Anyone Race/Collect HO Slot Cars?

Very nice!

I like your track!

I tried to find a 4 lane track a few times when I was a kid but they never worked right....always had uneven spots in voltage.

I'm guessing they've gotten better in the last 20 years

 

The F1's are a little strange looking but the 512 looks very nice.

 

I have my old cars from the 70s and then bought a few recently when I ran across the F1 cars.....looks nice!

 

Good for you. I have a kid's set that they outgrew years ago somewhere in the attic, but the attention right now is on the HO trains.

As a matter of ancient slot-car history, when I was a kid (maybe in about 1961 or so), I had one of the very first HO racing sets. It was called "Model Motoring" and was a made by Aurora.

The slot system was conventional 12V DC, but the car drive system was a trip from Waco-Land - each car was powered by a SOLENOID! What it did was that the power intermittently pulled an electomagnet and a metal plate above was pulled downwards on each little mini-stroke. A tiny carbon rod through the magnet coil interrupted points on the underneath the car at the bottom stroke so that the spring action on the upper plate would pull it back up. A thin metal blade at the back of the moving metal plate interfered with a rubber cylinder on the rear axle of the car in about 24 tiny little notches and kind of ratcheted it forward with each stroke.

I can only figure that they did not think they could make a rotary motor that small back then. It did have a couple of unique talents, though - it did sort of sound like a buzzing little internal combustion engine rather than an electric motor, and if you spun the car 180 degrees, it would just take off in the reverse direction - it did not care what the voltage polarity was, it just ran in forward all the time! And there was no guide shoe, just a pin for the slot and two fixed electrical wipers.

The first two car body shells were pretty classy, too - IIRC a yellow Mercedes 300SL Roadster and a Jaguar XK150 in bright red.

I wish I still had a pair of those little guys - they were as much fun to take apart and work on as they were to race.

 

That indeed is the vibrator chassis. Do you have any body shells to fit them?

BTW - they came out about 2 years later with the rotary motor version, (way faster), but the early cars had a more scale-looking body work.

 

Yeh, I agree the F1 cars are kind of odd

 

Where are you located?

I am moving and the chances of me running any of my gear grow less, each day.

I'd be glad to inventory all my track, cars, and stuff if you are interested.........I'd rather see them appreciated than in dusty boxes stored somewhere.........

Some of it's brand new, unused, then I have track controllers that go back to when they looked like steering wheels!

It would all merge nicely into your collection I'd think......

 

I still have the OEM box from the 60's, on my Daytona Track set! LOL!

My modern F1s are the Tyco 440s like the T4 you posted, maybe you have them?