HO scale slot cars

The latest issue of Classic Motorsports just arrived and there is an interesting article about 1/32 slot cars. I got into slot cars in the 1960's as a kid, originally with HO and then 1/32. At one point I belonged to a club that had a large 1/32 track where we raced a couple of nights a week. In the late 70's and early 80's I then got into AFX HO scale and built an elaborate home track on a 4 x 10 plywood base table. This article has got me pumped. I've always prefered HO for the house because you can put in a much larger scale size track than with 1/32. The article was only about 1/32 but I'm wondering about what the state of the art is with HO these days? Any slot car fans out there who can offer suggestions?

Glad you liked the article, and we also had a huge AFX set. Our track is gone, but I still have all of the cars at home. There's some HO stuff out there, but the detail/availability doesn't really compare to the 1/32 cars. However, with HO, it seems you have a few choices:

Current AFX and Auto World (Check out http://www.autoworldhobby.com/.)

NOS AFX cars (eBay, etc.)

Scratch-built resin cars. (There's a custom resin Mini Cooper sitting right here on my desk.)

Then there's the "real" racing cars--basically bullets on a track. They're fast but they don't really look like cars.

There's also some neat custom out there.

Do a search on T-Jet racing. There's still a pretty active community of guys racing those little 40+ year old cars. Magnet cars are a lot faster, but with T-jets, you actually feel like you're racing. The down-side is tuning the cars to be competitive is time consuming, expensive and practically a black-art.

That is true. They race T-jets here in Daytona Beach. The Race Place, our local shop, can hook you up, including NOS chassis. Phone: 386-295-1371.

Does this mean you guys want an HO story next?

I would dig a HO story at some point. They don't get the respect of the 1/32 cars but I think there are a number of 30-40 year olds like me that ran Tyco or AFX HO sets. I have all my Tyco stuff in boxes in the basement. Never knew anybody that had the larger scale stuff when I was a kid.

David S. Wallens wrote: Does this mean you guys want an HO story next?

Yes, please!

I still remember the day Dad brought out some Aurora vibrator cars and my brother and I ran them around a little figure-eight track.

Later, we had a pretty decent Aurora track layout with a handful of the Thunderjet cars, which I still have.

Fast forward 30 years. I set up an HO set by Lifelike that my wife bought years ago and pulled out my old T-jet cars and let my sons, age 5 and 7 and let them run them some. Not wanting to tear up antiques, I've bought a few new cars. The autoworld ones are repros of the original T-jet design, but they don't seem nearly as well made. I've also got some new AFX cars that are pretty crazy fast and stick to the track with strong little magnets. For me, racing the original T-jets is still more fun, and certainly more challenging.

I've got the set from my childhood (it's actually more than one set, between my brother and I, combined) of Tyco stuff that I let my kids play with. They'll spend hours playing with it (just like I did). I figure I'm raising my daughters right . They like the "Electric Trucking" one too, but it's a little picky and stuff doesn't work as well as it used to.

What I'd like to find is spare parts for wear items (tires, pickup shoes, etc.). There aren't any locally.

Clem

Will you people quit doing this to me? I was at the hobby store YESTERDAY looking at slot car stuff, and now this? Are you TRYING to make my wallet empty?

I remember buying the returned / broken cars at the local discount store for 50 cents. They were worth at least that for the bodies, never mind the spare parts.

Yes, yes, and yes! Please do an HO article, and put it in GRM! Not only would I gladly read it, I'd write it (says the person with over 200 HO scale cars from original Thunderjets to the latest/greatest Super G-Plus Tomy cars)! The original Aurora A/FX line probably covers every single GRM'ers interests (Trans Am, Can-Am, rally, Baja, LeMans/sports cars, euro racers, IMSA, etc).

mndsm wrote: Will you people quit doing this to me? I was at the hobby store YESTERDAY looking at slot car stuff, and now this? Are you TRYING to make my wallet empty?

I feel your pain. I'm trying to avoid the hobby house down the block from me right now. Everytime I see it I think "50-100 bucks and an afternoon and I can have my nitro truck running super quick like last summer". I guess it's time to suck it up, and start annoying my neighbors again.

Rob_Mopar wrote: I would dig a HO story at some point. They don't get the respect of the 1/32 cars but I think there are a number of 30-40 year olds like me that ran Tyco or AFX HO sets. I have all my Tyco stuff in boxes in the basement. Never knew anybody that had the larger scale stuff when I was a kid.

