Demolition Demon and Custom Chevy truck race team

[alan barton]

Although the 56 Ford in these photos has been finished for about twenty years, I just recently finished the custom Chevy truck and Tonka trailer to tow it with.

The Aurora Demolition Demon is one of those unicorns that is very hard to track down but I cheated by buying it new when I was about fourteen, in the early seventies.  I roughly brushpainted it in lime green back in the day but did an adult restoration in the late nineties.  It has a fabricated trunklid  (from an aluminium croissant tray) owing to losing the original one.  The front wheels are old slot car items.  All the damage was part of the original kit, a most unique model I'm sure you would agree.

The Aurora Custom Chevy pickup was sent to me by a friend in the USA. Apart from some glue burns on the roof it was in decent condition but it really was glued solid!  Anyone who has worked with Aurora models knows that they are made of very hard brittle plastic so I made the decision to restore it without dismantling it. This means that for now it has a metallic blue interior! It also lacks a windshield but I have a box of old plastic windshields to sort through yet.  There is very little of a gluing surface on this model so thin acetate is out of the question this time.

The wheels and tyres are the smallest ones I could find in my 1/25th scale stash but look appropriate for a big Chevy pickup. The headlights are from my stash - Oldsmobile perhaps? They were old, yellowed white plastic and I restored them with a Molotow pen.

The trailer is a Tonka toy with a modified tow hitch.  Would you believe that barely four days after modifying it and painting it I went to a toy fair in South Australia where a good friend gave me a terrific deal on not one but two mint Aurora show car trailers in their original box?  I will build these for another project now - the Tonka one worked too well to warrant changing it.

It just goes to show that with a bit of love and adult building skills these old Aurora 1/32nd scale models can look very cool.  As I have a display cabinet dedicated to dirt track race cars, this is a perfect fit for me!

Cheers

Alan

[Gramps46]

Well done on these Aurora models.  Seldom seen in my experience so thanks for sharing.

[Tom Geiger]

Nice work AB!  Funny thing, I just shared your Aurora 1/32 album with Rick Hanmore this week!

Maybe  someone will find that Aurora Chevy truck mold... be worth it just to hear guys on the boards have their coronaries!   ?

[Bainford]

Cool stuff, Alan. Nice work on these old, uncommon kits, and that Tonka trailer fits right in there. It's good to see these built/saved. Nicely done.

[PappyD340]

Very COOL!

[slusher]

Super nice!  Two I have never seen..Thanks for posting..