109 replies to this topic

[Tex]

The crispness of just that PICTURE makes me giddy!

[John McGuyer]

Randy,

John here. Your dad made the first Lancer body for me. I put together Lancer for your dad. I talked him into making slot car bodies and put him together with all the people who made Lancer happen. I was the M in MAC Mfg. Your dad was the A. I kept touch through Terry Wegmann and Terry passed away about 2-1/2 weeks ago.

Please get in touch with me. Email: john.brenda1@verizon.net.

Or have your dad phone me at (562) 925-0908.

John McGuyer

[don.siegel]

This is amazing, hearing from the people involved - the quality of Lancer bodies is still very impressive.

But we also have some of the very early Lancer bodies, which are not the same quality - does anybody know where these came from? I posted some of these in the "Mystery Maserati" thread here on Slotblog, and here's one of the photos, with an original label - and the French-made static which the Lancer 1/32 body seems to be molded from!



Don

[John McGuyer]

If the webmaster will allow me, when I get the chance I will go in to the history of Lancer and how it came to be.

John

[team burrito]

Below is an original pull...

That has to be butyrate, Lexan does not pull as nice.

[Ron Hershman]

Yupppppppp!!!

[John McGuyer]

Actually the MAC bodies were slightly better than the Lancer ones. I was a machine designer and when I actually got involved directly, I made some mods to Lloyd's favorite vacuum former. It allowed us to do some things GE said were impossible. They sent out people to Costa Mesa to try to get in the back room to see how we were doing it . Naturally we wouldn't let them. They finally sent this drop dead gorgeous girl to try to talk her way into the back room. Tough on poor Lloyd but he wouldn't let her back there.

Understand that Parma cannot quite do the job that MAC did. They lack two things.

First and foremost is Lloyd. Less obvious is the machine. It was quite a hot rod and was highly modified. We ran it to where it blew up on a regular basis (boy, would that piss Lloyd off at me). I had to make the special pieces. Ken just cannot do that anymore.


John

[John McGuyer]

Okay here you go:

Lancer the beginning.

I was first introduced to Lloyd Asbury in the late '50s. He was working in a foundry (what a waste) in San Bernardino and building incredible model airplanes on his kitchen table. Up to this point his airplanes were U-control and he wanted to do some free flights. At that time I was winning my share of the local contests so mutual friends put us together. We immediately hit it off as we both loved to build model airplanes and to customize plastic car kits.

Over the next few years our friendship grew. Then in the early '60s, my parents and I moved to Pomona, CA, and opened Hobbysville. It was one of the first hobby shops to have a large slot racing track on the premises. Needless to say, it went wild. People were coming from all over to run the little cars. I called my friend Lloyd and told him he had to get over here and see these cars and people's reaction to them. I told him it was going to be the next hot thing.

When he got there Lloyd absolutely flipped out over the cars. Since I was a big drag racing fan, one of the tracks Hobbysville had was a drag strip. (This is a story for another day you will get a kick out of). I was a huge fan of the Speed Sport Special AF Modified Roadster, so talked to Lloyd about how to get a body like that for my little digger. At that time the only vacuum-formed bodies I can remember were from a company named Echo that was distributed by a guy named Bob Coogan. He was quite the character and is again a story I’ll have to tell you on a later date. If you think hard, you might recognize the name.

Lloyd mentioned he had access to a vacuum former. It was owned by a craft dealer (John Brunson) in San Bernardino that used it to make craft molds. Lloyd had been using it to make conversion parts for plastic model airplane kits. He thought one of the kids he knew had made a plastic model of the Speed Sport and he thought he could borrow it and pull a body over it. So the first Lancer body was made. A model of the Speed Sport Roadster pulled out of some purple craft plastic for my little dragster.

Lloyd started making a variety of body types, so I introduced him to the owners of several of the local slot racing shops. It got him some pocket money to feed his hobby plus four small children. He wanted out of that foundry in the worse way.

