76 replies to this topic

[Vay Jonynas]

It had the Cox cachet...

 

I don't get it. Why the cachet surrounding Cox?

 

The kits I've seen came in a relatively unattractive semi-generic box with a tick mark on the side for identification purposes. The cars themselves were molded of styrene plastic that was not up to the quality of that used by Monogram or AMT. Moreover, they were too flat to be entirely up to scale and did not even mate up to the chassis very well.

Why then are Cox kits so prized by collectors in comparison with Monogram, AMT, and K&B/Aurora kits?

[Prof. Fate]

Hi

I think it is driven by rose-colored memories. My experience was I build. Never raced in a venue where the kit car was competitive unless the kit car was REQUIRED as the only legal car.

However, what I have observed through the collectors I know, is that in the '60s there were a lot of kids who read the magazines or LOOKED thorugh the glass in wonderment whose mom said "NO" a lot. And vowed that when they were adults they would BUY that car that mommy said they couldn't have!

They would buy ALL the cars.

For a number of years, among the collectors, I got a lot of grief about this. Kits weren't the focus for me. My first commercial track kit was a PRIZE in a race (a Monogram Ferrari 275P).

So, for years, I disparaged the love of Cox and had a straight challenge at the annual convention: "I will bring an AMT (a pretty decent kit car), and challenge you to bring your BEST Cox." I kept being told, "You have no idea how good they really were". Never lost.

And you guys know it wasn't my driving!

Fate

[Vay Jonynas]

I kept being told "you have no idea how good they really were".

 

So Cox cars are very eagerly collected because they have a rep for being fast relative to other makes of the time?

But they look so shabby!

[Hworth08]

Fate summed it up pretty well. My first commercial track car was a Cox GT40. A truely rotten car, even after removing the windows and interior! The rubber tires were terrible, the drop arm arrangement was ill-designed, and the frame was brittle. However one of the first cars I bought in my return to slots was a Cox sidewinder!

In the old days the Cox cars were sure good for Dynamic's business! My first win was with the leftover GT40 parts in a Dynamic frame with a Sportsman/Super Modified (Du-Bro?) body. Kept some of that car in my box until I quit the first time and now I have another one to repersent that car.

Can't remember to pick up a jug of milk but remember slot cars from 42 years ago! That's why Cox cars are highly prized.

[GT40]

What about that super-cool Cox Chapparal with the working wing?

Actually, as I recall, the Cucaracha was a pretty good car for an RTR at the time.

And who didn't use Cox spur or crown gears at some point?

Suggest you check out the section on Cox in Phillippe's book on Vintage Slot Cars.

[TSR]

The kits I've seen came in a relatively unattractive semi-generic box with a tick mark on the side for identification purposes.

 

With all due respect, nothing could be further from the truth. What you are describing simply did not exist. The Cox kits and RTR cars had the most attractive packaging of almost ANY slot car companies in the 1960s. Each kit or RTR, except for the "IFC" series in their red boxes, had individual graphics. I cannot even think of ONE company that had better graphics and display value. If you compare them to any other, only the K&B "Series 2" kits have nearly as much "flavor", but their features were nowhere near as good.

 

Regarding the plastic used to mold the Cox models vs Monogram, K&B, Revell, Tamiya etc., you appear to think that there was a difference. There was none. ALL these slot cars were molded of the same Monsanto vinyl-filled ("hi-impact") polystyrene. The only company that used a different plastic was MPC that used "Cycolac", a mix that contained styrene and ABS.

 

While technology was in its infancy, there is little evidence that Monogram or Revell or any other cars handled any better than the Cox models. Indeed by the time AMT and Monogram issued their "Series 2" offerings with brass-pan chassis and drop arms, Cox had issued their IFC chassis and those smoked the rest.

Now why is the Cox name revered above all others today? Simply because the inherent quality of the product is recognized by the serious collectors worldwide, hence the demand is high vs the supply.

My friend Rocky can argue all day about the qualities of the AMT brass pan and he is correct, but AMT packaging was rather crummy compared to their competition, and compared to the beautifully-proportioned Cox bodies, the 1/25 scale AMT paled.

[don.siegel]

Hi,

Since you quoted me in the first place, I guess I should take a crack at trying to answer, and the answer is.... got me!

