Let's talk slot cars

In reply to Javelin :

I definitely had that yellow Daytona, and the red 312.  I think I also had the L&M 917.  I had a 917 similar to the Aurora one, except in Sunoco livery.  It was 40 years ago; details are sketchy.  Thanks for sharing!

Javelin said:

Here's a little closer look.

On that top row, I had 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 7th from left.

In reply to Duke :

Awesome! Well here's some close-ups for your recollections then:

The closest one is a mail-order Anniversary Tyco 440X2 Indy Car, and the middle one was also some sort of promo, though I can't remember what. The back one is the Penske Indy 500 winner, but I always pretended it was Senna's F1 McLaren/Honda. Imagine my surprise when I found out that they made that car, too!

JPS Lotus, no idea but cool, and wht I think is a Formula 5000 car from the 70's in a promo Chrome setup. I had a yellow and red one as a kid that somehow got away from me.

Tired or more? Couple more for now:

Here's one of my favorites for sure. Long-time GRMers will remember my old neighbor Chuck and his 1959 Buick Electra that I helped fix up. Well this is a resin 1959 Buick Electra from M.E.V., which is like a holy grail for Thunderjets. The guy molds and casts his own originals and does repop parts and complete cars for the originals. Pricey, but the quality is literally the best I've ever owned. The Buick is in "bare" so that I can paint it myself, which I haven't done yet.

You didn't think I'd have a collection with no AMC's now did you?!?

About 15 years ago or so, Tom Lowe (the guy who made Playing Mantis and restarted Johnny Lightning, and is now the CEO of Auto World - AMT/Ertl) bought the lost Aurora molds and started doing slot car bodies on pull-back chassis, like the old Cigar Box cars. This is every Javelin they did in both Trans Am and Pro Stock hood, including the silver chrome and gold chrome versions. I need to plunk down some $$$ for a huge order of repop A/FX chassis one day to put under all of them.

Speaking of M.E.V., the Big Bad Blue AMX is one of theirs, and it is flawless. No mold lines, perfect detail paint, and the color is spot-on. It even came with decal stripes that I haven't put on yet because I can't decide what color I want. The middle one is an original T-Jet that was cut up in the 60's, but done better than most. It's also a super rare color, and I love the bizarro yellow stripes, so I had to buy it on eBay years ago. The Red/White/Blue one is an original Aurora "Tuff One" and it's uncut. I paid a fair price for it and now they bring a lot more. Really glad to have that one in my collection.

Check out the detail difference between an Aurora A/FX (in front) and a TYCO Pro (in back), it's not even close. It's like holding up a modern M2 Collectibles die cast next to a knock-off "Lukewarm Rimz". TYCO didn't even get the basic shape right. The Javelin you are looking at is probably my 2nd slot car, and it rides on an 80's Super G-Plus chassis that's been hot-rodded. It keeps up with the modern Tomy stuff!

Here's another childhood one, and surprise surprise, it's an orange Javelin! It's like I was destined to end up with one between this, the first model car, and my dad owning one (a 70 304/auto in Big Bad Orange). I got it like this and always loved it's Mad Max look after all the cuts and mods. It's also on a Super G-Plus that goes pretty well.

That's all for now from me, but I've loved seeing your collections and getting great ideas for a racing space!

Here's a few of mine I have at work:

In reply to Apis Mellifera :

I love the new Scalextric stuff, its so detailed! Nice collection. 

Found a few pics of my older son and some more cars:

I'm sure he didn't realize we were recreating the 1-2-3 Porsche win at the 1968 24hrs of Daytona.  Sadly, I am missing Porsche 907 #52.

In reply to Apis Mellifera :

The open top ones are gorgeous! The 1-2 is still really cool. The 907 usually never gets love in scale.

I had a massive set in the 60's/ 70's , about 30 cars, Aurora and Tyco. My house had a 700 sq ft family room, so I could set up a track and leave it up for months. 

But I also had a couple Cox slot cars and there were several tracks locally, and best of all was going to the tracks at Playland in San Francisco. Huge place with many tracks. Beachfront location (imagine that now)

Dad made some custom controllers, I messed around with the cars. Sold it all to a younger neighbor kid when I was about 16.

You guys gave me an excuse to dust off my cars, thanks.

The whole lot:

My oldest asked for a 1/32 set for Christmas a few years ago so we ended up with a Carrera set with 2 cars and I went nuts from there.  Quite a few of the cars came from Goodwill so it did not hurt as much.

The HO scale cars were mostly mine when I was a kid.  My boys found the track and cars in the basement so we set it up on the dining room table and had a lot of fun.  I then took them to a hobby shop in Columbus to get some tires and ended up buying the Peugeot, the 962.  As a bonus the store owners let us run some of their cars on a wooden track in the store.

I had this set as a kid in '64. Lost the track in a fire in the 90's. Fortunately I had the cars yet.

I have two sets now found on ebay. That would be a good winter project. 

In reply to Aaron_King :

WOW!!! Nice collection! How do you score slot cars at Goodwill?!?

I did some internet prospecting, and found these images.  I'm fairly certain I had this track kit.  This one is listed as a TOMY, but mine was a pre-TOMY AF/X set.  I believe it was called the Super International Racing set, or similar:

They gave you layouts to recreate a bunch of F1 tracks:

It came with 2 liveried F1 cars, and 2 generic cars that looked more like Indy cars of the day:

The other liveried car was (I think) a JPS Lotus, and there was another generic like the black one, but in red or blue.

In reply to Javelin : 

Go here: https://www.shopgoodwill.com/ 

Create an account and start searching.  I will check a couple of times a week for slot cars, race track, Scalextric, Carrera, SCX and also any marques you are interested in.  Be careful, i now have a large plastic tub full of track.

In reply to fasted58 :

That set is so cool.

I used all my lawnmowing money to buy some other cars:

I think I had this instead of the L&M car I mentioned a while ago:

I had one of those Gulf 917's.  Destroyed ages ago somehow.

I see no semis. Am I the only one who had Tyco's Electric Trucking?

In reply to Aaron_King :

Bwaaaaah! I had no idea that existed! Now to spend more money...

Besides having an old Tyco-style set when I was a kid, I never really got into slot cars. There really weren't any places to go for local tracks around here like some other areas of the country, and none of my friends were into them either. That said, I always found them to be pretty cool. 

Somewhat related...

My dad volunteers at his local town transfer station (aka the dump) at the "swap shop". People bring things there to leave for others to take for free, and since it's an affluent town, you wouldn't believe some of the stuff he finds. A couple years ago, he called me up and asked if I wanted an "old slot car set". He said it was still in the box, so I said to grab it. Worst case, he could always take it back and give it to someone else. Here's what it was:

The track was still intact, but the cars were long gone. It dates back to the mid-late 1960's. I guess it came with attachments that turned Matchbox cars from that period into rudimentary slot cars. It's pretty cool, but not quite a true slot car set.  

In reply to Javelin :

SWMBO was not thrilled when I found that site but the money goes to a good cause so it’s all good  

In reply to Tony Sestito :

Dude, that set is crazy! I watched a YouTube last year on one set up and running: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNycOw3nilw

Awkward that all of my photos are gone (thanks Photobucket!) but here's a video instead of some of mine and the new ones I got over the weekend: https://youtu.be/0ksvCREWv8E

In reply to Appleseed :

I had a big US1 set.  They had a display at the GATR truck race in Pocono and my father picked one up for us. We made a bunch of buildings out of cardboard, scenery etc.