13 replies to this topic

[Cheater]

Gets my vote...

 

[Dave Crevie]

Doesn't show if they are slot cars. If those are all die cast, it's a little less impressive, but a really cool collection nontheless.

 

I wish there had been more info on the models.

[Tim Wilkins]

Like the little guitar pick and nice-looking Can Ams but not quite good enough to make the DC-65X Diaries display case.

[Cheater]

Doesn't show if they are slot cars. If those are all die cast, it's a little less impressive, but a really cool collection non-the-less. I wish there had been more info on the models.

Dave,

These are indeed all slot cars and use one of those bolt-up chassis often seen in Europe and Germany.

Michael Niemas has several build videos, some short and some longer, on his YouTube channel. Here's one of them:



Obviously, these guys are into hyper detail but they do race the cars on a regular basis. Here's a video posted Feb 22, 2020.

 

[MattD]

There is somebody in Germany (I think) that has been making extremely expensive Can-Am slot cars and body kits. I've seen some video from a guy's collection in Oz and the cars he has look on par with these. They are not really built to race. More like fine scale models. I believe the price I heard was $400-$500 each. 

 

 Whatever, those are beautiful cars from an era that produced the most beautiful cars ever, in my opinion.   

[Cheater]

Two that I know of are Niemas Racecars and Fein-Design-Modell.

 

They are not really built to race. 

 

You might get different opinions about that from Howie and Fred Hood. Fred Hood's at the panel this final in Belgium in 2009 and Howie filmed it, as he didn't make the final. I believe these are similar super-detailed cars.

 

[Dave Crevie]

Greg,
 
Thanks for clearing that up. No reason why we can't have a hardbody sports car class in the Chi-town area. I used to run IMCA, and our
cars were never that detailed. In that video, none of the cars are stationary to get a good look.

[Cheater]

Maybe Howie will chime in; after all, he was there.

 

That race was in 2009 and the German super-scale guys have upped their game considerably since that time.

[Pablo]

Beautiful toys.  

[Jens Scale Racing]

Hi Gregory,
 
Thanks for posting the videos. The 3-minute one shows a race held in January on our Martinsthal clubtrack near Wiesbaden.
 
We got about 60 of these cars for that race and the worth, estimating 500 Euros per car minimum, would be a total amount of 30,000 Euros!
 
These cars are about 250 to 300 Euros, parts only. The highly-detailed ones and stunning builds of Michael Niemas and other top builders were sold up to 1,800 Euros.
 
By the way: on the blue King track the times are about 9 seconds/lap. With a small Fox 13D motor (23,000 RPM) and polyurethane tires...
 
And, yes, there is a producer, Karl-Heinz Hornberg, who loves Can-Am cars and is producing the best slot racing kits in the world under the label of "Fein Design."
 
Feel free to have a look here: http://fein-design-modell.de/
 
On my homepage you can find similar slot cars I've built since 1996: http://www.jens-slot...ahre/index.html
 
Regards!

[MattD]

Fein Design is what I had seen. I don't know if I would care to race anything that nice. Kind of the ultimate in detailed slot cars. Fantastic work. At 9 seconds a lap on a  King, they would be much safer than running 5 -6 second laps.

[strummer]

Absolutely stunning... but I'm not at all surprised.

 

When I was into HO scale trains, I had some Austrian and German stuff (just because it was different and kinda cool) so I became familiar with what our European counterparts were up to. The level of detail on their layouts was far superior (in my opinion) to what we were doing over here. It was generally accepted that this is because US modelers tend to have larger layouts, with more emphasis on 'operation': the Euro modeler typically has less room to fill, so they can detail the heck out of their displays... so I'm not too surprised that that love of intricate detail would carry into slot cars.

 

I could watch these videos for hours... and I probably will!  

 

Mark in Oregon

[Cheater]

Here's a video of Michael Niemas' build of the Shadow DN4.

 

[MattD]

That Shadow is an incredible build. 

 

I was interested in building one of these, but I think the body may have been out of production and a bare body sold on eBay for over $100, so I gave that up. Later a guy did a 3D body for me by upscaling a 1/32 program. It was kind of crude and took a lot of work, but I eventually smoothed it out and used it to make a mold. I ended up with a car that I am am not afraid to race and it fits in with junk level of my built-up race cars!!!