54 replies to this topic

[don.siegel]

I may be having a senior moment, but it seems that we recently discussed this car here somewhere, it was identified ... and I promptly forgot what it was! So what is it? I keep thinking AMX, Pacer, or something like that...



And as an added bonus, it came with a very nice chassis, a modified Pactra late-issue iso-fulcrum...



In fact, this was only one of the reasons I got this lot - there was also this strange one - and those rear wheels are independent!




Don

[Mopar Rob]

AMC AMX?

[endbelldrive]

It's the AMC Vignale Concept Car. I can't take credit for knowing that but I do remember the topic on the other board.

[don.siegel]

Thanks guys, that was fast!

It does indeed seem to have been factory painted Philippe, but no hints on who made it - kinda seems like a Lancer, but that's just a guess; the front grille has been cut out as well, unless that was original...

Don

[Russkid]

I have one of those chassis MOC. I can't remember exactly, but the Pactra name for it was something like "The Low Grav Hugger".

[don.siegel]

Ah, if you get a chance, Russkid, could you post a photo so I see what was added? There was also a modified Cox Gurney stocker frame in the lot...

Don

[TSR]

Don, here you go:







It is really too bad that the previous owner decided to alter what was one of the most beautiful production chassis of the 1960s...

And by the way, the top of this rather scarce Pactra Lotus 40 RTR looks like this:



It has one of the most gorgeous paint jobs of any production slot cars ever made. The picture does not even do it justice.
This Lotus was one of the last four models ever produced by Pactra, the others being a BRP-Ford Indy car, a Ford Mk 4 (both painted in the same colors as the Lotus). The last is the ultra-rare Meyers Manx dune buggy.

[don.siegel]

Thanks, Philippe - very minimalist! He really upgraded the thing to a heavier specification... But if I'm not mistaken, it looks a bit like the Pactra "Jail Door" chassis, which came shortly before this and had a regular drop arm...

Unfortunately, when I disassembled it last night, I realized that the piano wire front end had broken off right at the bottom 90° bend, leaving the wheel separated. I don't think there's an easy fix for that, short of replacing the whole front drop axle, now soldered in about ten different places, or just soldering it in place at two points, and running very, very carefully...

Don

[TSR]

Darn! Send it to the Warmack Wacky Works (AKA the WWW) for expert repair.

The only Pactra frame with regular drop arm is so far the sole one found on that Manx buggy... and so far not a single other example has surfaced. The production "Low Gravity Hugger" chassis has an Iso setup with the motor acting as part of the chassis, just as in the Lotus above.



It LOOKS like a regular drop arm, but it is not. It is designed for the Igarashi "Eliminator" motor with the metal endbell.

[HarV Wallbanger III]

Hey Dokk,

Where is the Pactra Lotus 40 body mold now?

[TSR]

The Pactra Lotus 40 bodies were supplied to Pactra by Lancer, as well as the BRP-Ford and the Ford Mk 4 bodies. In 1967, Pactra was no longer producing bodies of their own, the Pactra-Stormer Division having been closed.

The Lancer Lotus 40 mold is AWOL, REH does not have it.

[don.siegel]

This is the one I was referring to Philippe; sure looks like a Pactra factory chassis, except for the motor, and not sure about rear wheels. Picked up the chassis just like this on eBay a couple years ago.

Don

[don.siegel]

According to a nice Canadian who posted on our French forum, it is indeed a Lancer and comes up occasionally on eBay, selling for about $125...

Don

[TSR]

Don,

What a great find!

Your chassis is indeed the very rare Pactra unit used on the ultra-rare Meyers Manx dune buggy. This is NOT the same as the one shown in a post above, as the drop arm is BRASS and not gold anodized aluminum, and the chassis is NOT an Iso-fulcrum design but a standard drop-arm design.

Great find, this is only the second example I have ever seen, and this will warm Scott's heart, as it is not absolute evidence that the mint Manx model at the LASCM is indeed genuine, something he doubted.

By the way, the motor, tires, gears everything on your chassis is 100% original. All you need to complete is... the ultra rare, factory-painted, and decaled Pactra Meyers Manx body.

Please don't split the parts!

[don.siegel]

Thanks for the confirmation, Philippe - didn't realize it was that one... I thought they did another aftermarket chassis following their usual ones. Strangely enough, I didn't pay that much, about $60 I think, and although I didn't know exactly what it was, it looked good, and I'm a little surprised somebody didn't outbid me on this one!

Did they ever do this as a spare part? And did they ever put any other body on it?

Did you notice too, that the drop arm is similar to the one on your packaged chassis - but not quite the same (i.e., same Y-shaped embossing in the middle, but not the two straight ones on the side)!

Don

[TSR]

Of course I did, I explained the differences between the two chassis in a long expose about the Manx when it was discovered, also on E-Pay, and the price paid then was also $60.00, as no one else figured out how rare the beautiful model was.

I have of course never seen the chassis sold as a separate item, let alone seen another one until... now. Yes, NONE other has surfaced yet, you have in your hands one of the rarest pieces of production slot car racing items ever made. Hand-built cars are not rare, they are unique, and that is a whole different definition of desirability. Rare is when a production item is scarce, and by thus plus its individual beauty, becomes highly desirable. This is one indeed.

There is no literature from Pactra showing anything about these, but there is not a single doubt of its provenance. If there were any doubt that the parts on the Manx did not belong together (motor, tires, guide, gears), your chassis proves that they belong indeed. That's like discovering a "sister" to the 3 million-year old Lucy skeleton!

[don.siegel]

Since we're on Pactra, here are a couple shots of Pactra motors that I took recently for positive ID, or just for sharing...

First, the X-98 Hemi, and then the X-78 Black Streak rewind version with double shaft...



