Home Racing World

I got hooked on slot racing in 1962 when I bought a "hopped up" Aurora vibrator car from a classmate to run at the big racing nights at the Model Motoring HO Hobby Haven track in Irving Texas. As many of you I graduated to Strombecker, Eldon,Revell, Monogram, etc. home racing in the early to mid-60s and to Russkit, scratch built cars at commercial tracks and left it behind when I went to college and the slot hobby declined.

I kept up with the latest trends then reading mainly "Model Cars and Track" produced on the west coast and an English slot car magazine that I cant recall, "Model Cars"??? I think my favorite was "Model Cars and Track", mainly for the innovative ideas they discussed, like wiring a track to independently run 2-4 cars per slot on DC power (not ac2car), two speed rear ends, and independent rear suspension, etc.

What was your favorite slot car magazine back then?

Model Car & Track was the best for me, but I also bought Car Model and Model Car Science every month. There were several short lived mags, and many "special editions" during that time. I found the entire run of MC&T a few years back on CD and it has been great going through them.

My first slot car set was a 1962 Stirling Moss Aurora T-Jet figure eight with a red Fairlane and a gray Falcon. Hooked for life.

Nod to Model Car & Track for me also.

Not to hijack your post, but if anyone is in the Michigan area and has a serious hankerin' for old paper I have a collection of approx 250 slot car and model car mags & catalogs from the "golden age" I'd be interested in selling.

Pretty much the same story for me as for any kids growing up in the early 60's. Battery powered Ungar (Eldon). AC Model motoring, DC MM, Strom 1/32 and commercial racing. I got a few mags back then but not very many. With my re-birth in 85 or so, I eventually got all the mags, catalogs and books from the 60's. The first mag was MC&T bought at a swap meet and it is always my favorite copy because of the neat cover.
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This is one of my favorites.
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I still have some CarToons. Two or three that survived the decades. I remember laughing out loud.

olskoolslotz:

Maybe the Los Angeles Slot Car Museum would be interested in acquiring those magazines for their collection and you could get a nice tax deduction. They pay the freight of course.

Btw, I read somewhere in a magazine recently that there was a new routed track system that allowed multiple cars to run the appropriate racing line in a single slot around a track for most of the time and then allowed the driver to choose another adjacent slot to pass a slower car in front then return to the racing line as needed. You might think that an expensive European digital, computerized BLST track system was being discussed?? Nope. It was an inexpensive diy routed track article described in a 55 y.o. magazine article I read just last night.

Now I have another bucket list project to do AFTER my 4'x12' trailerable 1/32 Artin 6 lane/2 cars per lane ac2car jalopy asphalt oval project for kid's parties: a routed banked Indy or Daytona speedway with an infield road track comprised of a two lane strating grid with 2-4 cars per slot transitioning to a single racing line and an adjacent passing lane lane here and there.

As a teenager, I subscribed to the British Model Cars magazine. I had every issue from the first in April of 1964 to the last in December of 1972. At some point I gave this collection away. Big mistake! This was the premier magazine for us in South Africa, as its focus was on 1/32 scale, which we raced almost exclusively.

Our High School library also had subscriptions to Model Car and Track (that later became Model Car Science) and Car Model from the US. As a library volunteer, I got first look at these every month and I devoured the content from cover to cover.

In recent years I have been trying to replicate my Model Cars collection, and have managed to find 97 of the 105 issues, plus electronic copies of 6 more.

If anyone has the following, please let me know:

March, April, June, August and December of 1965 - I have scans of these but would like originals.
July 1966 - I have a scan but want an original
April 1970 - either a scan or an original is needed
June 1972 - either a scan or an original is needed

Thanks!

Model Cars is a unique magazine for hobbyists. It is about the only consistent coverage of hobby stuff in the 50's. I think I have copies of the rail racing articles they ran, maybe some of the diesel stuff. This leads to the Model Aeruonautical Press. I guess they were the publishers. The released a very early book about Rail Racing that is great reading for slot car guys.

Dennis, I think Model Car Science existed before MC&T. MC&T was an off shoot and was absorbed into MCS when it shut down as it's own magazine.

I'm sure Scott has the full run of all model magazines and books and probably in mint condition. His needs are now pretty small and mostly he only wants mint stuff.

Honorable mention to Model Car Racing. This late magazine only printed 8 issues, but they had great cover art!

Model car and track for me also...

I loved reading the racer columns from different regions of the country.

QC

It´s possible to obtain pdf versions of this magazines?
How much it cost?

Thank you in advance

Model Cars from the English MAP publishers for me....similar to Dennis in that I read the thing from the first word to the last word.

They were always six weeks behind the publication dates as the magazines came to NZ via shipping ie on ships.

I have 17 copies with intact covers from the 66/67 period but nothing that matches the months you mention, Dennis.
These also had great cover art and framed they would look great on any wall but I am not into doing that to what I have.

^^^Good choices all^^^

I'd include the paper version of VSRN, Model Car and Racing, Car Model, and of course, although not a magazine, the venerable Auto World Catalogue...the '60's editions. Spent hundreds of hours pouring over each page of AW. Either Hot Rod or Rod and Custom magazines of the period devoted large portions of each edition to slot cars.

I believe at some point, as the 'golden era' wound down, Model Car and Racing and Model Car and Track merged.

magazine car model.jpgmagazine model car and racing.jpgmagazine auto world.jpg

MC&T was an offshoot of Model Car Science. As us kids got older and slot cars started dying, it was merged back into MCS. I think it even says so on the covers that MCS was now both mags. Model Car Racing was an entity to itself and came late in the game and only lasted for 8 issues.
I got my education from the 1967 1/2 AW catalog. It was the first really goo reference I had. Today we do have the net, but back in the mid 80's your only reference was the paper from the 60's.