"Mr Auroras" memoarer – spännande följetong i sex delar

Här diskuteras H0, 1:43, Tyco, Faller AMS, Aurora, Tomy A/FX m. fl.

"Mr Auroras" memoarer – spännande följetong i sex delar

Inläggav Ravajack 08 feb 2008, 15:30

Robert "Bob" Beers är en internationellt välkänd profil inom denna lilla HO-bby.
Han jobbade i många år som produktutvecklare hos Aurora och har även skrivit
standardverket om Auroras HO-bilar, "The Complete Color Guide to Aurora H.O.
Slot Cars"
. I "branschen" är han idag känd som "Mr Aurora", och det Bob inte vet
om epoken Aurora är förmodligen inte värt att veta.

Bild

"Mr Aurora" har även en egen hemsida
där han bland annat säljer ovanstående
bok samt även diverse gammal Aurora-
parafernalia.

Härförleden hittade jag ett gammal "zine" från 1999 där "Mr Aurora" berättar om sin
tid hos och relation till företaget, närmast en kärlekshistoria betititlad "The history of
Bob and Aurora"
. Här kommer den, en rafflande följetong i sex delar, skriven med
glimten i ögat, och som följaktligen även bör läsas på samma sätt. Allt är förmodligen
inte helt sant, men åtminstone nästan... Mycket nöje! :beer:

THE HISTORY OF BOB and AURORA
By Bob Beers

This is a fact filled story with a fictitious main character as the narrator. It is told the way I wish it came out. I feel very fortunate that my age of 47 (1999, red:s anm.) puts me in an ideal time frame for the story you are about to read.

Chapter One
Around 1951 two great events were beginning to unfold. Our main character, let’s call him Bob, was born and the Aurora Plastics Company was beginning to unfold even at that time. You see, Bob’s clothes were hung on plastic hangers and Aurora’s first development was a plastic hanger.
Coincidence… I think not.

Bob grew up in Bayside, Queens, NY until he was 9 years old and in 1960 his parents moved him out to Long Island. Aurora grew up in Brooklyn, NY and in 1954 moved out to Long Island, Bob went to West Islip and Aurora went to West Hempstead.
Wow, what a coincidence… I think not.

In 1960, Bob was pushing around plastic toy cars wishing they had electric motors, when the doorbell rang. Coincidence… I think not.

Bob answered it and it was the delivery agent of an Aurora vibrator HO slot set. His first of many, but alas… I digress.

Bob played day and night with his new toy and he raced and raced while his parents and neighbors complained constantly of the static on their TV’s while watching Lawrence Welk. Bob had trouble tuning the cars, and in a parallel universe, Ed also had trouble tuning his. Bob grew impatient and frustrated while Ed learned to tune his cars and grew impatient and frustrated about the red … but alas, I digress.

In the background, at Aurora, Derek Brand was designing a new chassis. Bob was wishing he had a new chassis, and just then the THUNDER of a JET passed over Bob’s house and he hurried down to Sallys Cycle and Toys just in time to see the new Aurora Thunderjet cars arrive. Bob bought several with his paper route money, and even traded in a few vibrators for a few of these new gems. Both Bob and Aurora knew they had a breakthrough product.
Coincidence… I think not.

1965 found Bob building monster kits by who else? Aurora! And by 1967 Bob had discovered girls as Aurora designed Tuff Ones and Wild Ones. Bob dated Tuff Ones, Wild Ones and even a Flame Thrower or two.
Coincidence… I think not.

In 1969, with his slot cars long forgotten at an old girlfriend’s house, Bob found himself at a crossroads in his life. You see, he was graduating high school and was about to embark on a life career. Aurora was in some of its most successful times, as was Bob. As he sat in his kitchen eating a Nabisco cookie, Aurora was being eaten up by Nabisco itself.
Coincidence… I think not.

