We’ve seen a few slot race car sets here on Barn Finds over the last couple of years, but none like this Stirling Moss Model Motoring Table Top Racing Set. This is a 1966 version made by Aurora Plastics, and it features the famous Thunderjet 500, sometimes known as T-Jet or TJet, pancake motor cars. The seller has it listed here on eBay in Lawrence Township, New Jersey, and they’re asking $180 or best offer. Thanks to Driveinstile for the T-Jet tip!
Born in 1929, Stirling Moss – later, Sir Stirling Moss – became a British racing icon and, beginning in 1962, a renowned racing broadcaster. I wonder what the licensing arrangement was for Aurora Plastics Corporation to be able to use the photo of Sir Moss on the Model Motoring service manual.
The seller has provided pretty nice photos, but none showing the original track layout set up, the one that’s included in the box and for sale in this eBay auction or listing. They say that they have a lot of extra track that’s also for sale, and I’m guessing that’s what is shown here; there’s no way all of this track is fitting in that original box. You’ll have to send them a message to see how much they’re asking for the additional track. You can see the original layout on the box in the photos.
They do list what’s included, though: 12 curve sections of track, 15 straight sections, connecting locks and pins, two cars that were both tested and are working, two hand-held controllers, an 18V DC power pack, and the service manual shown in the photos. They say that it has been sitting for a while, so it may need cleaning and fine-tuning to operate as it should again.
These cars used what is called the pancake motor configuration, and it’s well-known for being reliable and fast. They’re also able to be modified and repaired fairly easily, compared to some other motor layouts. Aurora introduced this system in 1963 and called it the Thunderjet 500, which became known as the T-Jet motor. One of the two cars must have taken a spill at some point and they point out some damage in the photo above. Are any of you into slot car racing? Have you had a pancake motor set like this one?
Scotty!!! Thank you for writing this up!! I was hoping you’d see it. These are a huge part of my growing up. I actually have a turquoise Jag ( same body as the yellow one). I also have a profoundly beat up Cobra as well…. ( Why didn’t I take better care of them???). The Aurora “Pancake” design hung in there for quite a few years. From the T Jet to the A/FX and Magnatraction cars of the 70’s which I’ve also had for years. Great write up and research Scotty!! Thanks again for writing this up. ( Although I was kind of curious what the Jaguar would look like as a crew cab……….. Just kidding!!!)
I predict that there will be around 47,000 comments on this item.
47,001 with yours lol. I hope so. The only time my older brother and I really ever got along was racing slot cars lol.
Got a big box in the garage and about thirty cars in the 3 tan storage cases. Use to spend my lawn cutting money, way too much. You could buy everything for these and I did. Big winding motors, brushes, gear sets, the better pickup shoes, tires. They had sponge, silicone oh yeah aluminum rims. Was crazy stick they were terrible and they knew the first thing they needed to stay on the track was tires. It’s amazing how fast these could go. I have to get them on eBay and let someone else play with them. Oh by the way these are DC cars, the first generation were AX with a vibrator motor. Terribly slow and noisy, same track different transformer and cars
That’s terrible stock out of the box.
Not AX, AC where did the edit tab go?
When i was young………….never mind it sold.
Great write up, Scotty, and thanks for the BF tip, Driveinstyle. My 2 brothers and I still have most of our original set that we got for Christmas in the mid 60s, plus miles of track and dozens of cars that we’ve purchased since then. For 60 years it’s the toy we never outgrew.
My brother and I got these one year for Christmas (1965?). Ours had the little steering wheels to control the speed. I read that originally Model Motoring was supposed to be like HO trains. There were even track pieces for railroad crossings to combine the two. When Aurora found out most kids were racing them they came out with the pushbutton controllers. Our set got pretty big, we even had a platform set up for it. All kinds of cars and some trucks too.
Meh, I’m finding you can never go home again, and these aren’t near as fun now as they were in 1966. Those controllers were just the worst, a big dent in your thumb after 14 hours, and those side “fins” too, dug into your hand. The “steering wheel” or “gas pedal” ones were much better. Years later that controller would come back to haunt me. I hauled 1 (one) load of gasoline in my life, it clearly wasn’t for me. The loading place had a “deadman” control just like those to be depressed while loading. I was so nervous, it dug a hole in my thumb. Good thing I had my road race set experience.