Same here. For a few years I'd get a new Tyco set every Christmas. I had some nice tracks on a 4x8 plywood table my Dad made. It was on pulleys and could be raised up to the ceiling when we wanted to use the bumper pool table it rested on.

In reply to David S. Wallens:

I'd definately want a HO article. Put it in Classic Motorsports however or I'll otherwise I'll have to subscribe to your other rag also. :-)

I'm 60 this year and had my first HO set at age 12. Can't even remember who made the cars but the detail on the E type and Vette was not good but the Buick Riviera wasn't bad if I remember right.. The set had steering wheel type controllers if that helps to remember the manufacturer.

The later AFX cars were quite decent in detail. As mentioned, the big advantage of HO is space confinements. My brother had a monster AFX circuit on two 4 x 8's in an L shape configuration. Ironically, he can't remember what happened to it either. All those cars & track and he can't find it anywhere???? He doesn't remember selling it or throwing it out.

Lost my '65 Lionel Pikes Peak HO track kept in basement storage in a house fire in '96. Had the cars stored safely away and the plywood table was still in my dads garage after all those years. I bought two sets of track, controls, cars and transformers on ebay since. It's Christmas '65 all over again... and I gots spares this time.

TR8owner wrote: The set had steering wheel type controllers if that helps to remember the manufacturer.

That matches my recollection of the set my Dad had. I believe it was called "Model Motoring" and manufactured by Aurora.

I found this little history lesson:

http://www.hoslotcarracing.com/History.html

In reply to 1988RedT2:

That's it. Thanks for the url. It was Aurora, the exact same as shown.

I inherited all my stuff from my older brother. It's Aurora HO. I have a pretty fair amount of early track (the peg and pin type), but only a handful of cars. They're pretty neat, though. I have an E-Type, a Cobra, a Mustang, a couple of early Camaros and a few more. I was pretty happy to find a replacement windshield for the Cobra on eBay a few years ago. I even have an old HO Train / Slot Car railroad crossing.

I've been in the process of cleaning a bunch of big projects out of the basement over the past month and I'm beginning to see some extra space. It may finally be time to build Tiny Lime Rock.

My nephews where visiting and enjoyed the 4 lane "Sebring like" HO setup. The ability to have 4 lanes in a small area my favorite part of HO. I still have lots to do, but racing 4 lanes is great fun!

Nice chairs under that table. What were they in originally? Look like great side bolsters.

David S. Wallens wrote: Glad you liked the article, and we also had a huge AFX set. Our track is gone, but I still have all of the cars at home. There's some HO stuff out there, but the detail/availability doesn't really compare to the 1/32 cars. However, with HO, it seems you have a few choices: Current AFX and Auto World (Check out http://www.autoworldhobby.com/.)

Hang on a sec.."Auto World?" Oscar Kovaleski's Auto World? I went to the link, saw the logo, but still wonder how on earth this happened.

That might actually be a place to start an article on HO, whether it ends up in GRM or CM. (Oscar was the 1970 SCCA ASR National Champion in a McLaren)

Yeah, I'm digging the current generation of 1/32 cars..I almost drool over some of the selections in the hobby shop..but I'm wondering if a renewed interest in HO would result in the same kind of attention to detail in HO that the manufacturers have done for 1/32. After all, the smaller the scale, the more track feet you can put in the same space. Slot cars aren't like static models..and still, there are 1/43 statics that have the same kind of detail as 1/24 or even 1/12 statics. Even thinking about a digital HO set makes me thing of things like making a slot car track something like one of those "realistic" model train layouts. Gotta admit, the guys with enough space have already done that in 1/32 & 1/24.

In reply to mndsm: Top Secret Triumph Spitfire replacement seats. Anyone have a guess?

I have a four lane tyco set up in my garage with a computer timer set up that has not been used since 2007 because my sons would rather watch tv

In reply to friedgreencorrado:

I have met Oscar as he is a member of my SCCA region. He has great stories to tell about sports car racing in the old days. The Chevy V8- powered Ferrari is my favorite.

I still have old AW decal sheets and his logo is on several of my vintage AFX cars

Don't tell me modern HO cars aren't as detailed as the 1/32 stuff.

In reply to Javelin:

Wow. Talk to me. Who makes those?