There's no such word as fail.

Of course no collection would be complete without the most successful car and driver in the history of everything. I'm writing, of course, about the legendary Thunderbolt Grease-Slapper driven by none other that best of all good guys, Tom Slick. This car was a result of me going down an eBay rabbit hole one night and buying the cheapest thing I could find, an Ertl Model A Ford, with the idea that I might turn it into something. I had no idea what it would become until I was well into the project. I thought maybe a hot rod of some sort. Once I started cutting it down, it just hit me. The body was cut down to remove the fenders and the top, and the frame was modified. The engine cover side panels were filled and smoothed out. The dashboard was modified and the steering wheel moved to the center. The headlight brackets and windshield frame are scratch-built from steel rod. The radiator cover is a small tack, and the exhausts are made from parts in my junk bin. The fuel filler is a piece of scrap plastic and the folded top is made from steel rod and black gorilla tape. Tom Slick was scratch built from Milliput over wire. Tom was painted with Tamiya acrylic. His goggles were fabricated from 24 gauge copper salvaged from a Cat 5 data cable. The front wheels and tires came with the donor car. The rear wheels and tires are from a toy Caterpillar vehicle I found at a thrift store. They were hollow and had heavy treads but I got them for $3. I glued two pairs together and chucked them int a rotary tool. Then I laid them into 120 grit sandpaper to smooth them out. I masked the body and airbrushed the blue stripes. The red stripes are decals. And there you have it. The one and only (as far as I know) 1/43 scale replica of the legendary Thunderbolt Grease-Slapper.

For those of you who are too young or are from some strange and distant land in which parents did not use Saturday morning cartoons to enrich their children's cultural and intellectual development, I offer this introduction to the legendary Tom Slick and the Thunderbolt Grease-Slapper.