To all my Readers of the male genus:
Tell me you wouldn’t want one of these set up in your spare room or basement:
…and I’ll call you a frigging liar.
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Comments are closed.
To all my Readers of the male genus:
Tell me you wouldn’t want one of these set up in your spare room or basement:
…and I’ll call you a frigging liar.
Comments are closed.
I had one of those at 13 so many years ago, and I sold Christmas cards door to door to get it. Slot car racing was a big deal for a few years in the late 60’s. You can still buy a scalectric set but sadly the really fast tracks at the local slot car emporium are long gone.
Now I have the modern version, a 6 degree of freedom Racing simulator with am iRaceing subscription. It’s not quite the real thing but it’s a lot closer than slot cars ever were. …..and not nearly as spendy because when you overdo a corner you just hit the reset button and run again.
It was model railways for me.
That’s pretty tiny compared to the layout I pieced together using my lawn cutting money. The neighborhood races were in my basement.
In the Sixties there was at least one FBM boat (in Squadron Eighteen) that had a pretty fair track running around the tubes in the missile box.
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In ’69, I wen tup to Milwaukee to visit an aunt and uncle. Uncle had an enthusiasm for buying gifts. He went nuts at it. They had a simple oval slot car setup in their basement. A former ping pong table with track, transformers, controllers, and a handful of cars. I was there for a week. We spent a LOT of time at a local hobby store. By the time I went home, there was a full-on Nurbergring [sic] down there. Miles of track. Dozens of cars. All manner of parts — special tires, specially wound motors, etc. — and stuff like tire treatment for better grip. The following summer a large box arrived UPS for me. That whole setup. Uncle had gotten bored with it and handed it down. It all got lost in a subsequent move.
Building a hot car was the best fun. If I remember right, Monogram and Revell made the coolest 1/32 bodies. Drilling the die cast chassis full of holes to save a gram of weight. The smell of ozone down in that basement…
Nah, had something similar when I was a kid but got bored with it quickly. Certainly would be double bored now.
Nah, not my cup of tea at all.
Growing up the neighbor kids had a set and we’d mess around with it a bit, but it never really was all that exciting for any of us, and it soon was relegated to the storage shelf. One of my uncles was only 9 years older than me and he had a truly massive set featuring the larger cars, I guess they’d be the equivalent of O gauge vs. HO in the model railroad world. Again, it was neat to look at but held no appeal to me.
Model trains, on the other hand………
Well, you’ve seen my man cave/work bench/reloading set up, so you know my answer. I’ll allow that there was a time as a young lad when I thought they were a lot fun, although I never had my own. In high school, I think a younger cousin had one. It was fun for about an hour. I had pretty much moved on by then.
Like others here, I am a train nut. Have had a couple of opportunities to spend hours playing with someone else’s set up. I’m talking full-on room sized, N scale, multi-track, multi-level, labor of love full scenery, including towns meticulously re-created from old photos. I was standing track side when Big Boy 4014 went through Mansfield.
Absolutely! I had one of the last setups before magnetic cars that stuck to the track. Go to fast on my rig, and you’re flying off the road! Actually took some skill to make it around the track. Shortly after, my bestie got one w/ the magnets. Trigger to the floor all the time, so the one fastest car ALWAYS won. Boring.
There was a time.
Now it would just be be a bitch to have to fetch the car when I rolled it on the far side of the track from me.
Building a hot car was the best fun. If I remember right, Monogram and Revell made the coolest 1/32 bodies. Drilling the die cast chassis full of holes to save a gram of weight. The smell of ozone down in that basement…
Wanted one as a child. Then I learned about model railways, and then model aircraft, and then real aircraft.
But we had neither the space nor money. And that never really changed. The room I’d thought to use for a model railway turned into a library and home office, the flying lessons had to be abandoned when I failed my aeronautical medical, etc. etc.
I wouldn’t want one in my basement…but only because it would take up valuable space that could be utilized by my Dream Model Railroad.