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Post by bhk on Oct 13, 2014 22:26:28 GMT -5
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Post by sgtmajor on Oct 13, 2014 23:16:57 GMT -5
Good Stuff Bruce....that would be a fun hobby!!
Back in the 60's, a classmate of mine had an older brother that was into slot cars in a big way. I can't even imagine how much track and expense he had tied up into that...but had quite a large selection of cars etc. (HO scale if I recall correctly.)
Many a cold winter day, we would spend setting up track and racing hour after hour. Sometimes, the track would stay "set-up" for several weeks at a time, and we would spend the afternoon racing cars. Ahhh...great memories indeed.
If I remember...(and I may be wrong here).....it seemed like the first cars were "reed" cars?? Does that sound correct? Noisy little buggers......but as everything else goes, technology progressed and eventually some very nice cars were out.
Those were indeed the days!!!
Thanks for the memories!!
Cheers,
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Post by beana51 on Oct 13, 2014 23:46:01 GMT -5
" SLOTS" were Great...Introduced my kids to it then....The Local TRACK was huge//Lots of Fun!!
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Post by bhk on Oct 14, 2014 15:07:29 GMT -5
Good Stuff Bruce....that would be a fun hobby!!....... If I remember...(and I may be wrong here).....it seemed like the first cars were "reed" cars?? Does that sound correct? Noisy little buggers......but as everything else goes, technology progressed and eventually some very nice cars were out.... It was a fun (but relatively expensive) hobby, Steve. I never had a slot-car track myself as I was living in small apartments or private board during this period so I had a couple of local commercial tracks which I used to visit each weekend. I still have a 3rd.-place trophy from a six-hour race held in 1967.  Not sure about "reed" terminology. I haven't heard that before. According to my bible on the subject ('Vintage Slot Cars') the first commercially-successful slotties were from the UK Scalextric firm, circa 1958. But in the USA it was Strombecker which really made the hobby take off in your country. The hobby faded in 1967/68 and by the end of the decade it was virtually dead, but a revival occurred in the 1990s and there are now quite a few commercial tracks around and several European companies manufacture kits, cars and parts. It was this revival which boosted the interest in historical (1960s) cars and which pushed their value ever higher as collectible items. |
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Post by sgtmajor on Oct 14, 2014 23:36:50 GMT -5
Interesting Bruce....I don't remember the Strombecker name....which really doesn't mean much, as I was never into slot cars, as that was a rather expensive hobby for this poor kid. (smile)
However, I do remember the Aurora name as it seems that is what most of the kids had back then.
As far as the"reed" slot cars, I looked them up last evening. I think they were possibly referred to as "Vibrator" cars. Probably early to mid 60's as far as I can tell. They weren't very fast (compared to later versions)....noisy, as I rememmber....and as I recall, not the most reliable as compared to later technology.
Anyway.....I always wanted a slot car set as a kid.....used to dream of getting one for Christmas, however, due to the expense, I went with HO trains instead. (smile) Even with trains, all I really ever had was a big oval layout on the floor, however, would spend hours upon hours running my trains in my make believe world. Ahhh...childhood....what great memories!! (smile)
Cheers,
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Post by AirCoaster on Oct 15, 2014 12:50:24 GMT -5
I remember slots too... Afx/Tyco, Aurora, Bachmann, Atlas, Riggen, and Tjet were all names I remember from the HO days. I also had a 1/24 and a 1/32 scale homemade racers that ran on the big tracks like in the images Bruce had linked to. There were two big track complexes in the county, five tracks, high banked oval, high banked figure eight, two flat road courses and a drag strip at Shrock's Hobby Shop, and the other, I forget the name, two flat tracks a figure eight with high banks and a drag strip. The local hobby shop, Krantz's, I attended the HO track club there for many years. We had meets and races on Saturday afternoons on the hobby shop track. It was all great fun.
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Post by bhk on Oct 15, 2014 14:41:45 GMT -5
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Post by Tom Constantine on Oct 17, 2014 22:41:39 GMT -5
In '61 or '62 I bought an AFX set for my little brothers. To keep them from finding it, I stashed it at a friend's house where we tested it out one afternoon. To make a long story short, I had to go buy two new cars for the set.
I had forgotten that completely until reading this thread. When I was in San Francisco in '63-'65, there was a hobby shop that had a big track where real hard core hobbyists raced 1/32 scale cars but that was way too expensive a hobby for me at that time.
Nice to remember all that.
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Post by bhk on Oct 18, 2014 4:59:01 GMT -5
...there was a hobby shop that had a big track where real hard core hobbyists raced 1/32 scale cars ... I s'pose I was a "hard-core hobbyist", Tom I'd spend all my spare money - and there wasn't a lot of it, by any means, at that time in my life - on the slot-car hobby. Fortunately the local track (two floors, two tracks) was but a walk away from where I was living at the time. My then girlfriend thought I was nuts! Bruce |
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Post by nige on Oct 18, 2014 15:41:42 GMT -5
I'd spend all my spare money - and there wasn't a lot of it, by any means, at that time in my life - on the slot-car hobby. My then girlfriend thought I was nuts! Bruce You spent all your money on slot-cars and STILL managed to get a girlfriend? [/quote] |
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Post by bhk on Oct 18, 2014 20:01:23 GMT -5
I'd spend all my spare money - and there wasn't a lot of it, by any means, at that time in my life - on the slot-car hobby. My then girlfriend thought I was nuts! Bruce You spent all your money on slot-cars and STILL managed to get a girlfriend?  Yeah, Nige. She was very tolerant and had inexpensive tastes. |
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Post by bhk on Oct 26, 2014 14:33:23 GMT -5
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Post by sgtmajor on Oct 27, 2014 7:49:12 GMT -5
This is what I was talking about when I mentioned earlier that rarity on some kits had pushed prices into the stratosphere......to ridiculous, bizarre levels:- That's putting it mildly....WOW. Cheers, |
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