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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

Norton Canes

Never had a Scalextric. Only the pauper's version...


garbed_attic

After some childish altercation, I hid my younger brother's copy of Monkey Island 1 and 2 in his Scalextric box... told him it was there a few days later but when we went to look, it had vanished, never to appear again!

One of the great mysteries of our childhood, that.

Replies From View

Quote from: gout_pony on April 12, 2019, 01:00:20 PM
After some childish altercation, I hid my younger brother's copy of Monkey Island 1 and 2 in his Scalextric box... told him it was there a few days later but when we went to look, it had vanished, never to appear again!

One of the great mysteries of our childhood, that.

He knows you never fucking put it in there and you must have bunged it out the window.

If it's any consolation I would never have forgiven you either.

Replies From View

Cars that should exist as scalextric

1) Delorean (with Back to the Future detailing)
2) 2CV
3) Hillman Superminx
4) Phone Booth from Bill and Ted



That's it mate.  No other cars are good.

buzby

Quote from: Replies From View on April 12, 2019, 01:06:24 PM
Cars that should exist as scalextric

1) Delorean (with Back to the Future detailing)
https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,72593.msg3798576.html#msg3798576
Quote
2) 2CV

By SCX in 1:32 scale (hopeless to drive though ,apparently)

Replies From View

Thanks Buzby I missed your Delorean post earlier.


Now we just need to pester Scalextric HQ to get a Hillman Superminx and Bill and Ted phonebooth done.  You do it - you sound cleverer when you talk.

Dex Sawash

Quote from: buzby on April 10, 2019, 10:44:19 PM
It's called Scalextric becuase the original system used clockwork cars and was called Scalex (made by a comoany called Minimodels). It was redesigned to use electric motors supplied through rails on the track (like model trains) in 1957 and branded as 'Scalex-Electric', which was soon shortened to Scalextric.


Thanks for that, I will direct my unreasonable branding ire elsewhere.

I had the AFX Datsun 510 set. Had to put a set of rear tires on the front too to make it have the correct stance (which made it slower)



Replies From View

On the subject of the name, has anyone come up with the brand Scalextruc which would exclusively feature - you guessed it! - cumbersome articulated lorries that are shit on corners?

gilbertharding

Quote from: Replies From View on April 12, 2019, 01:52:38 PM
On the subject of the name, has anyone come up with the brand Scalextruc which would exclusively feature - you guessed it! - cumbersome articulated lorries that are shit on corners?



They should have asked for your help with the name, to be fair.

gilbertharding

Friend of mine when I was a kid had a load of vintage Scalextric, including several where the front wheels steered with the guide pin. It did not help their performance - the smaller ones were so small and light they had no traction on the straights, and hence no grip on the corners. If you were very skilled (we weren't) you could get them to powerslide and oversteer round corners.


Neomod

A misstep? I remember seeing this in Gamleys when I worked in Brighton. Apparently endorsed by Willie Carson and there were three editions.



Reminds me of the 2p betting arcade machines you got in seaside arcades in the 70's.

Replies From View

Quote from: gilbertharding on April 12, 2019, 02:26:22 PM


They should have asked for your help with the name, to be fair.

Ah yes, the Scalextruc Bullshit Optimus Prime Emulant, as it would be called on my watch.

buzby

Quote from: gilbertharding on April 12, 2019, 02:30:36 PM
Friend of mine when I was a kid had a load of vintage Scalextric, including several where the front wheels steered with the guide pin. It did not help their performance - the smaller ones were so small and light they had no traction on the straights, and hence no grip on the corners. If you were very skilled (we weren't) you could get them to powerslide and oversteer round corners.


That's exactly how you were supposed to drive them, just like the real F1 cars of the time they had no grip from the narrow tyres and no downforce, so you were supposed to drift them round corners. It did take a lot of practice, and unfortunately the plastic steering knuckles on the front axle were very fragile and easily broken.

Quote from: Neomod on April 12, 2019, 02:43:05 PM
A misstep? I remember seeing this in Gamleys when I worked in Brighton. Apparently endorsed by Willie Carson and there were three editions.



