Purple Test Shot Stomper 4x4 Truck

[suprb6970]

NO WAY this is real!

Tyco Slot Car Chevy Stomper Type Pickup Purple Test Shot Never Made US-1 | eBay

Condition: UsedCondition Could Need Oil and Cleaning Tires TLC.

www.ebay.com

 

[biddle]

It's not US1 Trucking chassis, so I'm not sure. The seller has definitely sold a lot of stuff!

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?item=335230166256&rt=nc&_ssn=jh-kh&LH_Sold=1&LH_Complete=1

 

[AMH1955]

If that is from Beer's (Aurora Guide author) collection of Esposito's cars (Tyco Guide author) it's more than likely the real deal, not sure about it being a US-1 Stomper prototype though.
That step-side pick-up body with the raised bed and the side mounting clips was only used for the US-1 Stomper pick-ups as far as I know, probably why they think it's US-1. The Smith's Tire US-1 truck and the white #7 regular Tyco wide body slot car truck are the only other ones that used that raised bed body but without the raised side clips. I made those clips for bodies for the Stomper US-1 chassis I have.
The more likely possibility is that it is a Stomper but the one they never made, it wasn't US-1 and a prototype is in the Esposito guide. It's red with that truck body with the raised side mounting clips, it needed to be higher because it has those big knobby Tyco Hopper tires. It also has a Nissan bandit front light bar across the grill and headlights and a Nissan bandit rollbar with one of those Hopper tires mounted as a spare on it. The truck for sale has the bigger Nissan Bandit tires, it also has pockets molded into the rear of the bed? My Smith's Tire and #7 truck don't have those. I would guess they're for mounting the Nissan roll bar they were going to use, it has mounts in the rear, if so maybe it's real but has nothing to do with US-1 other than the Tyco/ Stomper tie-in. They already made a US-1 Stomper so why do another, this was probably gong to be for a 440X2 or whatever chassis Baja racer type set like the Nissan Bandits that never happened if I were to guess.

 

[Tyco Trucking]

NO WAY this is real!

I do believe it’s a real Stomper pickup, that’s been custom painted. There had been “test shots” of the Blazers before that were all white.



Here you can see the two pins that were the reference tabs to install the rear body weight. This is a Stomper only mod that the regular bodies do not have, AFAIK.



This is a clearly custom job as the bed cover was framed by the bed sides. This wouldn’t have been fully painted as it is.



These would never be painted silver. They should be red to simulate the brake light lenses. And as in other pics it would not be applied around the entire housing, but only the face.



This is a correct mounting plate for the Stomper truck. The 3951 has an angled protrusion below the exhaust stack that sets up the rake of the body. The Stomper trucks omit the protrusion and instead this area makes up the chassis clip as noted.

As well as the stack is hand painted. The paint is thick and doesn’t have the “machine” effect of being straight. As well as the door handles are painted, something that was never done.

As well as the metal flake paint that Tyco never used on any slot car they ever made AFAIK. Even more so being a 1984/85 release that wouldn’t have had the main body painted like the early 81 stuff had. As well as the grill/bumper being painted a similar color that no other pickup had. They all had chrome front ends. A telling trait would be to remove the grill and see what is under it. It should have the same purple paint, as the grill would be installed after the fact, then it would be painted. I’d bet this one has a nice white as cast front.

So, yes, it is more than likely a plain white body test shot to have a physical representation of how the molds worked to fix any flaws in them. However it is ruined by the paint job.

 

[biddle]

This is why provenance is essential for items, but hindsight is 20/20. We can all speculate what our theory is, but at the end of the day, we don't know. This was a time when they manufactured products, the box photos were often not even the same as the final product. LOL. They didn't have computers to do 3-D rendering, and there are many documentaries where people who worked at big companies like Atari even worked on products at home in their garage.


I asked the seller for provenance and got some really cool photos in the reply. He said "No just that I bought From Bob and he said this was from Dan's stuff that he got over the years. I know that does not help but 10+ years ago I did not think I would ever need to explain because my son should of got all of these cars"

Also here is the auction from 2013 where this seller bought them- https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/tyco-ho-scale-slot-car-prototype-406792884

 

[biddle]

 

[suprb6970]

There is so much fake stuff on ebay I just assumed this was another. I stand corrected.

 

[Tyco Trucking]

There is so much fake stuff on ebay I just assumed this was another. I stand corrected.

And you’re correct in your assessment. You’re not corrected, but now informed. ?

 

[biddle]

Sounds like they were painted that way since at least the late 1990's. I'm just curious if they were painted by an employee or if someone had several of the plain shots and decided to paint them

 

[Tyco Trucking]

Sounds like they were painted that way since at least the late 1990's. I'm just curious if they were painted by an employee or if someone had several of the plain shots and decided to paint them

These were never supposed to be painted. They are test shots to check how the product came out of the molding process.

As you said before they didn’t have CAD and CNC to design the molds, so more than likely they made a clay/ceramic/sand mock up of the body. Think of it as a clam shell. The inside of the clam would form the outside of the body. Then the pearl would be the part sculpted to make the inside part of the body. The “pearl” would have been smaller than the produced one, to account for material thickness. Then either aluminum or steel was poured with the void created by the mock up making the cavity for the finished body.

These poured castings were then used for the injection molding to form the body. Once the body was made, these are what the test shots were. Quality control verified there were no seams or gaps that affected the final product. These parting lines where the molds were put together sometimes show on the body. In the examples above you can see them in the rear window area.

These were never meant to leave the factory/R&D Department. The fact they exist is an act of God because someone either snuck them out, or they were given away, or dug out of the trash.

Whoever painted them basically ruined them.

On a side note it would be awesome to actually have a set of these casting molds that were used. I don’t know about 1983, but typical injection molds now have a life span of around 100,000 cycles, then they get replaced. These test shots would be done at each replacement, and probably at intervals up to device life. As well as if one broke.

 

[suprb6970]

These were never supposed to be painted. They are test shots to check how the product came out of the molding process.

As you said before they didn’t have CAD and CNC to design the molds, so more than likely they made a clay/ceramic/sand mock up of the body. Think of it as a clam shell. The inside of the clam would form the outside of the body. Then the pearl would be the part sculpted to make the inside part of the body. The “pearl” would have been smaller than the produced one, to account for material thickness. Then either aluminum or steel was poured with the void created by the mock up making the cavity for the finished body.

These poured castings were then used for the injection molding to form the body. Once the body was made, these are what the test shots were. Quality control verified there were no seams or gaps that affected the final product. These parting lines where the molds were put together sometimes show on the body. In the examples above you can see them in the rear window area.

These were never meant to leave the factory/R&D Department. The fact they exist is an act of God because someone either snuck them out, or they were given away, or dug out of the trash.

Whoever painted them basically ruined them.

On a side note it would be awesome to actually have a set of these casting molds that were used. I don’t know about 1983, but typical injection molds now have a life span of around 100,000 cycles, then they get replaced. These test shots would be done at each replacement, and probably at intervals up to device life. As well as if one broke.

You are correct. My grandfather worked for the Bear Archery in the 1970's. I have a bow that he some how obtained from R&D in the department that he worked. As far as I know it is the only one in existence because it did not pass inspection.