Aurora Hot Rod conversion
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Hot rods are my current passion. So when I saw all the Johnny Lightning "Hot Rod 1" series cars at TRU, I starte dthinking about what could be done
with all those cool parts. I love '32 Ford HiBoys especially....so that was my first choice for slotisizing into "HO"
Here is the progression of two cars made from parts off the JL '32 HiBoy diecast.
The first thing to try was a resin cast copy of the JL /32 Ford body. I made a standard slosh-cast
mold off the diecast body and poured some blue resin into it. Then mounted the result on a SlimLine chassis, with all the
JL parts and pieces glued on. Some of my whitewall tires from the "reject" box were put on the wheels.
While this is a cool car, the nose sticks out too far for my tastes. I may try another later on with a shortened body
casting. But it's still something different to run and it got me thinking.
So how do you get the look and feel of the JL '32 HiBoy and yet get the performance and
reliability of the Standard T-Jet chassis? That has always been a big question for me.
I like the Aurora hot Rod, but it's dirt tracker nose and lack of much detail has been disappointing.
Enter the JL '32 HiBoy parts once again.
My work on the "BlueRod" got me to thinking about how to mate these up with an Aurora Hot Rod body. I sawed off the hood on an old beat-up
one I had laying around and then just started gluing bits onto it. Turns out, it's easy to do and require little modification
of the JL parts to fit. I did mount the front axle in the "long" position and mounted Lo-Pro tires up front. Those tires
are sanded a little on the inside to clear the headers better. Other than that, it all fits well.
These photos show the progression: Parts mounted but no headers, headers trimmed and mounted, grille shell painted.
This little rod runs like any other standard T-Jet, yet looks like something built upon a SlimLine chassis...the best of both worlds.