I had a chance to buy a complete set when I first moved here at a thrift store. He wanted $25 and was 10 times the set this is. Well, I needed a kitchen table first, and Cardinal rule of thrift stores, if you see something, don’t wait, it will surely be gone, and it was.
Had one with me steering wheel
controllers. Bought mine for the princely sum of $.50 at a yard sale in the mid ’60s. And yeah, mine had the turquoise Jag too, along with a yellow Mustang fastback. Back then, you could get sections of track that had lap
counters in them as well as textured sections of track that looked like a brick road. I even used my Kenner building set and
a Motoriffic super city set to build
a small city around my track too.
And yes, I went in whole hog too and bought the hop up kit that had a small bottle of oil, HD brushes, and so on. Had a collector box to carry my cars and the hop up kit down to Murray’s Hobbyland in Bloomington on Saturday afternoons to race my cars and check out all the cool stuff he had there. He had a huuuge layout in the rear of his shop that
featured a banked track with AT LEAST 12 lanes on it. Track time cost you 25 or 50¢ an hour plus
whatever snacks you bought while you were there. Mr Murray
also organized races that were based on your age and “driving ability”. If you won, you got some
free stuff for your car or a 1/25
scale model kit of your choice.
Usually, these were kits made in the mid to late ’50s, but who cared. At least you got something really cool for your efforts. I won some super sticky
tires for my Mustang once, and a
1/25 1936 Ford roadster kit another time. Mr Murray’s setup was HO only but there were 1/32
and 1/24 scale tracks around town too. No matter what size car you had, there was a track to
race it on. And some of the kids
acted like their parents when they
bought, sold, or traded cars and parts to other kids around town.
Finally sold my set to a family at
church who wanted to buy one
for their son but couldn’t buy a new one. That was Christmas Eve of ’71. I stopped by and helped them assemble it for him
under their Christmas tree 🎄
His folks said he loved it. Now, I wish I had the space to have another one. Good times to be sure.
Through your comments that I have read in the past, you have inadvertently revealed your heart of gold.
No late boomer or early gen X gearhead can resist HO slot cars, I don’t guess. I know I have a lot of that stuff and pick up more occasionally. I’ll pretty much adopt any AFX or G-plus formula car that I find at a flea market or antique shop. I show them off in an old lighted wristwatch display case.
My number 2 best Christmas present from Santa Claus! My rides were a Ferrari and a D Jag. I played with that set for hours on Christmas, racing the adults who came over for Christmas. They had as much fun as I did!
I learned about the hazards of racing when the D Jag went into the elevated turn too fast and flipped, with the driver’s head coming off. A little glue fixed that. I love racing, and this, along with watching the midgets and sedan racing on a local quarter mile dirt track got me into racing.
Wonderful blast from the past!
who remembers Atlas?, they were mainly trains but they also made the Aurora sized race car sets, I had converter track that allowed using Atlas and Aurora tracks together, I made a huge layout with multiple sheets of 4 by 8 plywood with a space in the middle for chairs, the layout was so big, when we raced we tried to keep the cars on the track because it was a pain getting to them if they came off.
I WILL NEVER FORGET ON DEC. 25 5 A.M. 1966 SETTING UP THIS TRACK WITH BULLET CONTROLLERS AND CAME WITH THE BLUE C2 VETTE AND YELLOW STANG. BEST AND REALLY ONLY CHRISTMAS I EVER HAD !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A family friend gifted me a T Jet set when I was 4 in 1966. It had steering wheel controlers and came with a yellow Riviera and tan split window ‘Vette. My dad and I sanded and varnished a 4×8 sheet of plywood for the layout. Other cars were added, red Maserati, dune buggy, turquiose Charger. Additional track was added, 4 way intersection, “Squeeze” track and HO gauge RR crossing. Had hours of fun over many years. Still have all of it except the Maserati. It was the fastest car and never got hot. I made the mistake of telling a classmate that and he stole it. The plywood still serves as a table in my basement.
