Blast from the past

[Rick Kirchner]

For all of those slot car fans out there. I dug these out of a storage box where they've been for 30 years. I believe these are all from the 1970-75 time frame, Aurora AFX HO scale.

At the time, I just thought they were cool, didn't realize the significance of these cars in period. In the first picture we have a Porsche 917K (customized with some coast guard decals from another kit), the '71 UOP Shadow Mk II, what I now recognize as the AutoWorld/Oscar Kovalseki McLaren M8 (the wing went away long ago), and a Ferrari 512 LeMans car that back in the day actually had working headlights (long gone).

In the second picture is a Model A of a generation of AFX with a much longer wheelbase and huge tires. Then a Plymouth Satellite NASCAR, the Penske/Donahue Matador TA, and the 1955 "Heavy Chevy" drag car.

I was surprised at the degradation of the plastic. Even if I could get the chassis running again and find tires (most of these had foam tires which we used to soak in the lube to get them to drift easily. A couple have silicone tires which are as good as the day I bought them) the first hard crash would just destroy the bodies. Note the back edge of the McLaren.

I had some others long gone - a Lola coupe from Aurora before the AFX days, and a Cheetah as well as a Mustang and a Camaro.

[dalz]

My AFX set came with the L&M and UOP Can-Am cars. I always had a vision of a racetrack that covered the entire basement, maybe in the shape of Watkins Glen, but it never happened. Then I got a gift of a Tyco brand Mustang, which worked on the AFX track, but it didn't have much traction. Soooo, I got the idea to make a drag strip, and borrowed my Mom's talcum powder, and made some awesome burnouts. Of course the car seized up quickly, and I caught hell for the mess I made, but it was totally worth it.

[billtebbutt]

Rick,

I have collected a bunch of these in recent years, and Eldon 1/32 scale slot cars as well (probably have 50+ of them in the rec room). This stuff is so cool, from a simpler time for sure. My dad bought me my Eldon figure 8 track when I was 4, and he and I darn near wore the topless GT40 (yellow) and blue Chaparral out!

I also have a dog-eared copy of the AFX Motoring Handbook, with all the road race layouts (Road America, Mosport, etc). I spent hundreds of hours in those pages, and still pick it up once in a while.

When I build the retirement shop, there will be a slot car racing room....

Thanks for bringing this up!

cheers
bt

[Rick Kirchner]

I have a 18x18x12 box of the track - both the original aurora style that used pins and "U" clips to connect it and the AFX snap track. The AFX stuff suffered badly from my mother, who never understood that trying to scoot the track over with her foot would more often than not do nothing except snap the connectors off of the track.

Many years ago I set it up along with a Tyco train under the Christmas tree. When I found that stuff there was a coffee can full of Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars too. I probably had 80 hot wheels and 50 Matchbox cars when I was a kid but gave them away to the little kids on the block when I got older. None of it collectable - we beat the crap out of them!

I had a few 1/32 cars with the Strombecker motors and the wipers made from copper braid, but I didn't have much track. Those layouts were huge. I think I still have a motor somewhere.

[stonebridge20]

When I moved 12 years ago I boxed up my pretty sizable collection and never unpacked them. This thread is motivating me to dig them out of the basement and set up the display case again.

[dalz]

Slot cars were awesome but I do ya one better: Hot Wheels Sizzlers, the cars you charged and then they ran around the rubber and plastic high-banked track. Now THAT would've been the ultimate full-basement oval track. You could go broke keeping the thing in lead-acid batteries of the era. But there was no beating the autonomous action for 90 or so seconds at a time.

[Rick Kirchner]

I had a set of fhose too. So damn fast you had a hard time actually seeing them run around the track. The corners were banked higher than Monza.

IIRC the charger was shaped like a gas pump. They had some kind of early NiCd battery in the car, and they suffered from the inevitable battery memory problems.

Can't remember what the cars looked like though, but luckily there's a fandom wiki:
https://hotwheels.fandom.com/wiki/Sizzlers

I believe I had the Hot Head and Revin Heaven.

[Chris Livengood]

I had to google Sizzlers, they were a bit before my time. They look awesome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQq5B18QBac

I have a huge Tyco slot car set, a lot of the cars are in rough shape, but I have tons of track. My father one year built a table and put together a pretty difficult track on the table. He screwed all the track down and it made for a relatively easy way to race. I'm not sure where it all got too, but i'm sure we have it somewhere. The problem of course is that half the fun of the slot car track was building new tracks, learning them, and starting over again.

I have hundreds of HotWheels that are now my son's, along the way they went to my nephew, he added to the collection and now my son is. They are toys, I really don't understand collecting them.

[Rick Kirchner]

Oh collecting the not-quite collectable....

My MIL, bless her heart, fell for the beanie baby scam. Bought my daughter a lot of them. How many you ask - well, about 80 freaking pounds of them.

As part of our "decluttering" in anticipation of a move, I've recently pulled all of the stuff we have stored for my daughter out of the garage attic along with the bin full of beanies. So heavy, I had to unload it to get it down. I have no idea how I managed to get the thing up there 20 years ago.

Wife is now trying to figure out how to get rid of them.

Had Grandma only spent the money on a college savings bond instead......

[stonebridge20]

Oh collecting the not-quite collectable....

My MIL, bless her heart, fell for the beanie baby scam. Bought my daughter a lot of them. How many you ask - well, about 80 freaking pounds of them.

As part of our "decluttering" in anticipation of a move, I've recently pulled all of the stuff we have stored for my daughter out of the garage attic along with the bin full of beanies. So heavy, I had to unload it to get it down. I have no idea how I managed to get the thing up there 20 years ago.

Wife is now trying to figure out how to get rid of them.

Had Grandma only spent the money on a college savings bond instead......

Yeah, well one of those stupid things is probably worth $14M now.
Better do your DD before you toss them.

[Chris Livengood]

Nah, the savings bonds were a way better investment.