I've often wondered about this myself, because I had two Cox cars in my youth, a Lotus 40 and a Cuc, and neither were great performers, and seemed not as good as some of the other kit cars. But they already had a reputation at the time as the "high end" in kits - just look at any of the period reviews, which were almost unanimously highly complimentary.

This started with the packaging: not sure which boxes you're referring to, but the Cox kits were beautifully packaged, great graphics, choice of cars, etc. (of course, this was true of most companies at the time). They were considered very "elegantly" engineered, and maybe this is the secret, because they really are very nice-looking cars, just mechanically speaking, and look like they should work better than they do... Not sure why there was such unanimous praise despite the evidence: I don't think they bribed all the writers, but the whole thing just seemed to be a very class outfit (their first cars were a buck or two more than the others, they used real magnesium, "tach-tested" motors, etc.), so the writers were unconsciously influenced, as were a lot of us kids, and even many responsible adults!

Since then, I think it's a self-fulfilling prophecy: everybody has to have a Cox! You may have noticed that on eBay a lot of sellers use the term "Cox" as a generic term for larger slot cars, so it has a snowball effect. Plus, they made a lot of parts, most with their name on them, so you see a motor or guide with the Cox label, and conclude it's a Cox car - even despite the name "Classic" written on a chassis for instance!

Let me use the analogy of Thingies and Pro Cars: ten years ago, very few people were looking for these. Then we started talking about them and singing their praises, and this seems to have spread to a larger, although still relatively limited group of buyers. I think the same thing happened with Cox, but stretching over some 30 or 40 years.

Philippe explains the Cox advantage over Monogram, probably their nearest competitor, as coming from putting in a full cockpit instead of just a flat one, but I'm not sure that it explains it all. Tamiya, perhaps the closest thing to a Cox phenomena, has phenominally ugly cockpits in many of their cars, with a big 36D motor bulge, and that hasn't kept them from becoming very desirable.

Anyway, hope this gives you a new perspective on Cox collectibility.

Don

[gascarnut]

From a primarily 1/32 scale perspective this is how i saw it at the time (mid 1960s):

1) Monogram and Revell had more choices of body styles than Cox, but quality-wise there was little to choose.

 

2) Cox had by far the best gears, guides, and wheels. No silly inserts to lose, the guides were deep and straight and worked on both commercial and home tracks, and their braids were better. The Monogram stamped gears would chew through a brass pinion in no time and the cast gears would take forever (and a lot of toothpaste) to break in, whereas the Cox gears were perfect fromt he start.

 

3) The Cox frames worked better than the Monogram Series 2 things with their wire droparms, and bent less than the Revell aluminum frames, and of course the Cox frames dod not lose nuts and screws like the Monogram/Revell/Atlas stuff did (Loctite, what was that in 1964 in South Africa?)

 

4) I never did like the "Coxalloy" bushings though. They worked OK for a while, but were more susceptible to dirt and wear than the oilites in the other cars.

 

5) Motors were on a par, especially once all the motors were the can drive style.

As far as 1/24 scale goes, where I raced (it was called Pix Raceways, in Johannesburg, South Africa) we only ever saw Cox RTRs and some Tamiya. For some reason the distributers for Monogram and Revell only dealt in their 1/32 range. So the Cox Chaparrals reigned supreme until we started scratchbuilding.

[Vay Jonynas]

Each kit or RTR, except for the "IFC" series in their red boxes....

...not sure which boxes you're referring to....

The basis for my opinion is precisely the IFC series Cox slot racer I assembled in the early seventies. It was cruddy in appearance compared to my 1/32 scale Monogram Ferrari 330 P/LM with the swing pickup arm. The Cox was misproportioned, strangely coloured and the chassis was affixed to the body with protrusions that stuck out through the body. Yuck! I sold it to Philippe a few years ago.

On the other hand, my Monogram Ferrari is still a joy to behold. I plan to pair it with a 1/32 Monogram Scarab for which I have all the loose parts. I need two of the little wheel knock-offs for my Ferrari though. I lost these racing in 1966.

Suggest you check out the section on Cox in Phillippe's book on Vintage Slot Cars.

I would but I've yet to unpack it since my move. I'm eagerly looking forward to his next book though. Perhaps he'll include a whole buch of pictures of M.I.B. kits and the advertising the companies released to promote these.

[Cheater]

Fox, your comments suggest pretty strongly that you're basing your opinion of Cox on a La Cucaracha, which is essentially a factory thingie and not at all illustrative of the earlier Cox mag-chassis cars. The earlier Cox cars are completely different animals indeed.

