# Aurora Grandstand - Actual Building?



## Dslot (Sep 2, 2007)

Does anybody know if the original Aurora grandstand was based on an actual structure? 

If so, where and what track? Any photos?




























Thanks,
-- D


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## Dslot (Sep 2, 2007)

I suspect that if there was a real-life inspiration for the building it was at a track close to Aurora's factory in West Hempstead, possibly on Long Island itself, or perhaps the areas of New York, New Jersey or Connecticut which lie close to New York City.

I've done a bit of research on WAPP radio and WAMM television in case the ads on the structure gave a hint of location. It appears that there have been at least two WAPP radio stations, one in NYC and the other on Long Island. The "APP" referred to Apple, as in "The Big." However both were post-1980 stations. If there was a predecessor station called WAPP in the area in the early '60s, but I couldn't find a record of it. I also couldn't find anything on WAMM TV.

-- D


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## Paper Hollywood (Nov 2, 2011)

It makes sense that Aurora would try to use non-existent station call letters, I think. I like this model a lot, but it pretty small compared to real grandstands at raceways, even the covered ones. I suspect the designers did a bit of research, then worked up their own design. It is one of the more interesting such accessory pieces I've seen.


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## GT40 (Jan 18, 2014)

Guys
I think it looks like something you could see at state fair.
Grandstands from the 50's I'm guessing


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## super8man (Jan 29, 2013)

WAMM was a Flint, Michigan AM radio station on 1420.


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## Dslot (Sep 2, 2007)

Yes it is definitely small. All the '60s HO slot building kits were tiny, because they were being sold mostly to people with small table layouts in basements and rumpus rooms and spare bedrooms. I always imagined them as small-town '50s fairgrounds type structures, but I'd guess they were small, even for that. 

I did not expect to find a real grandstand that the kit was an exact scale replica of. I thought, if there was a 1:1 inspiration for the kit, that it would have a similar layout but many more seats. 

But that layout is quite unusual. I understand the reason for every part of the building, but I can't recall seeing a similar one - with a locked stairway on one side up to an open-air TV-camera platform, which is also the access route to the press box. They must have lost two or three WAPP-radio reporters a season to tripping over the camera cables and tumbling down that long stairway when trying to take a lunch or restroom break. I think the real building would have had the stairs on the other side. Still, it might be easier to get radio reporters to walk over camera cables, than haul or roll TV cameras over radio microphone cables, so maybe the designers knew what they were doing. 

-- D


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## Paul R (Nov 3, 2009)

Bridgehampton would have been the closest track to them. Lots of great road racing there.


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## blue55conv (May 23, 2007)

The box art says WBPS, but the actual sticker says WAMM. I wonder why they changed it? Maybe WBPS was an actual station.


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## TUFFONE (Dec 21, 2004)

I always interpreted the WAMM and WAPP as attention getters like Batman throwing a punch on the old TV show. WAMM with a punch or WAPP with a kick. I never thought that they would be connected with anything in reality.


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## Dslot (Sep 2, 2007)

That's funny, Tuffone, because I saw the Wham and Whap in them too, but I figured they must represent real stations, because if Aurora's designers made them up, they would surely have come up with something less distracting and comical than WAMM and WAPP. Or at least something that reflected the subject matter like KCAR or WAFX - no, wait, that was 8 years before the AFX, so it would have to be a reference to Aurora Model Motoring like ... uh ... WAMM. That's the first time I put that together - writing this message. Son of a Gun.

Still can't figure the WAPP or the KBPS, though. I could see WAPC for Aurora Plastics Corp. or WABE for Abe Shikes. I had noticed the KBPS on the box art, but checking it didn't lead anywhere, either, unless Aurora was originally named Brooklyn Plastics Corp. or something like that.

-- D


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## Dslot (Sep 2, 2007)

In the cold light of morning, I'm guessing that WAMM was for Aurora Model Motoring, and WAPP was the designer's joke. "As long as we've got a Wham, we ought to go the full distance and have a Whap, too."


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## GT40 (Jan 18, 2014)

Guys
Another Radio station in Flint MI. was WTRX
How about the old TV show WKRP in Cincinnati


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## 65 Wagonaire (Nov 27, 2013)

I bought one of those boxes because the two cars racing look like a Studebaker Avanti. 
They have 4 headlights unlike the real cars two.


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