The guy who taught me to fly free flights, Bob Hunter, was starting a new hobby distributorship. He was looking for new and unique products to sell. I told him about Lloyd and he set up a date for us to all get together. So on the scheduled night, Lloyd and I gathered up maybe eight or ten examples of what he could do and headed out to the Valley to meet with Bob. Needless to say, Bob immediately saw Lloyd’s potential and worked out a deal to represent him. Placed an opening order.

On the way home, Lloyd was so excited. His models were finally going to produce something profitable. He said, “Bob just ordered a gross (dozen/dozen) of my bodies”. I told him “No, Lloyd, he just ordered a gross of EACH of your bodies”. Lloyd’s mouth flew open and his eyes got big. At that point, in the car on the way back from the Valley, Lancer was born. It was the smallest order Bob placed for several years.

Bob was quite the hustler selling things and soon Lancer was the standard of the industry. Lloyd quit the foundry and began producing bodies full time and doing things he was destined to do. Slot racing took off to what you all now know. I do want you to see that John Brunson had nothing to do with the formation of Lancer. It was all Lloyd and only by his grace did Brunson have anything to do with it.

[endbelldrive]

... At that time the only vacuum formed bodies I can remember were from a company named Echo that was distributed by a guy named Bob Coogan. He was quite the character and is again a story I’ll have to tell you on a later date. If you think hard, you might recognize the name.

Yep, Philippe mentioned awhile back that Bob Coogan was the brother of famous child actor Jackie Coogan who would have been familiar as Uncle Fester on The Addams Family TV series about the time Lancer was getting started.

This is getting interesting. Any more stories? Pictures?

[Mark H]

Can't wait to hear some more stories, John.

I've been thinking of making my own vacforming machine recently and this makes me want to do it!!!

[John McGuyer]

Jackie Coogan goes back further than that. He was a child star and one of the Little Rascals in Our Gang comedies. Remember Lenny Bruce? It was in Bob Coogan's slot racing shop he was arrested and sent away on drug charges.

[tonyp]

Great stories.

[TSR]

 

In December 1957, Sports Cars Illustrated published an article about a Scalextric/Tri-ang slot car set written by Robert Coogan, the younger brother of the famous actor Jackie Coogan. Bob had discovered the new toy at the Polk's hobby shop. Coogan called the table-top track "The Ultimate Christmas Gift". This caused a huge increase in sales. By 1960, the Scalextric tinplate cars were gone, replaced by injection-molded, clam-shell designed plastic-bodied cars of the latest contemporary race types, and powered by the Tri-ang model train-type frame-motors, versions of which were soon to be seen throughout the world of rail and slot racing.

Bob Coogan with George Albiez's help built the first commercial raceway in California (and likely the USA) and was a member of the Knight Plastics racing team with Albiez and Ron "Von" Klein, who later was the Shark Bodies man and did patterns for he late production Russkit bodies. He also made many bodies for MESAC members,

[Ron Hershman]

Good story and now tell us about MAC.

[Milt @ Lancer]

So who actually knows who made which molds at Lancer back in the day?

Can't remember all of the names, but the other two mold makers were left primarily to the day to day repair and maintenance of molds.

Lloyd always did the original building. He started with a very rough shape in plaster. I would put a 1/4" keyway in the bottom of the plaster master which would key into a small steel surface plate that I made for him. This way he could keep all of the dimensions exactly the same from side to side.

When the master was completely finished, we poured a silicone female in a vacuum chamber and this was then used to cast the epoxy molds. There were some popular models that had more than one mold in production at the same time.

I'll continue to try to answer some questions as I can.

Milt

[Howmet TX]

This is wonderful! Thanks for posting this information - I hope there's more. No detail too small!

[John McGuyer]

Milt Gibbs, why is that name ringing a bell?

If I mentioned I once knew a guy who had an Ardun overhead conversion for a V8-60, would you know who that guy was? Or somebody who used to bring liquid nitrogen and Eastman 910 to Hobbysville.

Would you know anyone who would do such a thing?