If you recall using the controllers in this set after all day use the heat would eventually get through the surfaces and it took effort to hold the controllers from them getting so heated with use. Great fun with the Aurora cars with the skinny tires and then the upgrade to the AFX with the wider and more “spongy” tires that gripped the track better as the motors ran faster. The best place to set these up were on a hard surface like plywood or a ping-pong table to avoid getting carpet or other materials wound up in the rear axle and gear set. Plenty of hours of fun.
My brother and me had one similar to this one as kids. The transformer is the same, but the hand controllers were different. Ours had little steering wheels with a “speedometer” in the housing. As you turned the little steering wheel clockwise to go faster, a pointer would show your speed in scale mph! There was a momentary contact switch labelled “Brake” that would cut power to the car to stop it! These have the newer, and much improved thumb controllers. If I had to guess, our set was slightly older, from about 1963 or ’64, not 1966.
We were constantly at the local hobby shop, buying extra sections of track or more cars to add to the set. We bought two (2) track sections that had HO-scale railroad tracks molded into them, so we could add our HO-scale train set to the layout!
I grew up with the AFX cars then as I got older got some of the remake Thunderjets and could not drive them as they didn’t have the magnets! Was a steep learning curve for me! Odd thing is that one of the first cars I had as a kid was a Thunder Jet white GTO, but didn’t have a track so it was like a useless car to me.
About 15 years ago I picked up a nice 1/32 scale Strombecker Thunderbolt Monza track with high bank curve. Don’t use it much but I got it since I like Shelby stuff and picked up one of there 1/32 scale Shelby Daytona Cobra slot cars so needed a track. You can get 1/32 scale plastic models and use the bodies on the chassis so kinda cool. I’m a hoarder. Have several other 1/64 scale (HO?) scale and couple other 1/32 scale tracks too.
But alas, my attention to the slot cars ended when I got back into RC cars…fun to tinker with and no track needed.
My basement is too full…I could open a hobby store with the stuff I have…
I used to see the Aurora Factory Experimentals (AFX) advertised on TV, but at the ripe “old” age of nine (9) years old, in 1968, I was already becoming a skeptical consumer! I didn’t understand how the cars stayed on the track without the slots, and didn’t think that they would work as well as they did in the commercials on TV anyway, LOL!
I found out from experience about 60 yrs. ago that many of the Matchbox bodies will fit the chassis and look much more realistic
Thanks Godzilla, my parents raised me to help folks when I can and work when I should. If I wasn’t playing with my slot car track or doing my homework on
Saturday mornings, you’d find me at our church tuning up cars for
paritioners who couldn’t afford a
real mechanic. I’d grab my tool box, tie it to the luggage rack on the back of my bike and off to the church I went. All I did was maybe change the oil, replace the plugs, put in new points and condensers, or replace a thermostat or two. It was fun wowing the ladies when I’d test a
thermostat by putting it into a pan of boiling water to see if it was stuck. And if it was, I always
carried two or three of them in my toolbox as many of the rides I worked were old Chevies and GM
used to use the same unit acres the board. No matter what the engine was, they all used the same part. I never made a lot of money doing that, but it wasn’t about the money. It was all about
helping a friend when they needed it. Sometimes, all I got was invited to stay for dinner. And boy, those ladies could cook!
The church folks all chipped in and bought me a brand new Craftsman tool kit, two pairs of coveralls, and a set of jumper cables as a reward for my efforts.
My Mom said that I was grinning
ear to ear when Pastor Jim handed me all that stuff. I’d show
up at church with my large print
Bible in one hand and my toolbox
in the other. I stashed the cables
and my coveralls in the basement
in case I might need them. I’ve
always heard that nice guys finish
last. But I’d Rather be in last place and help someone out when they need it than be in first
place and pass them by. Hey Philbo, if you wanna sell some of that stuff you have, sell it here on
BF! I think we’d all like to see it.
For me it was a Christmas in the early ‘80’s and it was an AFX track with 2 vans…a blue/white Ford and an orange/black Dodge. Ran the tires off of those and bought a bunch more cars along the way. Now that I’m “older”, Hobby Lobby sells the new AutoWorld sets and cars. Not classics, but still wicked fun!