1/24 Lister Jaguar
One of the real gems in the professor motor collection of slot cars (all of which are "daily drivers" by the way) is this 1/24 scale replica if the 1950s Lister Jaguar sports racing car. The body of this car is an Auto Hobbies product from the 1960s that was once in horrible shape with shards of fiberglass emanating from one of the front fenders. In the hands of certified level 8 world class wizard of slot car bodies, Mr. Gary Cannell of England (shown below), the body was transformed from the raw chunk of fiberglass and resin to the magnificently painted and detailed beauty you see in the pictures. The good professor motor added an Atlas 1/24 scale ball bearing motor and Atlas chassis center section with custom milled 0.093" brass side pans (hinged) to the chassis department with ball bearings in both the front & rear axles. A sheet of Lexan film was superglued in place for a windshield with some rummaging in the parts drawer producing a driver figure that seemed to fit the bill. The real special part of this project is the wheels and tires. In the back 'Candies' silicones were used with the inside of the plastic wheel machined away to accept a set of wire wheel inserts. The fronts are Strombecker chrome wheels with some minor machining to allow the wire wheel inserts to sink down inside. A real super cool trick was used to attach the wheel spinners to the inserts ... each wheel spinner was drilled out to accept a 1/4" long 'drive screw' that fit into another slightly undersize hole drilled in the wheel inserts. With this setup the spinners should be able to take tons of abuse without doing a disappearing act .. After all this work the professor was awarded with really super smooth and quiet performance from the car and very good handling. The heavy brass pans that offset the very heavy body and huge ground clearance under the chassis on this one really were the trick, although unsuspecting soles at the slot shops that pick this one off the track are stunned with the full 9 ounces of weight. Width of the car is only 2 3/4" with overall length 6 3/4". Electric Dreams in California had some of these bodies for sale .. but not sure if any remain. Next steps on this car are to add some 'black wash' (thinned paint) to the wire wheel inserts to improve the realism of appearance and to work on improving motor performance.... should make this one even better ..