Reminds me of the 2p betting arcade machines you got in seaside arcades in the 70's.
They had two goes at horse racing. The original one back in 1970 was called Jump Jockey and used special hollow track to hide the motor unit. They also advertised a set of scrambler bikes to use instead of the horses, which were never released. The thing was a big flop, unfortunately, and was discontinued within a year:

In 1991 they had another crack at it with the Horse Racing sets you have mentioned, which used standard track moulded in green and the horses stuck on top of little motorised trucks (fitted with Magnatraction magnets) which looked ridiculous. It was not a success.

There were 3 sets released - Ascot, Newmarket and the top-of-the-range 4-lane The Derby -Newmarket and The Derby were discontinued in 1993, and Ascot lasted a further year. The Sulkie Racing set was advertised in the 1992 catalogue as The Gold Coast Cup but was never released due to lack of interest. A small number of the Sulkies were actually manufactured though, and are some fo the rarest Scalextric models.

Norton Canes

That's wronger than Subbuteo cricket.

thenoise

My brother and I used to love subbuteo cricket.

seepage

Quote from: Norton Canes on April 12, 2019, 11:05:15 AM
Never had a Scalextric. Only the pauper's version...



That looks like the one with yellow track that the cars just went down freefall (like the orange Hotwheels one) - or did you have the one with the slot in the track a coil ran beneath, that I mentioned earlier?

Norton Canes

Nope. Gravity was my electricity.

gilbertharding

Anyone ever see this?



Another friend of mine had it... and it provided literally minutes of fun. Look how the other kid on the box art looks as if he's about to have a migraine.

You clipped the matchbox car of your choice to the magnet, and then put it on the turntable/landscape thing, which then revolved quite slowly while you steered the otherwise stationary car along the roads or the magnet gave up and the battery ran down and you got bored. I think it made a brrrming noise.

The same kid had a massive collection of Smurfs, the complete Steve Austin Bionic Man set, and all the Evel Knievel bikes including the Snake Canyon rocket bike. His parents were the only people I knew of who were divorced.

Sebastian Cobb

That reminds me of this toy that my mate had:

Just an endless loop of driving through a wireframe road that's rear projected.

Blumf

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on April 12, 2019, 04:56:22 PM
That reminds me of this toy that my mate had:

Just an endless loop of driving through a wireframe road that's rear projected.

Somebody modded one to play Outrun


buzby

Quote from: gilbertharding on April 12, 2019, 04:54:51 PM
Anyone ever see this?



Another friend of mine had it... and it provided literally minutes of fun. Look how the other kid on the box art looks as if he's about to have a migraine.

You clipped the matchbox car of your choice to the magnet, and then put it on the turntable/landscape thing, which then revolved quite slowly while you steered the otherwise stationary car along the roads or the magnet gave up and the battery ran down and you got bored. I think it made a brrrming noise.

The same kid had a massive collection of Smurfs, the complete Steve Austin Bionic Man set, and all the Evel Knievel bikes including the Snake Canyon rocket bike. His parents were the only people I knew of who were divorced.
Yes, I had an ex-display one courtesy of my uncle who worked in the Littlewoods catalogue photographic studio (they used to get to keep most of the samples that were sent to be photographed).
There were actually two iterations of it, and that's the earlier one. There's a demo of it from an annoying American who says 'sodder' here The later version has a squarer dashboard, redesigned steering arm and drive mechanism and only one scenery disc supplied with it can be seen (and heard) in action here.


It started with a yellow plastic key with the Matchbox logo on it, and it had a lever to control the throttle/turntable speed and brake and a second lever for the direction. It also made an approximation of an engine noise as you say, and had a horn as well. I only got rid of it a couple of years ago when i moved house and emptied the loft (it was in very poor condition and not worth keeping hold of).