Spännande fortsättning följer... 8-)
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Re: "Mr Auroras" memoarer – spännande följetong i sex delar

Inläggav Ravajack 09 feb 2008, 10:05

Chapter Two

In the fall of ‘69 Bob goes to college and a search for higher education. Aurora is in the throws of a takeover and the three amigos (Shikes, Cuomo and Giammarino) are bought out by Charles Diker and Nabisco. Bob finishes two years of school and lands a job at a plastics company in the summer of ‘71. Here’s where story starts to get fuzzy, so pay attention…

Bob is 22 years old, with an Associates degree under his belt, and he gets a job at Aurora to earn summer money to go on a trip to California with his buddies, Dan and Tom. Bob’s job at Aurora is grinding up excess plastic and recycling it into black plastic track. He loves the job.

Summer’s over, and he helps install a new Aurburg injection molding machine and is asked if he wants to train to run it. An opportunity to stay on at Aurora instead of the trip to California?

Bob accepts the job and asks his friends to wait a few years. The Aurburg could mold four bodies per second, and 240 per minute. In a eight-hour shift, Bob made 112,000 T-Jets. 2,400 orange Chargers were made while he was on the bowl in the bathroom. While the machine made 112,000 in a shift, Bob screwed around four a minute, or 1,920 T-Jets per shift.
Bob hated the screwing he gave Aurora.

Bob was known at Aurora for his stories about racing slot cars as a kid. They loved him so much they nick-named him Mr. Aurora. One day in 1972, Bob was asked to join a meeting in Research and Development. The department heads were contemplating a new line to compete with the faster TycoPros just released to the public. Bob was shown a snap-on body and a hopped up T-Jet type chassis. What did he think? He loved it. No more screwing on the job . . . but I digress.

They needed a name for the line and asked him to help. He said the new line had to be made. He hated screwing on the bodies. We need new bodies, he shouted, it affects me, it AFFECTS me. I must have them produced! The department heads looked at each other and decided to call the new Aurora Affects cars; AFX for short. Every time you pick up an Aurora snap on bodied car, remember, the screwing Bob did at Aurora AFX all of us.
Coincidence ... I think not.

The T-Jet was a thing of the past. Bob was asked if he wanted 10 million excess complete T-Jet chassis to take home as reminders of his screwing days at Aurora. Bob refused the lot of them and REH was given them for free. Aurora even paid shipping to Cincinnati, Ohio. Bob commented that REH was dumb to take 10 million chassis, and Aurora would have been better off dumping them in Ferndale, California. But the freyt was too costly and there was no Marketos for them. Who wants a dumb T-Jet chassis anyway? cried Bob.
Coincidence, ... I think not.

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Re: "Mr Auroras" memoarer – spännande följetong i sex delar

Inläggav Ravajack 10 feb 2008, 10:52

Chapter Three

Okay, we ended 1973 with the creation of AFX, as Bob named the line. Aurora’s new speed in slot cars was sweeping the nation and Tyco was being left in the dust. These were fun times at Aurora, until a tragic turn of events began to unfold. The first of two major oil crises in the U.S. occurred and Aurora felt the pinch. The products were cheapened and new ideas shelved to save resources for the money making ones already in production.

Bob was promoted to the research and development department, and his new job was a blast. The Vietnam war was ending, thanks to President Nixon, and Aurora was working on the Peace Tank, as a statement of disapproval of the war. The tank had beer cans, a barrel tied in a knot, and a guitar on the front. It was missing something. Bob kidded that the President of Aurora had a distinctively large nose, and before you could say Ahh Choo, Diker’s beak was bobbing up and down in the Peace Tank turret.

Bob’s ideas were ahead of their time, and they came to him in strange ways. Over his desk was a drafting lamp, and he would tape little reminder notes to himself on it. Several chassis were strewn around his drawing board, and Bob would use magnets out of the chassis to hold notes to the metal lamp. He cut the bottom out of a chassis and with the magnets protruding just a little bit, he was able to stick up notes without even taking the chassis apart.

Some magnets slid down the lamp. Not enough traction on these magnets, Bob thought. ”I need more magnet traction!” he shouted, and the other designers marveled in his idea for the new MAGNA TRACTION chassis.
Coincidence… I think not.

