Delta's Twentea-Twentea Break

[John Elwin]

I think all I have left from my original Scalextric is my AC Cobra. However a relative did give me a small figure-of-eight set for Christmas several years ago after seeing I had bought a couple of cars. Still buy the occasional car, both old & new.

[E.B]

Hehehe I was into slot cars in a big way back in the late sixties early seventies. I used to race at a club close to Hampton Court Palace... we had a home made track made from ply and copper strips, 6 lane IIRC.
I also recall myself and a group of similar slotties from school going all the way to Southend, I think the venue was called Wonderland Raceway. It was certainly pre my car driving days because our parents had to drive us there. They then cleared off for the weekend as we were entered in a real live 24 hour race. There were teams there from Holland and I recall they won by a huge margin.
All of the competition were adults. We would have been 15 /16 y.o I guess.
We finished up not last but nearer last than first for sure. We did get a small trophy which I think was more an encouragement award. My first ever motor racing trophy hehehe.
I cant remember how they ran the event because there were certainly more teams entered than lanes on the raceway. Must have been heats or something like that but I dont remember. I know we did not get much sleep!
I remember the race was reported in the Slot Car magazine equivalent to Autosport.... somewhere I have a copy of it but I just had a search to no avail.
Happy Days.

[E.B]

Lol, the things you find on the internet....

I just found a pre event publicity thing for the above 24 hour event. 1971.



As an aside I know that the late Peter Warr of Lotus fame once took time out from Lotus when they first moved to Norfolk.... he chose to stay in London, and ran Grand Prix Model Raceways in Hammersmith from c.1966-69 before returning to Lotus..
Ross Brawn was also a slottie at a club in Reading.
Johnny Herbert was a slot car champion at some stage so I have read.

[John Elwin]

Originally Posted by E.B

Lol, the things you find on the internet....

I just found a pre event publicity thing for the above 24 hour event. 1971.



As an aside I know that the late Peter Warr of Lotus fame once took time out from Lotus when they first moved to Norfolk.... he chose to stay in London, and ran Grand Prix Model Raceways in Hammersmith from c.1966-69 before returning to Lotus..
Ross Brawn was also a slottie at a club in Reading.
Johnny Herbert was a slot car champion at some stage so I have read.

So there was life before virtual racing!

[midgetman]

Originally Posted by E.B

Lol, the things you find on the internet....

I just found a pre event publicity thing for the above 24 hour event. 1971.



As an aside I know that the late Peter Warr of Lotus fame once took time out from Lotus when they first moved to Norfolk.... he chose to stay in London, and ran Grand Prix Model Raceways in Hammersmith from c.1966-69 before returning to Lotus..
Ross Brawn was also a slottie at a club in Reading.
Johnny Herbert was a slot car champion at some stage so I have read.

Lewis Hamilton was an RC car Champion. IMO to a large extent the cheaper availability of RC will be part of the downfall of slot car.

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

[Peter Mallett]

I still have my Scalextric but nowhere to set it up these days. My original (1962) version came with two Coopers, a green and a yellow version. Still got them. I've also got a Porsche 962 and a Jaguar XJR 12(?). Got Mansell's Williams and Senna's Lotus, plus a Triplex Rover and two Sierra Cosworths. Always wanted a couple of Bentley Le Mans (1936) cars but couldn't afford them when they were produced.

[S griffin]

I did consider getting some Scalextric a few years ago. Maybe I will again at some point, just need to make sure I have the space.

I do remember our family having the big Scalextric and mini Scalextric too. The last one we got had a 97 Jordan and a 94 Ferrari included. Fun times

[John Elwin]

Originally Posted by Peter Mallett

I still have my Scalextric but nowhere to set it up these days. My original (1962) version came with two Coopers, a green and a yellow version. Still got them. I've also got a Porsche 962 and a Jaguar XJR 12(?). Got Mansell's Williams and Senna's Lotus, plus a Triplex Rover and two Sierra Cosworths. Always wanted a couple of Bentley Le Mans (1936) cars but couldn't afford them when they were produced.

A black Bentley, still in it's box, sitting on eBay. It could be yours for £850 (it was originally more).

[E.B]

Originally Posted by John Elwin

Well, yes they were, but now they are made in that unspeakable land far away but the HQ in England is in Margate.

If you worked for them, did you know their mobile shop, based on a Karrier Bantam remarkably like the one in their range? It is possible it was before your time.

