One of the most sought after Aurora collectables (to me) is the twelve packs of tjet bodies. I can rememer back in the '60's going to my favorite hobby shops, Sally's Cycle and Toy in West Islip, NY and Montalto's Stamp and Coin in Bay Shore, NY, and looking at the new lineup of HO cars from Aurora. The two piece boxes would be tucked behind the counter with a few cars out on display but still away from young dirty hands. I would ask to see the newest cars and toil over which color to buy until finally the choice was made. The twelve pack bodies were on the wall on pegs almost always behind the counter.

These were sold as replacement parts and each body was about $.60. I remember following the hop up kit instructions and cutting the rear wheel wells on my cars to add the slicks. If it came out bad, (I was terrible with an X-acto knife) (Ed: Heading for the bathroom to hurl ;-) I would need to buy a new body. The 12 body cards usually had like colors running up and down or across. You could pick out the one you wanted and the shop owner would cut on the dotted line and sell you the body only. I have never seen the vibrators in these blister cards nor have I ever seen AFX cars sold this way. The earliest blister carded bodies I have seen are the Falcon which leads me to believe the Galaxie and Fairlane came this way also.

The part numbers for the bodies started with an 83XX and ran in random order to the actual car stock numbers. Back a few years I had the opportunity to purchase a 12 card of Green Hornet bodies still intact. I passed on the $3000.00 asking price and the card was sold to a well known collector who cut the card up and sold the bodies individually for $250.00 a piece. He was gracious enough to send me a photo of him cutting up the card as I would not of had the heart to do such a thing. (see above note) I believe the Batmobile also was sold as a body only.

In my collection I have 20 of these cards and some of my most prized are a full card of '63 Thunderbird convertible bodies with (2) rows of three in the elusive slate color. The other six T'birds are turquoise. Another prized card is a 12 card of Mustang hardtops with a row of (4) in the highly sought after dark blue with black top. The value on this card truely seperates the hardcore from the casual collector and I don't even have a loose one in my collection. I guess if I ever sold the cars they would have to be cut to make them more affordable but I could never do such a thing with a pair of scissors.

In conclusion, these cards can be found and some of the more common car variations such as the Ford GT or Maserati's are fairly affordable. I have found some on Ebay and they have been had in the $500 and up range. I once went to a hobby store in Connecticut on a lead and saw some cut cars in a showcase.

They were $20 and $25 and when I asked the owner if he had any cheaper ones he pulled (4) full cards of 12 bodies each out of the back room. He said these were only bodies and had no chassis so he let them go for a buck a body.
Needless to say, I bought them all.............