The Matchbox stunt track was called Superfast track, and I had some of that as well. I got the single track loop S-200 Streak Racing set from my dad's factory Christmas party one year, and my uncle worked on the bins and used to collect any that was getting thrown out so I ended up with a few partial sets of the double-track S-400 Streak Racing set, enough that I could run it from the top of the stairs, out the front door and up he path. I think I managed to put 4 consecutive loops in it before they started flying off.

gib

My matchbox track had a 'booster' which you had to cock with a lever on top. It was like a plastic tunnel the car went in and got shot out the front through the power of elastic. Buzby?

The Culture Bunker

Quote from: buzby on April 12, 2019, 12:24:24 AMThe 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

I should really have added after my "for some reason" line "...that Buzby will reveal in a moment"!

The Dukes of Hazzard ad brought back some memories. I seem to recall you had to hit the ramp at a fairly precise speed to ensure a smooth landing, a talent which was well beyond my four year old self. Was usually funny watching "Roscoe" plummet/overshoot to his doom, though.

buzby

Quote from: gib on April 12, 2019, 05:40:50 PM
My matchbox track had a 'booster' which you had to cock with a lever on top. It was like a plastic tunnel the car went in and got shot out the front through the power of elastic. Buzby?
The SF-20 Super Booster?


Video of it in action here

There was also the Launcher, used to launch cars on flatland tracks without gravity assistance:


gib

No, mine was a long red 'tunnel', say 40cm x 10cm x 10cm with a lever on top for priming the elastic.

Used to love the advert from about 1981: 'Turn on my lights.  I can race all night.  But you can't be-e-eat Sca-lex-tric!'  Thinking about it, though, the idea of 'beating' a car confined to a circuit of a few metres was fairly redundant.

Endicott

I had a hot wheels booster. I left the batteries in the fucking thing and then it was fucked.



Perplexicon

If it doesn't have a loop the loop in I'm not fucking interested. There was a massive one that wasn't Scalextric but a knockoff brand that had loops and hairpin bends and corkscrews and stuff that I used to ogle in the Argos mag in the 90s. Never got to own it though as it was too pricey for us commonfolk!

Replies From View

Quote from: buzby on April 12, 2019, 05:35:08 PM
There were actually two iterations of it, and that's the earlier one. There's a demo of it from an annoying American who says 'sodder' here The later version has a squarer dashboard, redesigned steering arm and drive mechanism and only one scenery disc supplied with it can be seen (and heard) in action here.


I wonder if there was a miniature version of it made later.  In the early 90s I had something similar that was fully encased with a small car inside.  You'd operate a tiny steering wheel to make the car go around and around the track.

I can't remember enough important keywords to search the web for it.  I guess it's unlikely to be Matchbox as it didn't use their cars.  May have been Tomy or someone similar?

buzby

Quote from: gib on April 12, 2019, 06:06:57 PM
No, mine was a long red 'tunnel', say 40cm x 10cm x 10cm with a lever on top for priming the elastic.
Ah, that sounds more like the Pacemaker Hand Booster then:


Quote from: Perplexicon on April 12, 2019, 07:23:30 PM
If it doesn't have a loop the loop in I'm not fucking interested. There was a massive one that wasn't Scalextric but a knockoff brand that had loops and hairpin bends and corkscrews and stuff that I used to ogle in the Argos mag in the 90s. Never got to own it though as it was too pricey for us commonfolk!
That sounds like the Tyco system (not a knock-off of Scalextric as it was HO/1:64 scale so half the size of Scalextric). Possibly one of the Cliff Hangers sets?

Or possibly it's later Mattel incarnation (after they took over Tyco in 1997)?

(t was all done with very strong magnets on the cars)
Before the Mattel takeover ,Tyco had taken over both Matchbox and  Ideal, who both had their own HO slot car systems i the 1970s competing against Tyco's - TCR in Ideal's case, and Matchbox's Powertrack system  sold from 1977 until they went bust 1982, the most famous of which was the iconic Race & Chase set:

This had the unique ability to put the cars into reverse at the press of a button so they could do a J-turn at the next corner and drive off in he opposite direction (TV ad showing it in action here, voiced by Kid Jensen)