Must have been before my time John. I was at Mettoy (Corgi) from 1976-1979 before I moved back to London (I was in their Marketing Dept in Northampton) to join Dinky toys / Airfix. I used to be in Swansea at the Mettoy factory regularly though, and I do recall mention of a mobile shop, but never saw it or learnt more. As an aside when I moved to Australia with another company on a 3 year contract, when the contract was up was up I chose to not return to the UK, and joined Mattel in Melbourne looking after 'boys toys'. That led me a few years later on to joining a Australian Toy Importer looking after Product Development. I guess I never grew up.

[John Elwin]

Originally Posted by E.B

Must have been before my time John. I was at Mettoy (Corgi) from 1976-1979 before I moved back to London (I was in their Marketing Dept in Northampton) to join Dinky toys / Airfix. I used to be in Swansea at the Mettoy factory regularly though, and I do recall mention of a mobile shop, but never saw it or learnt more. As an aside when I moved to Australia with another company on a 3 year contract, when the contract was up was up I chose to not return to the UK, and joined Mattel in Melbourne looking after 'boys toys'. That led me a few years later on to joining a Australian Toy Importer looking after Product Development. I guess I never grew up.

What a wonderful career - you never needed to grow up!!

Airfix now is under the same banner as Corgi in Margate, whilst Dinky belongs to Matchbox, which in turn is now owned by Mattel.

[zefarelly]

We have about 80 cars in various states, some bought as non working curios, like 2 unknown brand cars, missing a few bits, but a Alpine and Fulvia are not every day slot cars.

we've built a fair few from kits, Arthur has a TR3 and a Lotus Europa, Mrs Zef has a Sunbeam Tiger LeMans, and a Holden Torana. I built a 356 . . . we also have some Customised Cortinas, including 'as raced at Goodwood' condition blue one a mate even turned up with a Renault 8 the other Christmas for a full reinactment!

I still have the P4 Ferraris I had when I was 6, albeit with new brushes and tyres. we have a grid of 60's saloons and a good 70's one, and a multi coloured fleet of 911's for 'same make' racing.

[Mike Bell]

Originally Posted by E.B

Hehehe I was into slot cars in a big way back in the late sixties early seventies. I used to race at a club close to Hampton Court Palace... we had a home made track made from ply and copper strips, 6 lane IIRC.
I also recall myself and a group of similar slotties from school going all the way to Southend, I think the venue was called Wonderland Raceway. It was certainly pre my car driving days because our parents had to drive us there. They then cleared off for the weekend as we were entered in a real live 24 hour race. There were teams there from Holland and I recall they won by a huge margin.
All of the competition were adults. We would have been 15 /16 y.o I guess.
We finished up not last but nearer last than first for sure. We did get a small trophy which I think was more an encouragement award. My first ever motor racing trophy hehehe.
I cant remember how they ran the event because there were certainly more teams entered than lanes on the raceway. Must have been heats or something like that but I dont remember. I know we did not get much sleep!
I remember the race was reported in the Slot Car magazine equivalent to Autosport.... somewhere I have a copy of it but I just had a search to no avail.
Happy Days.

Southend and Westclff-on-Sea seemed be be centre of the universe when it came to commercial and 1/24 operations. We’d all pile into borrowed parents cars and head down for a long day of racing.....

[justracing]

Originally Posted by delta

I then remembered good friend told me about documentary on the Ferrari 312B which Paolo Barilla funded and raced at Monaco Historic 2016.
Reason for posting!!!.Without doubt this is the best motor racing documentary I have ever seen.A must if you can watch . Our very own Dudda makes an appearance as well.

Was this on a DVD? or YouTube somewhere please?

[Cliff Ryan]

My parents couldn't afford Scalectrix when I was a kid, so I had the Matchbox Motorway figure of eight set. It had two electric motors on the circuit, each with a coiled spring that ran the length of the track in two slots.

My brother and I spent hours racing Matchbox models on the track with a plastic spike stuck to the bottom of the model car with sellotape. IIRC the quickest car was an orange Mini Supersprint, as it was wide and low with a SWB.

I also had an orange HotWheels track, which I used to build loops, jumps and carousels. As Iain would say, happy days

[S griffin]

Reminds me, I sometimes raced my matchbox cars on tracks made out of Scalextrix, just because it was more fun than using the floor

[Gerard C]

Originally Posted by John Elwin

you never needed to grow up!!