Bob did odd jobs at Aurora. He took out the trash and tossed thousands of T-Jets and prototype AFX cars in the Dumpster. It was there he met Larry S. Larry was a frequent visitor to the Aurora Dumpster, mostly in the dead of night. Bob caught Larry one night, rifling through the trash and Bob asked him why. Larry said he was a fireman in southern Jersey, and the firemen used to like making dioramas of cars to set on fire, and practice putting out. Bob estimates Larry burned up hundreds of thousands of the little cars doing his HO-Pyro routine.

Bob also opened mail from the kids who used slot cars. This one kid, Eddie B. sent a letter a week for fifteen years. Bob wallpapered the Aurora archives with Eddie’s letters. One in particular was funny. Seems old Ed wanted to take an HO car and run it on a l/32 or 1/24 slot car track. Man, what a nutty idea. Bob answered this one and told Ed he had finally struck out. Ed pitched his ideas constantly and finally hung a SLIDER, and was out.
Coincidence… I think not.

Back to new products… An Aurora Superman model was on Bob’s desk with a magnet glued in the hand, and a magnet AFX car in Superman’s hand, hence (you guessed it), Superman magna traction, later shortened to Super Magna Traction. Bob and his crazy ideas.

He had an accessory with a cow on the track you had to avoid. He stuck a motor in the cow and ran it around the track. Yup, speed STEER. Bob raced on Saturday nights with his buddies. These five brothers came in and were unbeatable because their cars were uncontrollable on the track. No guide pins (rules allowed it) and Bob went back to Aurora to design his own uncontrollable unpredictable car just like the Ultrah brothers, the Ultra Five as they were called.
Coincidence… I think not.

Bob was in a men’s only club one night when a scantily clad girl wearing nothing but a G-string took his drink order. She told him to play his cards right and he’d get the G’ Plus or Super G’ Plus that night. Needless to say, Bob opened his first Twin Pack and got to see how a new pair of silicones handled right out of the… ‘er box. We’ll keep the story G-rated so the rest is for another time…


En populär föreställning är att om man kedjar fast ett oändligt stort antal apor vid var sin skrivmaskin, så kommer någon av dem att prestera ett litterärt mästerverk. Internet har dock nu slutligen bevisat att så inte är fallet...
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Re: "Mr Auroras" memoarer – spännande följetong i sex delar

Inläggav Ravajack 11 feb 2008, 10:56

Chapter Four

So, we have seen Bob has been very influential in the developments at Aurora through the ‘70’s. There was a suggestion that Big Names in racing be asked to join the AFX team. A.J. Foyt, Richard Petty, and Jackie Stewart were spokesmen for Aurora and it was Bob’s job to make them competitive drivers on a small scale. We’ll call it HO for now. Bob was an expert racer and these guys were all thumbs until he showed them how it was done.

People at Aurora used to discuss SCALE with Bob. This one kid, Jason, constantly sent letters about scale and size, but he was the only one interested in it. Bob told Jason to concentrate on scenery, or something like that, and maybe he’d be good at it. Bob’s hints paid off. Bob knew that today’s kids would never know the difference between 1/64 or 1/87 so he had Aurora do cars in all sizes imaginable, and still call them HO. Bob knew size was irrelevant.

You see, rumor has it he was not well endowed and while visiting a lady of the night, the ‘HO told him size means nothing. What you can get for it, money wise, is what’s important. That rationale stuck with Bob, and by the way, that’s how HO scale came to be.
Coincidence… I think not.

In 1978 Aurora was in some turmoil. Seems management was spending a lot of money on toys and games and there were no profits in the company. Bob suggested they concentrate on the slot cars and nothing else, but no one would listen. Bob decided to take matters into his own hands. He felt the slot car line was the money maker and he wanted to buy it. Aurora was up for sale and different buyers were coming in to West Hempstead to discuss price. Bob saw the writing on the wall and began taking slot car stuff out the ‘back door’ secretly. Prototypes and test projects were disappearing.