Now, here's the red endbell version of the X-98 (actually, I only have this one in the box - I just assume the black endbell version is the same thing...)



Equivalent to the Russkit 28, but with the typical red Pactra endbell; it's not stock because it has Arcos in there, but did Pactra do their own version of this motor?



And to close things out, Mura's rewind of a Pactra. I have another one of these without the Mura label, but with a tiny balancing hole... is that Pactra's rewind version of the 16D hemi? I don't think the Strombecker Hemi 300 was rewound, but you never know...

[Prof. Fate]

Hi

A couole comments, out of my league here.

I though, P, about 94 or so you showed me new in the package Pactra Jail Door frames. I don't remember if they were drop arm or iso, but I remember seeing them. I asked specifically about them. WE had a conversation then about companies doing jail door type chassis about two years late. That is, I had a couple of the NOS plated champions and I obxerved that by the time they came out '68, "WE" were all using floppies. And that the pactras came out about when we were all doing anglewinders.

Related to the post about killing off slots. That the manufactureres were always "late".

The motors. The only rewound hemi with black endbells that I have seen were Mura rewinds or kits. Thus, I haven't seen YOUR examples before. And I again thank you. I love how you come up with the goods.

I think I still have a nos mura black endbell kit around somewhere. I am actually in a minor project to organize the old motor bits in some storage system that lets me find things. The life of the packrat is tough...

Fate

[TSR]

Lots of questions for which you all soon will have all the answers... but please let me indulge:

...you showed me new in the package Pactra Jail Door frames. I don't remember if they were drop arm or iso... WE had a conversation then about companies doing jail door type chassis about two years late. That is, I had a couple of the NOS plated champions and I obxerved that by the time they came out '68, "WE" were all using floppies. And that the pactras came out about when we were all doing anglewinders.

I do know a lot more now than I did in 1994. The two Pactra frames you saw inside their packaging were all ISO types, just as in the Lotus above plus the "sports car" version with the jail-door look. Both of these came about in late 1967, when they were still a commercialized version of the State of the Art mid-1967 pro-racing, meaning no floppies yet.
Pactra was then caught issuing product at a time were floppies were the rage and just a few months before the angle-winder revolution. But so did Champion and Dynamic and Mura and all other inline frames manufacturers.
Now the Meyers Manx frame as well as the one shown here by Don that more than likely, was also fitted with that body, is yet the final "evo" of the pro frames in August 1967, just before John Wessels (nothing to do with Bill Wessels by the way), figured out the floppies.

Don,
Ron Mura favored the "Hemi" (Igarashi "16D" as used by Strombecker and Pactra) above all motors, and even after switching to the Mabuchi FT16D, kept using the Igarashi armature stacks.

Now the "big" Igarashi motors (TC24 in Strombecker speak and X98 or X78 in Pactra speak) were produced with black, red and blue endbell. Strombecker used mostly the blue and red endbells for their own cars.
There were apparently also some of the "big" Igarashi mills with a white endbell.
Just as in the Pactra kits using the smaller X88 and variants, the endbell color changed with and without specification changes. The X88 had orange, red, blue and black endbells. But there are minute variations that I explained in that chapter of Da Bookster.

The slotted can used in the Russkit 28 and used in a chrome palted version by Pactra was indeed produced as the X99 but is an extremely rare item in perfect





So far I ran across... TWO of them, and I know of ONE mint Mura rewound around this motor.
Of course there are a few loose cans around as well as modified motors, the most famous being the one used in Gene Husting's original angle-winder chassis.

[Tex]

Really cool reading about this stuff; thanks!

[don.siegel]

Hi, 

 

I'm dredging up this old thread because I am trying to restore an old Pactra iso-fulcrum chassis, the simple one, without the jaildoor part. Decided to use a Lola T70 body because not too many Lancer Lotus 40s floating around, and anyway, I've always liked the T70. In fact, as found, somebody has converted the chassis back to a conventional drop arm, so I unbent the end of the drop arm and screwed it back on the motor! 

 

For the moment I've just soldered on body mounts on the chassis, but wondering if I should put the extra rods as on the Meyers Manx chassis, since it will probably run better... Are those 4 extras on each side rods or tubes? 

 

And I'd also like to do a metallic red paint like the Lotus... how does one do this on a vac-formed body? 

 

Thanks, 

 

Don 

[MSwiss]

Don,

 

In theory, I think the Lotus is a candy-apple red.

You spray on a transparent red, on the inside, of course, let it dry, and then add your backing silver.

[don.siegel]

Thanks, Mike.

 

Don

[TSR]

Are those 4 extras on each side rods or tubes?

 
Don, they are 1/16" brass rods.

 

Since all the above was written so long ago, several of these chassis with the brass drop arm have surfaced, but none as a complete car with an original, factory painted Pactra dune buggy. However a few years back, a mint factory painted body (no chassis, no mounting damage) was offered on an eBay auction and somehow I missed it. So at least it offered some proof that there was some kind of production even if extremely limited, even rarer than a BZ Chaparral 2E of which most known examples have been found... in France!
 
That Lotus body is also "fogged" with gold, but it is difficult to see on the pictures.

 

I am surprised that you could have unbent the front arm of your Pactra chassis, because it was made of anodized aluminum and that makes it very brittle...

[don.siegel]

Yeah, I learned that trying to unbend a Cuc outer frame that somebody had bent up to fit in a hot rod or something - it immediately snapped in several places!

 

Fortunately, I could unbend the drop arm rather easily, without any breakage.

 

For the fogging, maybe I'll ask Pierre-Yves if he wants to take a crack at it - fogging is out of my league!

 

Did we ever find somebody who repops the Manx dune buggy?

 

Don