VIP a different approach

[mattb]

VIP in England had a slightly different approach to their slot track design. Might be something that some of you guys have never seen before. There is some track on Ebay now and the picture shows clearly how their track worked. The track was metal with the outside area of the slots insulated from the center section between the two slots. The center section carried the common ground voltage and the outside areas carried the controler feed to each lane.. Each lane shared the common center. The track was painted and the areas next to the sots was left unpainted looking like the rails we have on our plastic tracks. Here is the link.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/VIP-Raceways-1- ... SwV0RXvgMI

[SpeedyNH]

I remember those! my buddy had some of that when I was a kid! (early 60's? gives away how old I am.) good-looking F1's if I recall.
think I remember that each car only ran on one lane unless you both went the other way around. and maybe the pickup system was weird too, like back on the chassis instead of the guide, and because of that they wouldn't run on other track like Strombecker, which everybody went to right before the wood club tracks came along. good thing that he had two sets, so we could mix the parts around as you couldn't swap cars.
an odd one out, like the later Varney cars that would do u-turns. fun though, in the early days of 1/32.
speedy

[BIG E]

I found an old beat up VIP set box stuffed with all sorts of track pieces at a toy show for a couple of bucks. So, for the price of a large coffee I took it home. I couldn't even flip it for $20, absolutely no interest at all at any of the slot car shows. I ended up having some guy take it off my hands for $5. After dragging that thing around for a few shows, I'd had enough! That happens some times, but man, that was a large piece that had to be carried around in a heavy duty contractor bag. On the other hand, I believe I've got one or two 'NOS' VIP cars in the slot car collection. And yes, theirs was definitely a unique approach to track design! Enjoy! -- Ernie :>)

[gascarnut]

[ourwayband]

[SpeedyNH]

Dennis, that's' excellent.

[Flytoo]

Very interesting topic. I had no idea.