Marx Toys of Pennsylvania wanted the toy and game line, no one wanted the slot cars. Bob made a bid for the slots with a few potential partners. One guy was named Danny, a guy who liked Tyco, and a guy named Tom who always took cars out of the package to display. Dan said Aurora slots would never be worth anything, so he backed out. Tom bought a house on Staten Island, where all Aurora’s garbage was dumped, and he backed out too. Bob was left all alone and couldn’t come up with the $5 000 to buy the slot car line.

It was official, Aurora was going out of business and Marx bought them up. The model kits went to Monogram and the toys, games and slot cars were being packed up for Marx in PA. The last day at Aurora found Bob in charge of leading up the last six trucks bound for Marx.

Bob had a plan. He carefully engineered loading all of the slot car stuff, molds and all, into truck number 43 (a petty detail, to say the least). When the six trucks left West Hempstead, Bob shed an HO scale tear (1/64) and bid farewell to the company he knew and loved.

Quickly, his plan went into action. He drove around the block and met the driver of truck 43 in a predetermined location. Bob took truck 43, handed the driver 500 bucks in cash, and the driver took off in an identical truck, totally empty except for a dozen barrels of gasoline. The driver took the empty truck to Pennsylvania and parked it on a railroad crossing, opening the hood like he had engine trouble. Late that night, a freight train barreled into the truck and the ensuing wreck burned the truck to an unrecognizable melted blob. Legend has it that Bob has yet to open the back of truck 43, but it is in Connecticut today.
Believable… I think so.
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Re: "Mr Auroras" memoarer – spännande följetong i sex delar

Inläggav Ravajack 12 feb 2008, 12:09

Chapter Five

What a hectic year 1978 was for our main character. Aurora was sold, and he was out of a job. The mystery truck was safely hidden somewhere in Connecticut, as Bob pondered what to do next.

After a week of unemployment, Bob was offered a job at Tyco. Seems they wanted him to be their Tyco Pro. He declined as the job would be too slow. While talking to them he was offered $ 440 to start. He countered with 440x2 as his base salary and they said no. Bob felt working for Tyco, the competition, would be sacrilegious, as there was no Life-Like that at Aurora.

The phone rang. It was Marx Toys. They wanted Bob to come to their headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut and work in R&D. The job was handling the Aurora AFX slot car line. He said yes and promptly moved his family to Connecticut.
Coincidence… I think not.

Bob’s first assignment was putting together the first Marx-Aurora catalog for 1979. New developments were being made along with Speed Steer, Ultra Five and Magna Sonic cars. Bob was at home setting up a race track for the kids.

He was handling 15-inch straights when the spaghetti water started to boil. He ran to the kitchen and as he was adding the spaghetti to the water, he dropped two 15-inch straights into the pot. By the time he got the tongs and fished them out, the tracks were a twisted mangled mess of turns, bumps, bends and dips.

Hey, we could market this product!, he thought. Preliminary names were pasta pass, spaghetti twists and lasagna lanes. When he couldn’t get the little flecks of pasta off the heated plastic, he settled on Flecks Track.

Flex Track hit Aurora by storm. It was inserted in the catalog long before the product was tooled and engineered. It was added to sets for the 1979 season at the New York Toy Fair. It was a success, with Marx Aurora doing 40 million dollars in sales pre-orders. The division was normally a 15 million a year business, so this was fantastic. Then, tragically, the first molds were a flop.

Aurora borrowed money to remake the tooling and Christmas orders ran late. The product was not ready in time and distributors were unhappy. They cancelled their orders and the division was in financial trouble. By the time the panic was over, money was lost, the division was in debt, and Marx had them up for sale.

1980 saw the Canadian subsidiary, Aurora Canada, buy the division from Marx, and the R&D group was retained in Connecticut to be the US representatives for the company. Bob kept quiet about Flex Track, and although it was finally perfected, he hated the product he designed, and it was a signal of the beginning of the end for Aurora.
Believable,... I think so.

