33 replies to this topic

[dc-65x]

Rodney has this:



It a commercially built chassis with a brass like plating…very Champion like:



It has the Champion style 45 degree bends of the main rails where they meet the axle tubes:



Champion style guide flag bushing and drop arm:



The rear of the drop arm has the Champion style 90 degree bends up to the pivot tube:



It also has this 1/4” wide brass strip I’ve seen on other Champion chassis but with “floppy” body mounts:



It was purported to be a Champion chassis but we haven’t seen any magazine ads for it.

Have any of you guys seen this chassis before?

[Old pink can guy]

Not me! Pretty sweet-lookin'. Just when you think you have seen it all.

[TSR]

It is a Cobra also marketed by Phaze III.

Howie used a modified one in a NAMRA race in 1968.

[dc-65x]

Hi Philippe,

Are there any pictures of Howie's car somewhere?

[dc-65x]

Geez, I'm bumping this again. The Phase III door stop I identified on the first reply gets 17 more and this gets.......sorry.

Is that all there is out there? More help please?

[Bill from NH]

Rick, I've not seen this particular chassis before, but the similar design Cobras I've seen weren't plated, had all 90 degree bends on the mainrails, and had solid drop arms & pans. Let's see what documentation PDL comes up with.

[Hworth08]

Maybe Cobra hired one of the Champion builders to build some chassis for them. The frame isn't very Cobra-looking.

I think the plating is cadium chromate if the spelling is correct. One of the "less wearing" and cheaper platings but it does reflect a lot of colors and is pleasing to the eye.

[TSR]

Hi Philippe,

Are there any pictures of Howie's car somewhere?

We have the remains of his chassis at the LASCM as well as the remains of the Ferrari body. It is missing its motor bracket.... This as well as all others, were Japanese built, most by AYK. I checked my files and do not have a picture of it at this time, so I will need to do this ASAP. He was using it under a Ferrari P4 body that he ran in a NAMRA race. I am not sure if there is a picture of it in the old mags.
The chassis shown above is quite scarce as it uses floppy mounts on an inline configuration and must have been on the market for an awfully short time as the design was invented in late 1967, then there was a 90-day time before production was initiated, then the angle-winder made this totally obsolete.
I think that that Phaze III chassis was inspired by a similar design built by Mike Steube that is at the LASCM because it looks so similar.

Maybe Cobra hired one of the Champion builders to build some chassis for them.

Don, unlikely as these companies all had one person doing such a job, and get used to the fact that over 80% of any "American" slot cars, chassis and motors sold first by the large companies such as Revell, Monogram, K&B, Cox... then by Champion and other small companies (at the exception of Dynamic and Riggen for the most part), had most of their components made in either Hong Kong or Japan. This is the case for ALL the Champion, some of the Riggen, Mura, Phaze III, Cobra, Ferret etc. chassis that for the most part were made by Aoyagi in Japan. The basic designs of the Champion chassis were of course derived from stuff that the team was using, either Cozine or other team members, then re-engineered for production with simpler features. The same happened for the other companies, but also much of the engineering eventually was done by the AYK Aoyagi people.
Most of these chassis were nickel plated with "gold-tone" nickel as well as silver colored nickel (and never chrome plated) because by 1969, the use of cadmium plating was no longer allowed for anything that had to do with toys, and these imported products were classified as such.

[Howie Ursaner]

I never ran anything from Phase III. This was Roy Crawley's company and Wayne Williams ran his stuff.What this car is is a copy of the car i won the Arco Nats with.After i gave them an *** whipping with this car it's no wonder they copied it.I did not know they did this.Here is a pic of my original.

[endbelldrive]

Hey Howie, that floppy inline with the brass strip is the coolest of the cool. Anybody out there going to repop that Dynamic Chappy Coupe in the picture? It's ugly but I like it.

[TSR]

Howie,
The car we got from you is a modified Cobra/Phaze III chassis. I though it was a hand built job until we compared it to a stock production chassis that had been rebuilt and modified.

[Howie Ursaner]

Howie,
The car we got from you is a modified Cobra/Phaze III chassis. I though ti was a hand built job until we compared it to a stock production chassis that had been rebuilt and modified.

Are you referring to the rear end only car that is a 26d F1 car that i built.I don't know which other car you are referring to.

[Howie Ursaner]

Philippe, I just remembered that you have an inline jaildoor style chassis i built that was my "thingie" that i played with with no ground clearance and very small tires.I built it to see how fast i could get it to go.Phase III and Cobra copied all my stuff and i can tell you that you did not get anything from me that was not built by me in my house.Is this the chassis you say was production?

[Old pink can guy]

so the question remains who built the car Rodney has?

[Howie Ursaner]

so the question remains who built the car Rodney has?

It is probably a Cobra copy of my car since they paid me lots of money to do this.

[TSR]

Philippe, I just remembered that you have an inline jaildoor style chassis i built that was my "thingie" that i played with with no ground clearance and very small tires.I built it to see how fast I could get it to go.Phase III and Cobra copied all my stuff and i can tell you that you did not get anything from me that was not built by me in my house.Is this the chassis you say was production?

Howie,
probably not the same, this is another car. I will take pictures and show you next time I go to the LASCM.

I never ran anything from Phase III.

Howie, both companies were one and the same...

[Howie Ursaner]

Howie,
probably not the same, this is another car. I will take pictures and show you next time I go to the LASCM.


Howie, both companies were one and the same...

They were not one and the same when I was with them up to 1970.
I don't know what happened after I left, but I worked for only Stanley and Lou.

