48 replies to this topic

[Jairus]

My first slot car!

I would bet that this subject has come up from time to time on this forum but now we all have the chance to post OUR first car! If you have pictures or haven’t parted it out for some other project . . . please feel free to post them!

For me, it was a Christmas present in December, 1969, after we moved back to Salem, Oregon. A Dynamic Porsche 908! I had begged my parents that this was the only present I wanted and needed, and I ran the wheels off of it during the following year, running laps at the local bowling alley!!! Northgate Bowl had the only blue King track in Salem at the time. (Ran the wheels off my bike getting there, too . . .) I posted a nicely-written piece on the old Slotblog about those days so I will not attempt to go over old ground here. The decals need some freshening up I think.



I have been working on a restoration of this car off and on for about two years now. The guide I think is wrong and should be a Dynamic black piece but . . . this is all I have. The “Nimble blue” wire is standing in for a more correct green and red wire once I can find them . . .



The aluminum ring gear shows a lot of wear . . . but a lot of life still exists in that Mabuchi!



The interior remains unpainted and someday I figure I will need to lay down some new decals and paint that interior. Wish I still had the box . . . :roll:

[Tex]

Cool, Jairus! My first slot "car" was an Eldon figure-8 race set circa 1960 or so. I feel so bad that I never saved ANYthing over the years. You guys are what makes the history of slot racing so alive!

[Ron Hershman]

Mine was a "circa" 1981 Parma Womp Womp.

[Pappy]

That's not a slot car.:mrgreen: Mine was a Strombecker race set in the early '60s.

[Jairus]

Since no one has posted a picture of their first slot car . . . here is my first copy of Cartoons Magazine . . .



. . . and my first 8-track tape. And it STILL WORKS GREAT!!!



I’m gonna post a picture of my first girlfriend if someone doesn’t show me a slot car soon . . .

[edworth]

Jairus,
Great thread idea, but 25 to 40+ years is a long time. Think about it . . . few 1/1 cars survived even 15 years.

I'm working on my little slot contribution . . .

In the meantime . . . I'll 'see' your first 8-track and raise you my first 35mm camera . . .



Actually, it is a close contemporary to your slot car, new circa 1967. Mine, 1969.

[TSR]

and my first 8-track tape. And it STILL WORKS GREAT!!!!!

Hey Jairus, who are the girls on that tape? :mrgreen:

[Jairus]

That's it, Dokk!
I'm looking for her picture . . . ah, tomorrow.
Too tired tonight . . .

[Ron Hershman]

Gotta love the 8-track . . . the best part of 8-tracks where when you were in a middle of a song and it switched channels. :snooty:

[Pappy]

I use to love 8-tracks, I hated cassettes.

[Tex]

Compared to 8-tracks, cassettes seemed so small and almost "delicate" when they came out; we couldn't believe they would hold up to the rigors of beer drinkin', hard rockin' teenagers slammin' them into the player. An 8-track had some heft to it.

[TSR]

Mine was an ugly Scalextric tinplate Maserati . . . what a pile of junk that car was! :|

[GT40]

Jairus,

In the mid 1960s, my dad bought a couple of cheap cars and a Cox controller and we ran the wheels off them. Finally in 1968 or '69, we built a car using a Dynamic sidewinder chassis with outriggers and a McLaren body that we painted purple, for some odd reason.

But the first slot car that was all my own I received for Christmas in 1969, like you. It was the "other" Group 12 car they had at our local track, the Riggen, with the flat brass pan chassis and drop arm, 26D motor, and (hah!) a Porsche 908 body! It was blue metalflake, and this, along with silver, are still my racing colors. I also got a red MRC Endura controller. It had the plug on it instead of alligator clips, and our local track had the jacks that would accept that. Geez, that was one of the best Christmases ever!

[Noose]

Memory is fuzzy but it had to be my Strombecker set I got in the early '60s. Then I recall a Revell Ferrari 250 GT. For some reason though, I think the first commercial track type of car I got was a Russkit Porsche Carrera.

[Jairus]

Was it like this, Steve? :roll:



The Endura controller also had a built-in light when the power was on. It glowed! Pretty cool, huh? 8)

[Big Durl]

My first slot car(s) came with a Revell home set. A white Corvette (#36) and a red Ferrari (#55). I tried to "soup up" the Ferrari with wider rear tires and ruined the car. :cry: That must have been around 1963.

My first "real" slot car, as I seem to never tire of telling people :roll: was a metallic gold Garvic Ocelot, chosen for no other reason than it had the coolest body (gimme a break, I was nine years old ). I tried "working" on that car, too, and screwed IT up. :cry:

And you wonder why I have other guys build my cars for me?

I've often thought about trying to find an Ocelot like that first car (maybe to help resolve some of my "issues"), but I figure I already spend enough dough on this hobby trying to recapture my youth. :mrgreen:

[GT40]

That's it! I loved that controller. It was sooo smooth, and really well built. Too bad that MRC didn't make a Russkit style controller.

I remember after I had my Riggen car for a while I wanted to "move up" to the Dynamic Group 12 car like yours. What happened instead was that I started building chassis. The first 3 or so were just awful. Then I saw a couple of articles on chassis building, and I looked at what some of the other guys were doing, and I came up with a decent anglewinder plumber chassis. So I never ended up with the Dynamic Group 12 car, but I knew a lot of guys that had those.

[gascarnut]

Christmas, 1963 - a VIP 1/32 home race set with the red and green Lotus F1 cars. Ran great, until I tried to oil them and found out that oil on a commutator is not good!

My first non-set car was a 1/32 Monogram Ford GT40 - I saved for most of 1964 to have enough to buy that, wish I still had it 'cos I can't afford one now! Between my brother, my dad, and I, we had most of the Monogram Series 1 cars and two of the Series 2 cars. Never did get a Lola T70, though. By then I was scratchbuilding and the rest is history . . .

[Uncle Fred]

Aurora HO vibrator set, then graduated to a 1/32 Strombecker set. Once I started running at Polk's I bought a 1/32 Revell Jag XKE with Gar-Vic sponge tires.

[Larry LS]

My first cars, which are all long gone, were scratchbuilt. I found a small track and store in a mall nearby the community college I was going to in Oct., 1963. There were no ready-to-runs to be had. They had the materials to build cars and would do it for you if you could not.

I could solder as I learned how in a 1955 high school shop, building a brass HO scale train locomotive I wanted as a project. And later as a tool and die maker apprentice.

So I built a Porsche 904 vac body car first with brass tubing and bought everything but the motors from the shop. I had it running for the next week's races there. Then I built a Lola GT coupe body car with my own HO train motors I had. One was a Pittman DC60 and the other was a Bonner motor I had. I ran them for some time before going to Pittman DC65s, 706s, etc.
.
My first RTR car was a Classis Asp for a local track class series they started with them. Then a Monogram Midget for another class. After that RTRs were few and far between and gotten rid of soon after finding out what junk they were compared to building your own.

[Jairus]

Thus far I have seen no slot cars posted . . . so, since I cannot find the picture of my first girlfriend, here are a couple of CarToons mag's that featured slotcars on the cover.





I have been collecting these since 1969 along with Hot Rod Cartoons, CycleToons, SurfToons, and SkiToons.

[CruzinBob]

Jairus,

Those CarToons are most memorable for me. Had every issue way back then . . .

Nuther No Photo Show . . . First commercial car was the Manta Ray, orange. '63?! Had an HO set before that, maybe an Aurora?

[idare2bdul]

A black Strombecker Testa Rossa.

[TSR]

What? No black helicopter included?