fccool59
|
|
« Reply #6 on: January 11, 2004, 01:49:21 PM » |
0
|
Hey Alex, Do you think the geeky designers at Tomica would have imagined their car ending up like that. Have you ever considered HO scale slot cars, you can race them at home and spend over a hundred bucks on go fast hop up parts, software is available freeware on the net to set up a track computer using a cheap old obsulete PC that has windows 95 or higher on it, this will give you a simular set up to what you get at a commercial track but you race for free. You can even set up a drag strip using two sensors in the track and it will cost you under $20 to make the interface and sensor wich are ifra red and better than most commercial tracks that still run dead sections. for hopped up motors you will need to use aftermarket power supplies and some commercial track type controllers such as those made by parma that you buy at a track. Aroura AFX model motoring dates back to the late 50's and you can run the old 50's Aroura vibrator cars on the latest AFX track and vise versa. HO slot cars are making a big come back in the states and a majority of the fans are those who had sets in the sixties but now have the money to build their dream cars and tracks. Due to this, most racing is done with Aroura T-Jets wich were the Aroura cars used in the 60's, these things handle like crap and are quite slow but they usually are treated with hop up equiptment to improve these characteristics. With the popularity of the T-Jet cars NOS(New old stock) T-Jet stuff is coming from everywere including complete cars, And if you want to customise a car you dont have to hack up no origional 60's and 70's Antiques becuase companies like Johnny lightening are also in on the T-Jet thing and making reproductions of most models. Johnny Litenning also make these with a magnatraction replica chassis and a cheaper version is also avail on a pull back car chassis that you can clip onto your AFX Chassis. some body styles include a 57 chevy nomad, 41 Willy's gasser coupe (also available as a yellow MOON special), 54 corvette nomad, 57 corvette. 33 willys panel pan, Dodge little red wagon, 64 VW pick up, 59 el camino, 34 ford, and heaps more stuff like that, many are also available in candy chrome wich may be a bit had to customise, you can also add some aliminium racing mags or a set of standard t jet rims with skinny tyres that look like cross ply's, chrome steelies or painted steeliesor many of the various custom aftermarket rims on the market for these cars, silicone racing tyres, hi po traction magnets, independant rotating front axles and light weight lexan bodies are used to improve handling. The light weight clear lexan bodies were not around in the 60's but there are some pretty cool variations with these to such as a 49 ford leadsled, 50 buick leadsled, 55 chev nomad, 57 chev drag body,49 mercury, 40 ford woodie etc. I will have some of these lexan bodies for sale on my site in a week or two for about $4.50 each, they are some of the harder to get bodies and I have a feeling the merc body is no longer available. It would be good to see some old holden bodies but unfortunately HO scale has never been big here, however and as you probably know you can get a EH, FJ, HK, LX,HQ,VB,VL,VN all inthe larger scale that is commonly used here in Australia on commercial tracks. Although these cars are called HO they are actually a bit bigger, very close to the size of a hot wheels car, infact I have seen some cars using bits hacked of hotwheels cars and they seem to fit up well such as the engine from a metrorail. repro grills, bumpers, windows etc are also getting popular and sell for about $4.99 US a peice to HO slot car restorers. Just thought I might drop you the Idea, im gonna go cut some laps now with my chopped 2 door 57 chevy sedan in the back room. or should I do some work on my original 60's aroura 57 nomad, nah its time to hit the track with my Rod. see ya
|