11 replies to this topic

[Cheater]

Here's a great picture set of a fairly rare controller; I certainly don't recall ever seeing one either for sale or in use back in the '60s.

I believe this NOS controller belongs to Allan Feldman in the UK and that he took the pics. I snagged them from a Facebook post made by Steve Kempson and secured his permission to re-post them here.

You have to give Classis kudos for thinking outside the box, but the design was obviously a bust. I vaguely remember somone posts a while back that the heat generated caused the sliding wire to bind.

Anyone have an experience with this controller in the past?

[John Streisguth]

I had one back in the day. Nice concept, but the cable system had way too much friction, so it was slow responding and was prone to "stick." Plus the cable was unweildy to put into your slot box.  

I had an MRC variable ohmage controller that was light years better, then of course I got a Russkit, followed by a Gorski.

[Steve Deiters]

While I had seen the Classic controller at the time I don't recall ever seeing anyone use one. Interesting concept though.
 
The MRC controller in several iterations over the long haul was probably the best selling "plunger" style controller. Maybe even surpassing the Cox controller because it was around for many years and the Cox controller "window" was relatively brief.

[zipper]

An older slot racer, retired in late '60s, brought one to our club about '72. I tried it. Nice looks, "brilliant idea" but what a piece of crap,  the friction was horrible and totally intolerable.

We did use the MRC's too, the first thing was to disable the overload protection.  And MRRC controllers tended to melt into our hands but they were the first ones we saw to have micro switches, I still have one NIB.

Was really happy when Russkit/Parma appeared.

[garyvmachines]

I wonder how much that thing cost... Too much for my lunch money budget...

[Jay Guard]

I saw one of these for sale on eBay not too long ago.  Seems like the asking price was pretty low, like $40 or so.

[Cheater]

Look closer, Gary... there's a price tag shown in the third pic - $20.00.

Which was a lot of money in the day... I seem to recall the Cukras Mura motor was $24.95 and that was unreachable for most of us in 1966 or '67. Heck, $5.95 for a K&B kit was a lot for me back then.

[MSwiss]

I think that $20.00 might be a later resale price.

In the top pic, there is a 5800-1295 which probably means it was stock #5800 and $12.95 retail.

[John Streisguth]

That $20 price tag is probably why it's mint in box now LOL.

[Cheater]

Spent a few minutes perusing the slot mags at Model Encyclopedia to see if I could locate an ad with pricing, but no luck. Maybe Don Siegel can come up with something, if he sees this thread.

[don.siegel]

Pretty sure I've seen an ad for this, but can't seem to find it for now. There 's an article on the controller in the March '67 issue of Model Car and Racing. There's ads/articles on two Classic cars in this issue, along with the Cox Mark 7 variable controller and a bunch of other stuff. Will post later. 

 

I don't remember ever seeing or hearing about this controller either, and I worked at a hobby shop in '67-68... seem to remember it had some production problems too, announced about that time. And I think we've discussed it here before, haven't looked back yet. 

 

Don 

[don.siegel]

Here's the article from Model Car & Racing, March '67. Still haven't found the ad, if there really was one! 

 

Don