You can look at my contract and see that.

Evidently after I left, they got together.

[dc-65x]

I never ran anything from Phase III. This was Roy Crawley's company and Wayne Williams ran his stuff. What this car is a copy of the car I won the Arco Nats with. After I gave them an *** whipping with this car it's no wonder they copied it. I did not know they did this. Here is a pic of my original.

Thank you for the discussion and information everyone. I think we have a pretty rare chassis here. My guesses about this chassis are:

It's not a Champion branded chassis.

It was made by the same manufacturer that made Champion chassis.

Who this manufacturer was, well I'm not in a position to know. What I do know is that the construction style of Champion branded "jail door" chassis and Cobra/Phase III branded chassis are VERY different to my eyes.

It could very well be a Cobra brand chassis inspired by Howie's kick butt car pictured above. If it is it is the best made Cobra branded chassis ever.

Lastly, Howie, one thing I know for sure......I'VE GOT TO BUILD A REPLICA OF YOUR AWSOME CHAPPY COUPE!

[Howie Ursaner]

I also ran this car at the Arco Nats as a sports car on the last day and was TQ with a lap record.Qualifying was done 1 minute with the total laps. The car would have easily won that race except for the famous story that some kid put my car on the track and destroyed the car before i got to the drivers panel for the race.Champion race, Champion track, Get Howie's car out of race!!I'm still mad.

[Gator Bob]

These inlines are...well... Just Wonderful.


When did the Champion inlines switch from the brass rod drop arms to the stamped brass?
If it has a solid drop arm is it still called a jail door?

Thanks,
Bob

[TSR]

It was made by the same manufacturer that made Champion chassis. Who this manufacturer was, well I'm not in a position to know.

Rick,
ALL those chassis (Champion, Riggen, Mura, Phaze III, Cobra...) as well as the British chassis by RIKO, BMW Models..., as well as some Spanish chassis by Segura, were produced by AYK/Aoyagi in Japan. AYK made them all. AYK also made chassis for their own Japanese consumption, here are three examples, one using the same parts as supplied on several of the Champion chassis:







These two are Spanish, but also produced by AYK:





Nothing too surprising here, because once someone begins looking at the American slot cars produced from 1965 through 1972, one find that nearly 80% of the parts were actually made in two places: Japan and Hong Kong...

If you look at Rodney's chassis, it does not have a Champion motor bracket but a Cobra/Phaze III unit, and its design is very similar to other Cobra/Phaze III chassis issued in 1968, after the angle-winder "revolution", making it rare because it was possibly not even issued for sale, and what Rodney has might be a sample obtained somehow though the Cobra/Phaze III people, possibly from a distributor...???
The LASCM has an almost identical example, but i need to take pictures of it.
AYK produced whatever designs were given to them by the various manufacturers, and like Igarashi for the motors, was secretive in communicating with each, so that Champion did not know what Cobra was doing and vice versa.
I had a heck of a time making some sense out of it, but eventually was helped by some of the older gentlemen that ran Aoyagi in the 1980s when they were deeply involved in R/C cars.

[tonyp]

25 years ago we used to oem hop up parts for Tamiya frogs and hornets from AYK.

[TSR]

Tony,
I think that Associated did the same...

In the picture # 3, you can see that the drop arm on the angle-winder chassis is the same as that on the later Champion chassis, except that they were nickel plated on the Champion chassis.

[Ron Hershman]

Aoyagi Metals Industry Co. Ltd (青柳金属工業有限会社, Aoyagi Kinzoku Kōgyō Yūgen-gaisha) (commonly known as Ayk in America and Aoyagi in Japan) was a Japanese company that became notable in the 1980s for its radio-controlled cars.

The company began in the 1960s manufacturing metal chassis for slotcar racing, but by 1979,with a new office they entered into the RC car business with the RX1200., a 1:12 scale on-road racer. The RX2000 took the JMRCA title in 1980, the first of three consecutive titles for the company.1984 JMRCA was won by Joel Johnson on his first trip to Japan with Trinity.

Conventional manufacturers mounted their differential gears between the right rear wheel and the motor compartment, but ayk placed theirs' within the axle. This centered the weight more proportionately and kept the differential gears protected.By 1984 they resorted to an outboard gear diff much like the current Delta of the time.

In 1982, the same year when ayk took its third consecutive 1:12 title (with the RX3000 EXL480), like other manufacturers, ayk broke into the 1:10 off-road buggy market with the innovative 566 B Super Trail. The buggy included aluminum chassis, enclosed transmission with all aluminum gears, and a waterproof radio case.

By the mid-'80s, Ayk abandoned the 1:10 2WD off-road to concentrate on the 4WD that many manufacturers were leaning toward.

After winning the JMRCA 1:12 on-road title with the Super Parsec, the company began its decline following its death of its president in 1989, made worse by the decline in the oversaturated buggy market (and the industry) and the rise of the buggy chassis based touring car market made popular by Tamiya. Many companies either jumped on the bandwagon or abandoned the market (like Tokyo Marui and Hirobo did) in order to survive, but those who didn't soon went out of business as that was what became of Ayk.

http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Ayk_Racing

[TSR]

Yes, that's what it says on Wiki...
AYK people were present at several hobby shows in the 1970s, and when Cox began making new slot cars in the early 1970s we were contacted by them as they were looking for new business. But Cox was tied with the Wai ShinTing outfit in Hong Kong (called "Cox International"), so nothing happened between the two companies.