John

[John McGuyer]

Pomona was a real hotbed of drag racing during the sixties. The PVTA, which was a founding organization, was located there. The Fairplex, where the Winternationals are still to this day held, was maybe three miles from Hobbysville. So naturally slot drag racing would be very popular. We had a 55 foot strip which works out to a 1/24 scale quarter mile. Many of the people actually owned or worked the crew of top dragsters and made slot dragsters for fun.

We had this guy who got very interested in our strip. His name was Olly Riley and he had this little company in La Verne a couple miles away that made timers. He wanted to make a timer for our track and had some success in doing so. Problem was, if they didn't have a body, the slot dragsters were through the photo cells so quick, the cells wouldn't pick them up. He was persistent though and got them working. He also had this idea for a starting line system and was trying it out on us. His company was called Chrondek and his starting system came to be called the 'Christmas Tree'.

The gathering place for slot drag racing was Hal Pendergast's Western Model Raceways over on Western Ave. in LA. We would gather once a month on I think it was a Thursday night and might have a hundred racers there.

My Lancer-bodied car ran as a modified roadster and did pretty well. There was one guy though that was my nemesis and for the life of me I couldn't beat him. He would get me by a foot, so I would go home and find two feet. Come back and he would again beat me by a foot. You may have heard of him. His name was Gene Husting and a couple years later joined his friend Roger Curtis to form Associated. They managed to do pretty well with slot and R/C cars. Between Hobbysville, MAC Mfg., and Leisure Electronics, he and I have competed for many years.

Another guy of note from that time you might remember would be Bob Braverman. He went on to set many world speed records at Bonneville on motorcycles. He was a regular at Western.

Slot drag racing was a big part of both models and real racing. Not following slot racing presently, I do not know how popular it remains. I do hope we save the history of those little cars.

John

[Milt @ Lancer]

John,

Yes I'm the one that had the Ardun heads for a Ford-60, and brought you the liquid nitrogen for freezing your wheels. I had a small homemade vacuum former in the garage where I was pulling some 1/32 bodies, and you talked me into making a few dragster shells, since there wasn't much around at that time. You also introduced me to Lloyd, and that's what started my association with Lancer.

Hope all is well.

Milt

[John McGuyer]

Milt, my old friend. How are you? It has been many years since we have communicated. You were always the clever get-it-done guy. So are you still making cool things out in the garage? I have a basic machine shop in the corner of a garage across the street and am making trains.

Get in touch offline and tell me what has happened with you during all these years.

Oh, yes, for all you new slot racing guys, way back when we didn't have those cool tire grinding machines you have now, so to make them round, we were trying to freeze them in liquid nitrogen, then quickly turn them on our Unimats.

John

[Initforthemoney]

Hi,

I purchased these cars along with a Hot Wheels collection.

I was wondering if anyone could tell me if they have any value. There is one in perticular that has Lloyd Asbury's signature. They are made up of some hard plastic.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Andy

[TSR]

Andres,

These are all resin castings made from the rubber molds used to make copies of finished molds or rough patterns.

The large Indy car at the left is a cast of a Lancer 1/24 scale 1967 Eagle, while all the others are in the HO scale.

From left to right from the top: racemasters Chaparral 2D. True HO scale unknown maker Porsche 550A. Lancer HO Ferrari 330P4. Unknown maker HO 1997 Porsche 996 Twin Turbo. Unknown maker HO Dodge (?) drag car.

Unknown maker Ferrari Dino, two Corvette Sting Ray, Cunningham C4 (I think).

Value? Whatever one wants to pay... the only truly interesting piece here being the autograph of Lloyd Asbury, the master modeler who carved the original patterns for several (but not all) of these models.

[Mark H]

This is so cool... Ardun overhead cam conversion, slot bodies, drag racing, and all happened right down the street!

[mr5oa]

Randy,

I did the body and the interior for 1934 Packard Boattail Speedster (Danbury Mint). Dad did the rest.

And here in a pic of my mom in the Lola.

[TSR]

Vic,

Your mom was always a very nice lady. She looks good in Skip's Lola.