17 replies to this topic

[tonyp]

At the GRRR race held at John's Slot Car Garage, Raymond "Speedy" Gonzalez showed up with the most tonyp chassis I have seem in a single place. Most I do not even remember building. Most were in very good condition. These were his and Mike Shepard's race chassis from back in the '70s...

Here they are, some virgin, some modified...



They were brought to the race in an original Hoffman box!













These had to be made right after I stayed with PdL for the Western States race as we changed to "L" arm front suspension pretty quick on the East Coast.





No more Diamond front end...





Super rare Steel Iso. Not many were built outside of the couple I did for team guys.





Steel chassis with my trailing front end. Looks like the center was lightened up at some point.





This one looks like the center was slotted for more bite after it left the factory.









Three-railer missing axle tube...





Another three-railer missing the front split pans...





And yet another...





One of my thousands and thousands of $10 chassis. Alan Payne, when he ran for me, refused to run a good (more expensive) chassis and kept winning with one like this. Not good for business. LOL.





For $25 you got floppies.

There were a few more in the box, either completely in pieces or duplicates of those posted. Enjoy!

Thanks, Speedy!

[TSR]

Nice! Lovely survivors... Ray, how about making them back into full cars with Noose replica bodies?

When I designed and built the first "Diamond" chassis (that utterly FREAKED racers in the day), I first thought of doing an "L" arm instead of the complex triangles, but feared that it would be too fragile and would bend under impact. So I added the second brace and wired it. They were obviously very strong but time proved that the advantage in strength was a bit of an overkill.

Weight was not as yet an issue because others were using so much glue, I wanted to make sure that my cars would go through it while not tilting with the wide tires. The cars were at first, 4.2 oz, and by mid 1973, 3.8 oz. When I built the first one-piece steel center section, the weight went down again, at 3.5 oz, while the chassis gained enormously in stiffness.

These cars worked great, but you know what, they were not any faster than my wire cars... and the wire cars were so consistent and easy to drive, they were incredibly forgiving.

Tony, Fred Strauss, and George Markulin shared my spare bedroom in my apartment in Santa Ana for that big race we had at Monaco Miniatures. I must say that they behaved as the gentlemen they were and left the place neat and were good company. I am sorry that they did not do so well in the race but the circumstances were bizarre, a heat wave during the preceding week followed by a sudden 20-degree drop in temperature transforming the track into a sticky mess. But my cars went through that like through butter, I never got bogged where most others were.

PS: unlike reported, I had nothing to do with the weather.

[tonyp]

After that race we went home and changed the East Coast USRA to limited glue zones, which quickly became the standard at the time, so good things came out of it. That and making a good friend for life.

[TSR]

Da true.

[Edwardo]

I've been pestering Speedy the last couple of years about posting photos of his collection, so I'm glad to see it's finally happened.

Thanks, Speedy and Tony!

[tonyp]

At one race he brought more cool stuff. A Morrissey, Gardner, etc., etc., chassis and I never got a chance to shoot them. Maybe we can get him to bring him to the next race we are both at.

[John Streisguth]

Nice to see some chassis from the timeframe after I got out of slots.

[Edwardo]

At one race he brought more cool stuff. A Morrissey, Gardner, etc., etc., chassis and I never got a chance to shoot them. Maybe we can get him to bring him to the next race we are both at.

Absolutely! Are you listening Speedy? We want to see them all!

[Phil Irvin]

You will be pleasantly surprised at all that Speedy has collected over the years... And still uses... Just because something new comes out, don't mean the ole stuff is slower... just not as shiny

Thanks for the help at John's Garage,

PHIL I.

[tonyp]

I think Speedy just doesn't sell off or throw any slot car item out. He has some cool stuff for sure... I'd love to have five minutes unsupervised in his garage...

[brnursebmt]

At one of our SERRA™ races Speedy brought some really cool Dave Bloom painted bodies. I think he has saved everything he ever raced with. LOL. I wish I had.

Bobby

[TSR]

Packrats like Speedy have allowed part of the history of the hobby to survive, for future generation to learn from. If some of you think that it is unimportant, have a look at the thousands of vintage slot car bits sold every week on eBay for the past fifteen years, and much is being sold to younger generations.

Don't believe that this will die with us, old geezers.

[tonyp]

Thankfully we have guys like Speedy. I was amazed the chassis were not all rusted up; the hinges all still worked.

[idare2bdul]

Those hand-cut steel center sections reminded me of why I'm not a chassis builder. My hat's off to the builders of that period. Since technology was changing pretty fast making one or more of those a month must have eaten up a lot of time.

Tony P's chassis won more than their share of races.

[tonyp]

Two-three hours to cut out with a Dremel, two hours to finish up the rest of the chassis. I used to build cheap stuff in the morning and beat out a steel chassis in the afternoon.

[Pablo]

Last trip to LaGrange, Speedy showed me a Buzco Plumber Chassis Kit in the box (price $4.95) that looks like it had been partially built. I volunteered to make it into a complete car and give to him. This will be my next vintage build.

It will be fun, and I'm gonna need some help from my friends Maybe start in a month or so...

[n.elmholt]

Packrats like Speedy have allowed part of the history of the hobby to survive, for future generation to learn from. If some of you think that it is unimportant, have a look at the thousands of vintage slot car bits sold every week on eBay for the past fifteen years, and much is being sold to younger generations.

Don't believe that this will die with us, old geezers.

No it won't - and thanks to you and other for writing down and documenting the stories and collecting and restoring the cars and parts :-)

Niels, DK

[Prof. Fate]

Hi

Mike, in that period, we commonly had two or three new chassis every week! For me, remember the payouts. My usual approach was having 3 cars each in the pipeline constantly. Not counting customer cars. In essence, Last week's car was "know", this weeks car was "best guess on new ideas" and the third was "I wonder if this is a good idea or a stupid one". As the cars proved on the track what worked and what didn't, the expensive bits, like drop arms, center sections, might migrate from car to car.

Worse, lots of racing.

The woman I was living with then complained about not going out enough. So, I explained to her where the new TV came from and she shut up!

But the building is always the best part of the effort for me. Racing when it was no longer a money maker, ment "proving" the point, not the racing itself. I had already realized that Cukrus and Steube and a lot of other guys were better drivers.

Fate