Let's talk slot cars

Pushrod said:

In reply to CJ :

Wow - Thanks, CJ! That is very kind of you :) Your Photoshop skills are awesome! That really does justice to the layout now....

I didn't even realize what was going on until I read your comment. That is pretty good! Looks like it was a fun layout.

In reply to Pushrod :

My new purchases:

Some very cool pics in this thread.  My apologies if I've already posted this, but I don't think I have.  I've dabbled in slot cars since my Dad introduced me to an early Aurora set that had the vibrator cars.  I was maybe 10 years old.

I've got a set not 10 feet from where I sit, but my kids just don't get into it.  It slides under a work table.  I should drag it out and run a couple laps!

This is one of the AutoWorld Thunderjet copies. 1966 Chevrolet Nova SS.  The full-sized one is sitting in the garage waiting for me to finish welding on a quarter panel.

I was gonna buy a 1-24 Chaparral at an antique shop yesterday but came to my senses in time. If anyone here has an interest I'll go back there and take pix. 

Bob Hackl, a friend in LA, has a line of HO CanAm bodies (BHR) that he markets through EBay. He just finished off a new '67 Honker II that is just beautiful. It'll be released shortly along with a decal sheet as well. Chassis is a BSRT G3.

Previously, the only Honker body in HO was way back in '68 by Lancer. But this new one is sized correctly to fit current HO chassis. Well done, Bob.  :)

Here's another view.

In reply to Pushrod :

That's really nice! 

It makes me think when I got my first track in 3rd grade?  I spent hours racing cars around the HO track.  I have images of a red Cheetah HO car racing around my dad's basement for hours on our ping pong table. 

Recently a guy questioned how did I know the late model Buick Roadmaster wagon a buddy recently bought had a Corvette engine in it.  My reply was the lifetime of bicycles, Hot Wheels, cars, mini bikes, go karts, and more Schwinn's, SST and Cox gas cars, and HO cars, along with a 1,000 car magazines all rolled the information into my head. 

In reply to Javelin :

Thanks, Mike. He does excellent work. Here's a shot of some others.... :).

Pushrod said:

In reply to Javelin :

Thanks, Mike. He does excellent work. Here's a shot of some others.... :).

This is not good for my wallet at all...

He also offers a Lotus 30 and Chaparral 2..... :)

Having a cat for a corner marshal certainly spices up the racing. One second you're in the lead, the next a giant paw knocks you into the infield. F1 should take notes!

Well, I finally did it.  Dragged out the HO-scale layout and dusted it off.  Kids showed no interest whatsoever, but I played with it for a little. 

Observation from an old guy:  The AFX cars with their super magnets are too fast.  Yes, I said it.  They're crazy fast, and it doesn't take any real skill to zip them around the track. 

My first exposure to slot cars was back in the late 60's, when my Dad set up a bit of track and we ran some of the old Aurora Model Motoring vibrator cars.  Naturally, my age at the time and the effects of nostalgia make me feel that there was a benefit to the slow pace and skinny tires.  The Thunderjet cars too, require you to get off the throttle in turns, and the speeds just seem a bit more realistic.  The more modern cars just seem too crazy fast and go until they fly off the track.  Anybody agree?

I may tune up a couple of my original Thunderjet cars and see how they do.  The tires on them would be about 50 years old.  Fortunately, I have some parts, including stock size tires, that I bought only 20 years ago, so they should be good. 

In reply to 1988RedT2 :

Let me know if you need any cars or parts or want to offload anything. My kids have found that the Tyco 440's stuck the right balance of speed and grip at a level they could control. Life-Like M-cars are pretty good, too, though a bit faster.

In reply to 1988RedT2 :

I'm in agreement with the magnets. In the 1/32 scale fandom, a large percentage of people remove the magnets so that the cars can slide sideways more and rely on mechanical grip. Some of those people then tune the heck out of their cars to go almost as fast as they did with the magnets, but me, I'm content with mine to drift around the turns. 

I belong to a 1/32 scale group that races (raced?) every Wednesday night. When I started with them 15 years ago it was all magnet. Then we had a member build a wood track with copper braid. Magnets didn't work there, and we realized (somewhat slowly) that crashes were much less damaging to the cars. About 6 years ago we ran our last magnet race. Straight line speeds are much the same, but because cornering speeds are much lower it works lots better. 

I built this resin HO-scale 1970 AMC Rebel Machine Thunderjet.

I keep buying more:

Dangit, I have good memories of my old Tyco cars. If I had another spare room, I'd be making an HO-scale setup now. (And maybe separating the 1/32-scale track from the model car workbench...)

Bought more new ones, and they are very very cool: