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Scalextric!

Started by Flatulent Fox, April 10, 2019, 04:47:54 PM

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Which ones have the bits that grow downwards into the rails

Scalextites
2 (50%)
Scalexmites
2 (50%)

Total Members Voted: 4

buzby

Quote from: hummingofevil on April 11, 2019, 12:28:10 AM
?Buzby. Have you written a book? You could collect your posts from here into an anthology and it would be a best seller for Christmas gift book market. You could make millions; every dad in the country would be bought one.
I think James May and Steve Berry have pretty much got the market for toy and crisp nostalgia sewn up between them.

thenoise

Quote from: buzby on April 10, 2019, 10:44:19 PM
I have 2 sets - a 90s 'Super Saloons' touring car set with Andy Rouse's works Ford Mondeo and Matt Neal's Team Dynamics 100+ privateer BMW 318i:


This was my starter set too!  I insisted on having the blue car and my brother the red.  We later added some chicanes and extended it a bit, although limited floor space in my bedroom put a stop to that pretty quickly.  Wasn't allowed to set it up in the living room as it frightened the cat.

I bought a few different sets of cars too with my pocket/birthday money for a few years.  I ended up having to raise the bridge a bit after buying 'racing trucks' (pretty cool and more challenging than sports cars).  I remember the Turtles, but never bought them.  I had some power rangers ones though:

buzby

Quote from: thenoise on April 11, 2019, 07:05:53 AM
This was my starter set too!  I insisted on having the blue car and my brother the red.  We later added some chicanes and extended it a bit, although limited floor space in my bedroom put a stop to that pretty quickly.  Wasn't allowed to set it up in the living room as it frightened the cat.
Yes, I had a load of extra track too, including the humpback bridge and skid chicane (some was 1960s track that belonged to my uncle, and I was always keeping an eye out for at car boot sales and flea markets my dad used to go to) . The difficulty was always trying to get the two lanes equal length to make it fair. I was lucky as I ended up with the big bedroom when one of my sisters got married relatively young and moved out.
Quote
I bought a few different sets of cars too with my pocket/birthday money for a few years.  I ended up having to raise the bridge a bit after buying 'racing trucks' (pretty cool and more challenging than sports cars).  I remember the Turtles, but never bought them.  I had some power rangers ones though:

The Power Rangers sidecars were repaints of the newer Scalextric Sidecars (they had previously a go at sidecars in the 60s with the belt-driven Hurricane and Typhoon models) that were only around from 1980-82, then reintroduced between 1990-94 before finally being recycled for the Power Rangers licence in 1995:

(recycling old models was a feature of Hornby Scalextric in the 90s, which is why they lost ground to SCX)

I had the Leyland racing trucks and some Datsun crew cab pickups with the big tyres, both secondhand market finds (I think I've still got the Datsuns somewhere). Like the trucks, the high centre of gravity did make them a challenge to drive:

Scalextric also recycled them in the 90s for the Ninja Turtles licence


Replies From View

Quote from: Twed on April 10, 2019, 08:39:29 PM
Let's change all the computer games so you can't die in them too.

You can do whatever you like with computer games; as they are I find them pretty rubbish.

Twed

I know, you keep turning up in threads about computer games to remind us.

Replies From View

Quote from: Twed on April 11, 2019, 11:31:05 AM
I know, you keep turning up in threads about computer games to remind us.

Well you brought up computer games in this one; can't blame me.

thenoise

Thanks Buzby, that's interesting. I did find it a bit odd that the power rangers were in a vehicle that I never remember them driving in any of the shows. Didn't stop me buying one though.

Oh yes, I had a hump back bridge too. The racing trucks would ground at the top if you took them too slow. A nice little challenge.

Tracks of equal length wasn't a problem for me once I added a bit of track that would swap them round (can't remember what that was called). That led to some nice spectacular crashes too.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

One thing I tried with my set was to make a ramp by removing a section of track and propping the preceding one up. Being a child, I didn't understand that this broke the circuit, rendering the cars immobile. Rather embarassingly, I tried it several times, despite it never working.

kngen

Quote from: Twed on April 10, 2019, 07:14:29 PM
The brush contacts and wonderful smell and sparking etc.

I'm sure if I experienced that smell now, I'd be sent into a Proustian reverie, and feel the need to bore the world with volumes upon volumes of wistful childhood memories.

Even the pics of the sidecars (80s version) has me trapped in nostalgia's vice-like grip.

I had this beauty, too.



Great on straights, terrible on corners, which made for some exciting photo finishes when the finish line was on the longest straight on the track (which it had to be for the lap counter to work, IIRC).

buzby

Quote from: thenoise on April 11, 2019, 01:46:05 PM
Tracks of equal length wasn't a problem for me once I added a bit of track that would swap them round (can't remember what that was called). That led to some nice spectacular crashes too.
The Crossover Straight (also available with yellow hazard markings on them)

They needed to be used in pairs or you would end up with the voltage on the two sets of rails commoned together.

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on April 11, 2019, 02:05:48 PM
One thing I tried with my set was to make a ramp by removing a section of track and propping the preceding one up. Being a child, I didn't understand that this broke the circuit, rendering the cars immobile. Rather embarassingly, I tried it several times, despite it never working.
They did make a Flying Leap track section from the 60s to the mid-80s - it basically included two power jumper cables that clipped onto the underside of the track to carry on the circuit across the gap:

They also did a Flying Leap set in 1986-87, which used bridge parapets instead of the moulded rock section and featured repaints of the Rover SD1 V8 and the ancient BMW CSL 'Batmobile' (which dated from 1976):

This was later recycled for the MASK licence in 1989 (which featured repaints of the Knight Rider Pontiac TransAm)

and for the Batman licenced Batman Leap set in 1990-91, which included a repaint of the ancient Porsche 935 Turbo (dating from the same era as the BMW CSL) as the Joker's car

Again, all this was symptomatic of Hornby's 'sweating of the assets' in the late 80s and 90s as they had very little money to make new tooling for track or cars.


Sebastian Cobb

Ah man I want an SD1 now.

king_tubby

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on April 11, 2019, 02:05:48 PM
One thing I tried with my set was to make a ramp by removing a section of track and propping the preceding one up. Being a child, I didn't understand that this broke the circuit, rendering the cars immobile. Rather embarassingly, I tried it several times, despite it never working.

Could do this with TCR. Which in all other aspects was a bit crap.

buzby

Quote from: king_tubby on April 11, 2019, 02:52:15 PM
Could do this with TCR. Which in all other aspects was a bit crap.
That's because slotless systems like TCR used an AC supply for the track rails (unlike Scalextric, which used a DC track supply), so it could cope with having breaks in the track circuit.

Replies From View

The Batman one looks nice to be fair.

Was there a scalextric Back to the Future Delorean?  That would have been good as constantly flying off the track would have been in keeping with the car's abilities in the sequels.

Blumf

Quote from: buzby on April 10, 2019, 10:44:19 PM
The 'flying off at corners' problem has been progressively tamed since the late 80s onwards by copying Aurora and TCR by fitting powerful magnets onto the bottom of the car chassis to hold them onto the steel power rails (branded as MagnaTraction by Hornby)

I am deeply shocked and appalled to hear this. Allowing this on anything other than a Brabham BT46B is a travesty!

Anyway, here's a question: What, exactly, was the fluid they used for the wheel spinning smoking starts some kits had? And how much cancer did it give kids?

JesusAndYourBush

Quote from: Replies From View on April 10, 2019, 08:27:55 PM
Why not just make a trigger that can't be pushed in so far.

Because on the straights you *could* push it in that far and go faster, but you had to ease off on the corners.

I remember some people having problems pronouncing the name correctly.  The worst by far I think was "Scale Electric."

Flatulent Fox

I got this one Christmas,still in the loft at my parents house.I do remember using oil on the track at points that made it more interesting and then there was a brief craze of wheelspins at the starting line.



The lad nextdoor had the same set,turns out the red Jaguar was faster on his set as well.

I was never into train sets,but a mate from school was and had a loft converted with a track laid out.I think it was more for his Dad really though.

dallasman

We used to call this toy a "car track". Not as brand conscious as you pasty capitalist kids, and probably not as fussy about safety either, judging by your reminisces. Car track electrocution was pretty much a Christmas tradition round ours in the 80s. A rite of passage I underwent at least twice, then forcibly guided my younger brother through. He in turn would challenge our little cousins, keeping the figure eight unbroken. The Casio came as a relief to everyone after all that.

Small Man Big Horse

My friend Russell's dad had a big Scalextric set up in his attic, it was impressive to look at but the track was tediously boring so that even if you were going at full pelt the car never came off. In the end I suggested we started putting our fingers on the track to liven things up, and then I wasn't allowed to go round Russell's for a couple of weeks.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

You suggested fingering his slot (car track).

Flatulent Fox

#50
The History Of Scalextric Part One (1957-1970) Oh yes,a two parter.
Exceptional 90's vhs provenence as well.

Bring the joys of the outdoors,and those leasurely motorway journeys to the tracks with:



Just saw this on Ebay as well.I wants it.



That's right,it's a Rover 3500 "Triplex".

Blumf

This thread is slowly turning into a Rover SD1 fan club.



That okay.

The Culture Bunker

I had the Knight Rider set - which was just a bog standard figure of eight track that I never had any money to expand (as I was too bone idle to get a weekend job). For some reason, it came with a Datsun 240 as the other car.

Earlier in my childhood, I had a Scalextrix-rip off Dukes of Hazzard affair, which had a jump in the middle for full "yee-haa!" effect. The cars were a fair bit smaller, but the jump made it all a bit more exciting.

buzby

Quote from: Blumf on April 11, 2019, 03:58:54 PM
What, exactly, was the fluid they used for the wheel spinning smoking starts some kits had? And how much cancer did it give kids?
The Rev Start half-straight used a pair of smoke generators (essentially a heater element and some wadding in a reservoir for the smoke oil). When the rollers in the track were engaged to lift up the rear axle of the car so the wheels could spin, the track voltage was applied to the smoke generators so they could create smoke (by heating the smoke oil into a vapour) as the motor was 'revved' with the throttle. It came with a sachet of smoke oil and a pipette to drip it into the reservoirs under the track:

It was usually found as standard in the F1-based Pole Position and the top-of-the-range 4-lane World Championship sets but was also available as a standalone accessory.

The mysterious 'smoke oil' was in fact baby oil, but as Scalextric's sachets were expensive, people used to use whatever oil they had around, from baby oil to paraffin to 3-In-1 light machine oil. As it wasn't being burned the main health hazard would have been lung irritation from the oil vapour. some other smoke generators use din model boats and steam locos used glycerol or glycol-based smoke fluids, which were a bit more of a health hazard when vapourised.

Quote from: The Culture Bunker on April 11, 2019, 11:01:47 PM
I had the Knight Rider set - which was just a bog standard figure of eight track that I never had any money to expand (as I was too bone idle to get a weekend job). For some reason, it came with a Datsun 240 as the other car.
The Datsun 260Z was another of the old cars that were introduced in the mid-seventies like the BMW CSL and Porsche 935 that were dusted off to be used as 'adversary cars' in the late 80s licenced sets (the Knight Rider sets were produced from 1987-89, with the Turbo Boost set using the same track as the Flying Leap, Mask Attack and Batman Leap sets
Quote
Earlier in my childhood, I had a Scalextrix-rip off Dukes of Hazzard affair, which had a jump in the middle for full "yee-haa!" effect. The cars were a fair bit smaller, but the jump made it all a bit more exciting.
The Dukes Of Hazzard was licenced by Ideal in 1981 for their TCR system

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLFDqGYs94o

Quote from: Flatulent Fox on April 11, 2019, 10:42:48 PM
Just saw this on Ebay as well.I wants it.

That's right,it's a Rover 3500 "Triplex".

The Scalextric version wasn't a particularly good runner, unfortunately - it predated the introduction of Magnatraction ,an the jacked-up front axle meant it had a tendency to topple over on tight corners. The Triplex livery was a replica of the 'works' Group 1 SD1s built and run by the Dave Price Racing team for BL in the 1980 BSCC with Jeff Allam and Rex Greenslade driving. The Triplex livery only lasted 1 year (the works effort was transferred to Tom Walknshaw Racing for 1981 who were sponsored by the Daily Express , but the Scalextric version was on the market for 1981 to 83. They also produced a model of the privateer Patrick Motorsport team cars that raced in the 1980-81 BSCC seasons that was sold between 1982 and 83

They also produced a model of the later Group A TWR Texaco-Bastos team livery (though with the Bastos ciggy sponsor logos replaced)  between 1987 and 1989:

And Ken Wood's ex-works Golden Wonder rally car that he campaigned in the Scottish Rally Championship in 1983 and 1984 was produced for one year in 1984:

Strangely they never made a model of the rally car in it's previous works team Unipart livery.

Sebastian Cobb

Did they ever do a P6?

*googles* yes but it looked shite.


buzby

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on April 12, 2019, 12:31:19 AM
Did they ever do a P6?

*googles* yes but it looked shite.


They never made a model of the P6 - that is a custom made version using the body shell of a  1960s Lucky Toys friction-powered P6 toy (which are just underscale for Scalextric at 1:36 Vs 1:32) built onto a Pendle Slot Racing PCS,32 universal adjustable chassis.

Blumf

Quote from: buzby on April 12, 2019, 12:24:24 AM
The mysterious 'smoke oil' was in fact baby oil,

Really? Never would have guessed.

Damn, that means my mate could have shown me it working, as I'm sure his baby sister didn't need that much lubing.... hang on... that didn't come out right. Does anybody know a good lawyer?

Replies From View

So there was never a Back to the Future Delorean one?  That strikes me as absurd.  The one good car in the whole world.

buzby

Quote from: Replies From View on April 12, 2019, 07:17:37 AM
So there was never a Back to the Future Delorean one?  That strikes me as absurd.  The one good car in the whole world.
Scalextric (not any of the other 1:32 slot car manufacturers) never took up the BTTF licence. There was a 1:32 plastic kit of the BTTF II Time Machine made by Aoshima, and a few people have had a go at using the body from it on custom chassis. This one from Germany is probably the most impressive:

There was also a 'garage kit' resin cast body with ugly extended wheelarches that originated from Spain:


The only official BTTF slot cars are HO/1:64 scale (same scale as Micro Scalextric, Aurora and Tyco sets - they are in fact based on the old Aurora AFX system) ones made by Autoworld for the US market. They did a set which had the Delorean and Biff's 1946 Ford Super De Luxe convertible:



They do a few TV and movie licence tie-ins, including classic TV Batman, Knight Rider, Ghostbusters, and Smokey & The Bandit

georgetaylor

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on April 11, 2019, 02:05:48 PM
One thing I tried with my set was to make a ramp by removing a section of track and propping the preceding one up. Being a child, I didn't understand that this broke the circuit, rendering the cars immobile. Rather embarassingly, I tried it several times, despite it never working.

Well it should have worked, the circuit is not broken by disconnecting the track in one place.