PdL, Don, and others know a whole lot more than I do about this era (I'm a lot younger than those geezers... LOL!) but I believe the Cuc was one of the latter Cox productions and that it represented a totally different direction for the company insofar as the type of cars they produced.

[Vay Jonynas]

I probably am generalizing on the basis of an unrepresentative sample but it was a red IFC Chaparral 2-D like these cars:

http://images.google...ttp...=off&sa=N

Attached Images

• 

[MG Brown]

I am by no means an expert in this topic but Cox cars may be more collectible NOW because of the fine job of marketing done THEN to the public at large, and non-slot specific gearheads in particular.

The association with Jim Hall probably paid much greater long-term image dividends than could have been imagined at the time.

 

 

 

Photos from Chaparral Gallery of the Permian Basin Petroleum Museum, Midland, TX

[slowjim]

Why Cox? Back in the day, there were a lot of us who didn't have the skills to build a car from a bunch of brass tubing.

 

Monogram and Revell may have had a wider assortment of cars, but Cox had all the "Wow" factors: Cool cars (GT40 and Chapparal), magnesium frames, and simply the best-looking wheels and tires.

 

Who has made better-looking Formula One cars than the Cox BRM and Ferrari 158? (Oversized tires aside.)

 

Way back, when 95% of us ran kit cars, Cox was the sh*t.

[Hworth08]

Hey, Cheater, don't include me with that bunch of old geezers, I don't turn 53 till November, three or four months YOUNGER than you! I fully understand your opinion of the others though??

The Cuk was a major advancement in performance for Cox! I bought a 2E hoping I could gain an advantage with the moveable wing. Didn't work so I bought a regular Cuk body, cut out the "panel" over the motor that rubbed the can, cut a hole through the body over the guide for a 6 gram weight, and trimmed the rear wheel wells, as the tires often rubbed.

On the chassis there was a peice of foam that was supposed to set front tire/frame height. Out that came to be replaced by various methods to allow positive adjustment as the Cuk really needed the front tires to handle well. The roller bearings were replaced with Dynamic bushings and the rear axle received for pieces of brass tubing to keep the axle up-rights from bending. Usually a little lead around the front and outter edges of the pan.

Overall the Cuk wasn't much of a car compared to a scratchbuilt-chassised car. Against other RTR cars the Cuk was probably the best overall, a pretty fair balance between power and handling. All the regular racers had a Cuk and our track held Cuk-only races at odd times when enought people were around and business slow. I remember these being a lot of fun and that they required some good driving; if you really pushed the Cuks they weren't very predictable!

[milmilhas]

I'm very sad because my English isn't good to tell my feelings about some opinions I read in this subject and I also can't post photos from some Cox cars and other stuff I have in my collection.

 

They're incredible.

[endbelldrive]

Why then are Cox kits so prized by collectors in comparison with Monogram, AMT, and K&B/Aurora kits?

It's the collector's mentality. They're not you and you're not them... for better or worse.

They perceive them to be rare and collectible. Monogram, AMT, etc... less so.

[idare2bdul]

My friend Rocky can argue all day about the qualities of the AMT brass pan and he is correct, but AMT packaging was rather crummy compared to their competition, and compared to the beautifully-proportioned Cox bodies, the 1/25 scale AMT paled.

If I ever decide to race the box I'll keep this in mind.

There are racers and there are collectors. It's easy to forget that the majority of races in the 1960s were guys renting time telling each other to line them up for a five or ten lap race. If the track was filled, as it usually was, with RTRs you could have close competition. Even with my crummy building at the time, my homebuilts would eat the kit cars alive. As for Dynamic parts, while an improvement they weren't sturdy enough to survive my driving. You notice on eBay the ratio of surviving Dynamic rear sections to fronts?

I'm not knocking the collectors, there is a place for that and if you enjoy it you certainly don't need to justify it to me.

[don.siegel]

I'm very sad because my English isn't good to tell my feelings about some opinions I read in this subject and I also can't post photos from some Cox cars and other stuff I have in my collection.

Miguel, we'd love to hear your opinion and see any pictures - if you don't feel comfortable with the English (although it seems okay to me), feel free to send me a draft and I'll smooth it out - I can also post any pictures if you have some.

Don

[MG Brown]

This discussion reminds me of the vintage racing maxim:

"The older I get, the faster I was."

