33 replies to this topic

[TSR]

My assumption was that they were old stock from CHAMPION.

While anything is possible, we do have some of those Champion packaged FT160D with... black end bells.

Oh, and some have a sticker on the side saying "made in Hong Kong"

Then the issue would easily be resolved, as Mabuchi never had any production or marketing facilities in Hong Kong. They would probably be copies by Johnson or another HK company of the FT160D, explaining the white end bell... do the end bells say "Mabuchi" on them?

I know you love these details, my friend, but I don't think on the scale of things that this is anything but an anomaly, like the stock 16ds in "Aristocraft" packages.

No anomaly there, Polk's was the official importer for Mabuchi KMK and Aristo-Craft is their brand...

[Steve Deiters]

Hard to believe when I wrote this review it was so flowery! I think most of it came from a Twinn-K press release. The photos in the article were not of a car right out of the box, but a pre-release version because I remember the braid having been used. I think Ken MacDowell took the pictures for me during one of my trips covering his races.
It does look as though it has a 36-D motor in it, but I believe when the production units came out they had that double shaft "ball bearing" 16-D motors. I use the quotation marks around the "ball bearings" because they used the shaft as the inner race for the bearing as I recall.
The car was developed by a Norwegian club racer by the name of Per Molander Ott and licensed to Maurice Winn of Twinn-K who manufactured it at his facility in Hong Kong. Pers' "real job" was a pilot for SAS flying 747's. I think his background as a club racer is the thing that drove him to come up with a universal chassis that could accept almost every can style motor that was available at the time. When I spoke to him on several occasions he wanted to focus on that capability. Let's just call it a European approach.
The car itself was very heavy and I mean very heavy with the brass chassis and the injecton molded bodies. It was under powered no matter what the motor format was and the standard acceptable can motors were high amp draws (relatively speaking) for the home racing sets that were in out there with their small transformers. At that time there was no one marketing a home racing set in the United States until Riggen did a couple of years later as I remember. The home sets in use were carryovers from the first wave of slot racing in the '60's.
One thing that kind of paralleled the introduction of this 1/32 universal chassis was the concept of Gr. 20, but then that is a whole other story!

Steve Deiters

[TSR]

Hard to believe when I wrote this review it was so flowery!

Steve, you were a young man, just like us, all too gullible!

It does look as though it has a 36-D motor in it, but I believe when the production units came out they had that double shaft "ball bearing" 16-D motors. I use the quotation marks around the "ball bearings" because they used the shaft as the inner race for the bearing as I recall.

Nah, I got some in the mail shortly after, and they had the fat pig in 'em.

The car was developed by a Norwegian club racer by the name of Per Molander Ott and licensed to Maurice Winn of Twinn-K who manufactured it at his facility in Hong Kong. Pers' "real job" was a pilot for SAS flying 747's. I think his background as a club racer is the thing that drove him to come up with a universal chassis that could accept almost every can style motor that was available at the time. When I spoke to him on several occasions he wanted to focus on that capability. Let's just call it a European approach.

Yeah, those Yurros again...

At that time there was no one marketing a home racing set in the United States until Riggen did a couple of years later as I remember.

Actually, Riggen had already issued their 1/32 -HO racing set using re-molded Revell track (1972). But they were sold rather confidentially.

One thing that kind of paralleled the introduction of this 1/32 universal chassis was the concept of Gr. 20, but then that is a whole other story!

But Group-20 was invented by the NCC in... 1969, and put to service in 1970... The first WinnWagen date from 1972...
Nice to have you here Steve, and I am still working on the pics you sent. I have been buried in work lately and in act, I need a vacation.
Coincidenza, I am going on one in a month, for... a month!

[Prof. Fate]

Hi

Nope, the endbells say "MABUCHI".

see what I mean. Mysteries abound.

Oh, and the tracks in my area got a lot of paperwork on the NCC stuff, and we actually voted in the classes and rules at the end of 68! One of those "I was there" things.

In our area, we had been doing a lot of racing based on Car Model class ideas incluiding the "Formula III" rules.

Fate

[don.siegel]

Rocky,
I have never seen an FT160D with the white end bell. Is it possible for you to shoot a pic and post it please?

Here you go, looks exactly like the one you posted earlier, except with the white endbell, and this one has sort of a "factory" looking label that says: FT-1600F-2085. As I said earlier, it seems to have Mabuchi, Patent Pending, Japan, and FT-16 embossed on the white endbell - but in really, really small letters! Bluish windings.

The other side is just like the one you show, and the can seems to have that goldish tinge that Rocky mentioned - does this look like the motors you have?

Hey, Steve, thanks for posting and sharing your memories! Just goes to show that it was a successful press release...
Don

[TSR]

Now I realize that have seen dozens of them. The beige end bell woke up my neurones.
Thing is, I have never seen one in an original, unmolested WinnWagon, but I have seen lots of them in the Mini Dream cars out of Italy...

[MarcusPHagen]

Thanks for posting the picture. If I'd seen one of those in an eBay listing, I'd have taken it for a mislabeled 26D.

[don.siegel]

Hmmm, judging by your comments, I have to work on my photography! Sorry about that...

I shot this late last night under desk lighting and didn't have access to Photoshop to correct. Anyway, the endbell is truly white, altho a bit dirty, and at the usual angle it definitely looks like a late model 16D, not a 26D...

As has been mentioned above, manufacturers just threw in whatever motors and other parts they could get their hands on, so that explains a lot of odd sightings (except for the 36Ds, since AJ's wasn't a distributor, and can't imagine why they'd have a stock of these on hand...). But the story about its Norwegian origins probably explains a lot of stuff - except that by the time commercial slot racing reached Europe, mid to late 1966, the 36D was already on its way out, and only the first kits imported would have had these motors...

Don

[Prof. Fate]

Hi

Ya, like that but white endbell. Never saw the sticker before. Also saw them in the "Group32" version and that abortion of a nylon anglewinder. And loose on cards from TwinnK.

Fate