There was no consumer catalog for 1980 as Bob never made it to the printer in time for the 1980 NY Toy Fair. It was the first time since Aurora’s beginning that there was no color catalog. This is the only one missing from Bob’s collection today.

En populär föreställning är att om man kedjar fast ett oändligt stort antal apor vid var sin skrivmaskin, så kommer någon av dem att prestera ett litterärt mästerverk. Internet har dock nu slutligen bevisat att så inte är fallet...
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Ravajack
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Inlägg: 3446
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Re: "Mr Auroras" memoarer – spännande följetong i sex delar

Inläggav Ravajack 13 feb 2008, 18:40

Chapter Six

It’s 1980 and things are a little shaky at Aurora Products of Canada’s R&D group in Connecticut. With no catalogs for the consumer, the product will have to be marketed on its past merits, kind of like Tomy is today. The R&D group is hard at work developing slot cars for the 1981 season.

Aurora develops a fantastic new product called Lazer 2000 and Bob is asked to travel to a hobby show in Arizona to debut it a few weeks before the 1981 Toy Fair in New York. While at Aurora’s suite, showing off the product to perspective buyers, Bob sees the president of Tyco and his R&D guy. Bob verbally abuses them and bodily throws them out of the room. They vow to develop a competitive product and have it at the Toy Fair in three weeks.

At the New York Toy Fair Tyco debut’s its new product called Wall Climbers. An exact replica of Aurora’s Lazer 2000 set in theory and performance. The only noticeable difference is that Aurora used a thicker rail and Tyco used a double rail. Aurora was furious at this, and lost 1/2 the market share that year to Tyco.

Aurora decided to sue Tyco and took them to court. At the courthouse, two sets were set up and run for the judge. Bob took the stand after setting up the Aurora display and cutting his hand. He tried to hide it with a glove found in his jacket, but the bloody glove didn’t fit him. Bob testified that back at Aurora he was working late and heard a thump outside the office, as someone hit the air conditioner running down the alley. Bob gave pursuit in his white Ford Bronco. Bob lost him, and returned to Aurora where he found the glove he later used to hide his bloody hand in court. Aurora lost the case and a lot of money in the process. This, coupled with the flex track debacle of the year before, made the cash flow very slim.

1982 saw Aurora try to gain back market share with some terrific new slot cars. The Fall Guy was introduced, along with the Big Ryder series of trucks. This was a good year for Aurora as they struggled with the competitive market in the U.S. The hobby was dwindling as new products like Atari and Coleco computer games were taking the world by storm. Aurora poured a lot of money into R&D to try to re-capture that lost market. Great cars and sets were in the planning stages for 1983 and that catalog alone shows some fantastic products. Bob had a hand in development of many of these. The Aurora fire truck set was being developed along with the M*A*S*H Military set. These never hit the market and a few prototypes exist today. The foreign release of some of the G+ cars made them almost non-existent in the U.S.

One day in 1983, Bob and the boys at R&D went to work only to find the door locked and the key unable to open it. In Canada, the parent company had a lot of products being shipped from the Far East with duties being owed on them.

There was no money available to pay these fees and the Canadian authorities seized the cargo. The plant was shut down and the company was charged for back taxes and thousands in fines. They had to declare bankruptcy. This was truly the end of the road for Aurora. Tomy came in and bought the company along with the rights to the AFX line.

They had to vacate the plant in Canada and everything was either auctioned off or thrown in the garbage. Many great new innovations were being developed only to be lost and gone forever. Or are they?
Believable ... I think so.

Bob lost the only job he truly loved and now resides in Connecticut building helicopters for Sikor-sky Aircraft. A company that Aurora made a few kits about, back in the 50’s through the 70’s. Long live the Aurora name. None has ever equaled it in the HO slot car arena. The name is synonymous with HO slots as the Lionel name is to trains.

Aurora, then, now and forever…

En populär föreställning är att om man kedjar fast ett oändligt stort antal apor vid var sin skrivmaskin, så kommer någon av dem att prestera ett litterärt mästerverk. Internet har dock nu slutligen bevisat att så inte är fallet...
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