[Vay Jonynas]

There are racers and there are collectors.

I think a lot of us are both. I collect M.I.B. kits from the sixties. I have over twenty and I certainly wouldn't even consider building them. I would and have built vintage cars from loose parts but I just keep these as display models including the 1/32 scale Monogram Ferrari I built in 1966.

I still have a 1/24 scale Parma Maxwell House Taurus NASCAR stocker that I raced for a time in the nineties. I currently run a small stable of 1/32 scale Scalextric and Monogram cars both at a track and on a home layout.

[Prof. Fate]

Hi,

One of the ways P and I have been "dealing" over the years is this: if I find something MIB, I trade it to Philippe for a LOT of parts. My "collector" gene is just missing.

For various reasons, a lot of my cars from the day survive in one form or another. And my being involved in the collector market is driven by looking for spare parts! I probably have 300 old 1/24s sitting around needing this bit or that to resore them to the condition I used to race them in.

I HAVE aquired a few cars I didn't run, just to have them. A few K&Bs and the like. But they are runners. If you tortured me (and sometimes... never mind), I could not tell you what the box looked like. When P does a replica box, I nod wisely like I know, but I just do not remember the boxes.

I have never owned a Cox, just beaten them.

A friend of mine in Baltimore keeps threatening to give me a beater Chappy. Oh, well.

Most of the tracks where I raced at didn't allow the Cuc at all! While the rules were few, all of them did have clearence and tire size rules, none of them allowed 3/4" tires! Some of the tracks would have "thingie" races specifically for thingies, but otherwise, the Cuc was for kids. AND, well, here is the big problem. The kids with their 5 lap grudge matches (OK, I was a kid, but always a "pro" and not allowed in the kid races) were wreckfests. Aluminum frames DIED. Sigh.

The first time I got away with "bending the rules" was back THEN. My racing, pre-commercial track, was "midwest". That is, people like Pete Hagenbach were pen pals (remember THAT?). So, my cars all looked "midwest". It was very cool having these guys like Dick Dobson, Pete, and Gene Wallingford (well, and including Jim Russel), spend the time to write, send photos, and HELP. It was neat. Anyway, when I got the Monogram, initially, I just built a bigger midwest style pan under the car and tried to run it in a "stock class". That was too much for the director. So, I went home, took the stock Mono frame, Soldered it up solid, and hung a big brass pan UNDER it. I called it "weight". The local tracks in North Carolina allowed it and I had a good time against the other "kids" in the "kit and RTR" class until the protests mounted up.

I had been doing a similar thing with the Revell and Mono 1/32s in the on base club since '63, so it wasn't a stretch. I still have the remains of those cars.

A long way of saying, I never ran the Monogram and Revell cars out of the box as designed either! But I did get to run them with added "weight"... grin.

Fate

[milmilhas]

In 1965 there was in Lisbon a great slot car competition in 1/32 scale. It was a 24-hour race and winner was a Cox Ford GT (the other competitors had Monogram cars, Revell cars, etc.).

In 1966 there as a competition in 1/24 scale "Grande Prémio BP" (this competition was very important because was sponsored by BP) and the 1st place was a Cox Lotus 40, 2nd place a Lola GT by Champion, 3rd place a Cox Chaparral (this car is in my collection).

American slot cars came to Portugal in 1964 and all the manufacturers distributed.

 

I have too the information that in 1967 the lap record for manufacturer's cars in one of principal tracks in Lisbon was a Cox Chaparral 2D (the chassis had some modification such as ball bearings) and ran against Champion cars (clear bodies) Russkit, Monogram, etc...

[TSR]

...nor did the chassis that were spur-gear driven (too much wheel-spin in the turns).

Really????

As far as for my good collector friend Vay Jonynas, I offer these as evidence and rest my case:

















Please note that in many cases, other companies COPIED Cox's box graphics and not the opposite. Strombecker and most Japanese companies copied both Cox and Monogram's box art.

 

Cox slot cars were also some of the VERY FEW that actually worked with no modifications, alterations, grinding, or filing of any kind straight out of the box, and there was no need to replace ANY parts to make them work. Try that on a Monogram, Revell, or Strombecker or any other, and see how long they last before something falls off or the gears chew each other.

 

Indeed, some slot cars out-performed the Cox models, but today, virtually ALL Cox cars found, even if in miserable body shape, WILL work immediately on track. Quite an accomplishment in reliability I'd say.