite will be true, and that it will instead open a whole new set of questions, over much smaller details...

 

Philippe was correct. Here's a question stemming directly from the content of the book.

 

Figure 221 on page 101 of Slot Car Dreams shows a Monogram 1/32 Ford GT in a white box with a red motor in a white tray and then in a box with a purple rectangle surrounding the picture of the Ford GT with a silver motor in a yellow tray. (I'd refer to these as Second Generation and Third Generation kits.) Would the Monogram Ferrari 330 P/LM (with which the Ford GT is often paired) have also been released in both configurations?

 

To add to my confusion, my 1/32 Lola GT is like the one in your book's figure 214 - a white box with a silver motor in a yellow tray. I'm still looking for a First Generation Lola GT, i.e. coloured scenery box without a swing pickup arm.

 

[TSR]

Vay,
yes. the Ferrari 330P/LM (correctly named and registered by NART at the '65 Le Mans due to the use of a 330P/2 engine) came in two different boxes like the Ford GT40. Variations also in regard of the motors used: red "X150", then silver, then with red endbell, then Mabuchi FT16D with nickel plated can (oval hole) and ball bearing.