7 replies to this topic

[don.siegel]

Here are a couple interesting paper items I picked up recently. First is an ad for Flying Eight Raceways by International Manufacturing, Inc. of Eudora, Kansas - from Cash Box magazine, dated August 14, 1965. That was a publication for coin operated vending machines. Looks well done, but I've never seen mention of this anywhere else. Don't know how the $595 list price compares to competitors. And no details on cars, but controllers look like Russkits. 

 

 

Now here's an odd one, from something called Incentive magazine, dated September 1965. This is described as a publication for "premiums", so I assume Strombecker sets were offered as premiums by the manufacturers cited, starting with Quaker Oats. In fact, I seem to remember Willard Battery offering the Strombecker Indy roadster without a motor... Strombecker probably did more advertising than any other manufacturer, except Aurora... 

 

[Bill from NH]

I hadn't seen either before Don. That Flying Eight Raceways might have been a bigger seller as a stand-alone item if they used HO cars & track. The track shown in the photo might have been 1/32. As is, it could have appealed to pinball parlors as an alternative. Did people have game rooms back then? I was one of six kids who grew up in a small house. My game room was any place outdoors I decided to go.

[MSwiss]

Very cool.

 

I use to pass the Strombecker factory everyday, on the bus, going to high school.

 

Really not too much to see.

 

I seem to remember it was pretty big, and a nice building.

[Paul Menkens]

That "Flying Eight Raceway" looks cool but was it a T-Slot set up or did the cars come out of the slots when they were run too fast? If it was a T-slot then there's no skill involved, just squeeze the controller and watch em go, on the other hand, if it's a conventional slot track, then I can't imagine that their claim of "minimum service" could have been truthful, all slot cars need service, not anticipating this drove at least one model train company, Pennline, into bankruptcy when they gave their slot cars the same lifetime warranty that they did their model trains.

They claim to make "internationally known" raceways, but were they a maker of commercial tracks or small ones like this? I guess we'll never know since they seem to have disapeared without a trace.

All told though, it looks like a cool little track, I wouldn't mind having one in my living room. (I'd love to have one of the little figure 8 T-Slot tracks built in pin ball cabinets that they used to have at the arcades)

[don.siegel]

That's a very good point Paul - but they don't give many technical details, and I haven't seen anything else on these tracks. The ad uses a photo, not an illustration, so we have to assume they built at least one! From what little we can see of the cars, they look like generic Revell or Monogram models. However, it looks like the track is small enough that drivers could reslot their cars - but again, like you say, that would be a recipe for disaster maintenance wise. At least one of those arcade games used Strombecker cars, and I have a pair of them. (thanks for that info about Pennline, hadn't heard that - just that Gilbert almost went bankrupt because of returns on their 007 set!)

 

There was a big maker of commercial tracks called International, but they were in California, so seems to eliminate that possibility.

 

Mike, didn't you ever try to stop off at the factory and check out their garbage bins? It was on the West side if I remember right, but weren't they also in Moline at some point, or in Skokie now that I think of it?  

 

Thanks for the laugh Bill, and a reminder of our misspent youth... We had basement for only two brothers, where I spent a lot of time puttering, but we were also outside a lot: baseball in the summer, football and burning leaves in the fall, drinking hot chocolate in the winter... 

 

Don

[Paul Menkens]

 This is from a site giving the history of Pennline:

 "The racing cars were only sold in 1962 and part of 1963.  I once talked to a Penn Line worker of that era about the problem. He said that at Penn Line "it just rained racing cars being returned for repair at Penn Line's expense."  They just could not handle the expense of the repairs or do a redesign quickly enough.  33 years later Linwood Stauffer commented in the Boyertown Times on November 30, 1995. He said "They tried to get into what they call the slot racing cars, and we didn't know what we were doing and bought some motors that were no good from Japan. It just put us into bankruptcy.  We were good technicians, but we weren't good business people. None of us actually had a business background, but of course you learn after awhile."

 

Here's where I got the story of Pennline if you want to read the whole history of the company, I have several old Pennline locomotives and if I could find any I'd love to get hold of a couple of the "A.J. Foyt" race cars

 

https://www.hoseeker...tory/wash2.html

 

thanks for that info about Pennline, hadn't heard that - just that Gilbert almost went bankrupt because of returns on their 007 set!)

 

 

[don.siegel]

The Pennline roadsters are very well done, but they chose a rather unusual scale, so maybe they were rather naive as you point out. Thanks for sharing that story too. 

 

Don 

 

 

 

 

[MSwiss]

Mike, didn't you ever try to stop off at the factory and check out their garbage bins? It was on the West side if I remember right.

Interesting story on Pennline.

 

As far the garbage bins, probably the only thing that might of interested me would of been Hemi 300's.
 
Yes, it's on West side.
 
From 69-73, it was in sort of a buffer zone from a real dangerous neighborhood, to one that was just starting to get dangerous.
 
It might of already referenced Tootsie Toy back then.
 
From the current pic below, it's just as I remember it.
 
One of my regular customers who leaves his boxes here, and hangs out 2-4 days a week, is a CTA mechanic who says he works at Pulaski and Lake, about a half mile away.
 
But it looks from the map, he might work right behind Strombecker.
 
When he comes in today, I'll show him the pic and quiz him if there is still activity.

 

Interesting info below, including a reference to the less than awesome neighborhood it is in.

 

Probably not new for a slot car historian, like yourself.