10 replies to this topic

[Mr. M]

What happened to the assets of Mura after Bob Green took over and Mura closed?

[MSwiss]

Chris,

 

Your post doesn't make sense.

 

IIRC, the last two owners of Mura were an older gentlemen named Woody and finally someone with no slot car background that I'm aware of.

[Mr. M]

Mike, Thanks, unknown to me. Last knowledge was Ron Mura dropped out and Bob Green was making and developing.

 

Question still stands, What happened to the inventory and tooling?

[Bill from NH]

The inventory was sold off online for several months.
 
Nothing was ever mentioned about the tooling.

[Phil Hackett]

IIRC, the last two owners of Mura were an older gentlemen named Woody and finally someone with no slot car background that I'm aware of.

 

Dee and Woody Paisley bought Mura from George Mura. Woody was the toolmaker that made almost all of Mura's tooling. They kept close contact with George Mura and Bob Green after the sale. Mura became involved with the I-15 motor "wars" and I think it wore the Paisley's patience and health and they eventually sold it to, like Mike said, a non-slot car knowledgable person. If I remember correctly he was an Indian engineer (electronics).... I made a small number of runs of parts for him. Mura then disappeared.

[team burrito]

I remember Mura being around in the early '90s, but soon disappeared when RJR, Pro Slot, and Champion started making their own motors.

[Mr. M]

Thanks everyone for the background. Very interesting for sure. I remember the I-15 motor battles and met Bob Green at a couple of big races we travelled to in the 1980s. At some point, Mura was just gone.

 

Whatever happened to Bob Green.?

[MSwiss]

Thanks, Phil, for coming up with the last name.

 

When Woody sold Mura sold, they had long been out of the competitive I-15 motor and armature business. They had become just a supplier for RTR cars and on the competitive end, Boxstock racing.

 

At a weekly race in the last year, my good friend and G7 Nats and Worlds historian, Mark Rosenwinkel, referred to the '91 Worlds, mentioning I was runner-up to P.A.

 

My response was "Really? I don't recall that."

 

And then it hit me that that race was dominated by all the drama over local racer, Mike Braidman's Box 15 win.

 

Racers were complaining about his obvious HP edge.

 

By that time it was common knowledge that Mura had made a batch of G20 arms and mistakingly installed G15 tags in them. It had been brought up previously at the '91 Nats where Dick Pelletier's son put in a great drive to beat Mike for the win. That race was interrupted for the USRA tech director, Doug Shepard, to visually examine the arm with a jeweler's loupe. IIRC, the race only continued when Dee Paisley, who was in attendance there with Woody, gave it a hard look and assured everyone it was not a G20 arm.

 

Fast forward back to the Worlds, I walked in the middle of the mid-race drama. 

 

Those arms were so sloppily wound that it was really hard to tell the difference between a 15 and a 20. Postrace, no one was willing to pay for a tear down and Mike's dominating 21 lap win stood.

 

A month or two later, that arm was at Koford for reconditioning and I weighed and metered it, and it was definitely a mistagged 20.

 

I think Woody's run at Mura was a result of father time, combined with George Mura's no-compete clause running out, with George then getting into the OEM SBF II brush business.

 

[Mr. M]

I really enjoy these trips down to slot sport history. Thanks for sharing, keep it up!

[stoo23]

Whatever happened to Bob Green.? 

 

He is still around as far as I'm aware, in fact you can probably find him on Facebook, if you really want to

[Bill from NH]

Bob Green has also shown up as a spectator, at some of the past west coast retro races