Can you give us a good reason to? Who said that the difference between a kid and an adult is the price of the toys? Einstein or Zarathustra may be?

[S griffin]

I remember we used to put soap on the Scalextrix tracks for extra fun. Anyone else do this?

[VIVA GT]

Originally Posted by S griffin

I remember we used to put soap on the Scalextrix tracks for extra fun. Anyone else do this?

Yes, we used Fairy Liquid!

[morninggents]

Ah, the memories. My brother and I and a couple of friends joined a slot race club in Harrogate in an outbuilding attached to a pub so we could play and have a pint at the same time. This was in the mid 60s when I was about 20. The track was 4 lane and made out of grooved plywood rather than scalextric track. We made our own cars from chassis, motors, guides and bodyshells purchased from a model shop in York (still there today). I remember having a Ferrari F1 (not sharknose) red and gold Lotus Cortina and a Willment coloured Cobra. The early parts of the evening were just practising followed by races for the open wheel, sports and saloon categories and there would be between 12 and 20 people there so heats and a final required. Happy days, certainly.


Move on many decades and last christmas I decided that, as the grandkids (mostly boys) were getting too old for pass the parcel and stick the tail on the donkey, for the annual family party I'd buy a second hand scalextric set (£22 plus postage) and have some fun with that. Unfortunately Hermes managed to lose the scalextric en route from Essex to York and illness caused the party to be cancelled so the idea was shelved but not before a replacement (£27 plus postage) second hand scalextric set was purchased. The second set arrived and, two months late, Hermes delivered the lost first set so in early March two complete sets with cars, transformers and controllers were sitting there when coronavirus lockdown changed our lives. Anticipating that at some stage we may be asked to look after at least two children as restrictions are lifted and their parents go back to work I've been busy laying out a circuit to while away the hours and buying second hand cars on ebay to entertain the kids and use at future family parties. Purely for them of course I was prepared to sacrifice gardening and house painting. Happy days are here again.

[Peter Mallett]

Good stuff.

[grantp]

Originally Posted by morninggents

Purely for them of course I was prepared to sacrifice gardening and house painting.

You are a hero, naturally.


Gardening and house painting are such selfish pass times.

[grantp]

We had a club option at school and managed to obtain a recreation room that was long but not incredibly wide in which the school's "slot cat club" coud operate.


We purloined some old wooden school desks - perhaps 30s or 40's vintage. Built in brass sliders to cover the removable inkwells - and used those as the base structure for the race track.


Wood and hardboard was filched from the Woodwork Dept. and a grand track designed. Copper tape was purchased for power supply and the favourite surface of those days which was, as i recall, a sort of cement finish external house paint fomr ICI whose name temporarily escapes me.



The track design (4 lanes and wide) incorporated elements of Brands Hatch, the yet to be created Oesterriechring, Nurburgring, The as yet unknown (in the UK) Suzuka and elements of Monza. (Also unknown to the track designer at the time.)


The main straight was something like 25 or 30 feet starting downhill - elevation change about 2 or 3 feet.



In effect it was a figure of eight in that the turns had the same number of degrees left and right.

[morninggents]

Actually the best part is messing around with the cars rather than just slotting the track together and I decided I would build models of the cars I raced over the years. A Lotus Cortina and an Escort were easy to find though the Escort was a bit tatty and in black so that has to be repainted and a front airdam and rear spoiler attached somehow (a la Mike's Lairy Canary). The Anglia was a bit harder to find as neither Scalextric nor Airfix ever did one as far as I could find. However, I came across a metal 1/32nd scale Anglia (£5.50 plus postage on ebay) with a pull back and let go mechanism and even opening doors. I've junked the mechanical bits and chassis and araldited the doors closed then looked for a suitable scalextric car to use as a donor for the chassis and motor. Although the Fiesta has almost the same wheelbase as an Anglia (according to wikipedia) after buying a tatty Fiesta on ebay (£5.00 plus postage) the wheel base was a bit longer than the Anglia but a Metro 6R4 (£7.50 plus postage) proved to be just what was needed, except the chassis will have to be narrowed and narrower wheels fitted.
It reminds me very much of modern day App K saloon racing!

[John Elwin]

Les-Hauts-de-France is no longer a zone rouge, Gerard!

[grantp]

Originally Posted by John Elwin

Les-Hauts-de-France is no longer a zone rouge, Gerard!

Is this some sort of code?