13 replies to this topic

[raisin27]

​My first exposure to slot cars, a MARX racing set. Christmas 1965. Little did my parents know what they had started!!

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[SpeedyNH]

cool. my equivalent was Lionel trains, a decade earlier. aurora vibrators came later.

[Jay Guard]

I had pretty much the same experience on Christmas Day 1964(?), only it was with an Aurora T-Jet set.  I raced the T-Jets for two years until a friend showed up one day with a 1/24 car (might have been a Classic Manta Ray) and I was HOOKED!!  Raced 1/24th until all the tracks closed in 1968-1969.  Found 1/24 slots again when living in Fresno, CA in 1996.  Been racing them ever since.

[slotcarone]

My start was about 1961 I got a Remco Shark racer but it soon broke. We returned and got another one but it broke too. Went back to the store and picked out one of the first Aurora vibrator sets with just a rectangle of track. Hooked!!

[SpeedyNH]

good stuff

[Kim Lander]

I also started with a set from Marx, I was ten years old in 1962, later about year and a half a comercial track opened in town and that was it, I was hooked for good.

[havlicek]

I guess the "motorized toys" thing started for me with Lionel trains (*like Steve Lang).  Later we got smaller (HO?) trains and had a nice layout from what I can remember, but fiddling with stuff was always interesting for me.  My older brother had a Gilbert Chemistry Set, which I had lots of fun with.  My other brother got an Erector Set that I believe also had some motorized thing, but also cranks and pulleys and whatnot.  Of course, my Dad's tool bench was a source of endless instruction and destruction when he wasn't looking...he was a very patient man.    Slot cars was something I "discovered" on my own, and it had everything rolled up into one...motors, chemicals (oils, tire goop, epoxy), paint, sleek bodies (*the Harvey Aluminum Special was a fave), speed...and the exotic smells of the inside of a commercial track.  I was hooked!

[mark1]

Good stuff, Raisin.I got a slot car set right about that time myself.(Nice TV set, by the way)  20 years later-- group 15 at the joy 500 and SRS!

[1A Racing]

I had played with my best friend's HO stuff before when I was in Elementary school in the early seventies. I was with my Mother one Summer afternoon and we stopped at a yard sale. They had a small Aurora set for sale to which my Mom said "NO". I had to have my own set and a good old fashioned tantrum ensued. My Mother didn't budge(she was witness to this extortion before), but the lady having the yard sale was impressed enough that she gave me the set, saying "take it, I don't even know if it works."

[Ecurie Martini]

On the floor of my NYC apartment, 1958

 

 

3 years later:

 

 

EM

[MattD]

Alan, it seems like back in the days of VSRN you had some pix of your slot cars in a display case from back around 60.   Do you have those pix still or is my old memory wrong again?

[Ecurie Martini]

I have a few:

 

 

 

 

 

A narrative of the early days is here:

 

http://www.ecuriemartini.com/

 

EM

[SpeedyNH]

EM,

that's an amazing history. thanks!

Speedy

[orangecrate]

I went to Polk's hobby shop in new york city and saw the track and the cars, that was in 1963 and bought my first car a revell lotus and from that day I was hooked. I still have my original cars on display and still do it today.