One more Christmas car

And from Louise's parents, a fantastic new model from Team Slot of the Renault Alpine A310 Gitanes from the 1976 Rallye Du Var.

Christmas cars

At last May's Slot Car Festival, Andy bought a couple of Metros from Model Sport Competicion (MSC), a Spanish company that make highly detailed models with lightweight chassis and top quality components.  They ran so well, I put a couple straight on my Christmas list from Louise.

The first is an MG Metro 6R4 from the 1985 RAC Rally:

And the second is a Ford RS 200 from the 1986 Rally Principe de Asturias:

The ban on tobacco advertising appears to extend to cars, so the RS 200 comes with the Marlboro transfers in a little packet labelled "Only for +18 years".

The real car:

Testing Andy's digital layout

Andy has a plan for a big digital Scalextric layout.  Using digital signals means you can run up to six cars at the same time, using the same lanes and changing across those lanes.  You can also do other clever things like set some of the cars as pacers.  Andy set up a small table-top track to test out the hardware - a simple oval with a lane changer and a short pit lane.  He'd already converted 5 Metros to digital (this requires soldering in a chip between the braids and the motor) and I took along the recently built Jaguar Mk 2 that I have also converted to digital.

In the grid above, there are four pacer Metros with Andy controlling the white Metro at the back alongside my Jaguar.  Six cars on about 12 feet of track is a bit of a squeeze (as you'll see at the start of the video below) but being able to change lanes to overtake, and call a yellow flag to pause the other cars when you crash adds a new dimension to Scalextric.  I'll be sticking with analogue but I'm pleased that Andy is going down that route as our layouts will each offer something different, and double the fun.

A New Challenger

A while back I blogged about the Scalextric Challenger system I'd bought - essentially a car which learns the circuit and then drives itself, so I can have something else running around the track when I'm testing other cars.

It works really well but I wasn't keen on the car because (a) it was a bit dull being all black, and (b) it was an F1 Safety Car, and so strictly wasn't right with anything other than F1 cars, of which I have very few.

So I customised it.

First thing was to strip the car completely of all the fittings.

Then a respray in white...

Add some police decals and a couple of coats of varnish...

Paint the roof lights blue and fit them, along with the windows and the original chassis, and all the little bits I'd taken off it to start with:

I picked up another Challenger body for a tenner, this time in silver, so I can convert it back to an F1 Safety Car when I feel like it, but it's much more fun to have a police car chasing me round the circuit!

Humphrey and Ozzie in 1/32 scale

My 350Z lives under a cover, even under the car port, as the cats love to sit on the roof.  Strangely enough, black-haired cats still seem to leave almost as much mess as our white-haired ones used to.  Anyway, even though I don't like the cats on the car in real life, at least they can do it in 1/32 scale now...

Before they were painted...

New track buildings

I recently bought a load of Scalextric stuff from someone at work clearing out their loft before moving house.  It all dated back to the late Sixties and is in various states of repair, but generally pretty good.  There is room for some of it on the layout already, starting with a banner for the Start-Finish straight...

...an entrance building...

...and a Timekeeper's Hut - next to one of the new set of loudspeakers from Slot Track Scenics...

[17 November edit] The Timekeeper's Hut should have a set of boards to announce the countdown to the next race.  These were missing but I found out what they should be and recreated them in card.

And next on BBC1...

A purchase from Slot Track Scenics sees another TV crew at the carousel end of the track.

To match the BBC satellite dish on top of the pit buildings, I added BBC logos to the cameras, and BBC Sport banners around the camera tower.

The first tower also got a BBC Sport banner.

Jaguar Mk 2

The latest scratchbuilt effort is a Jaguar Mk 2 kit from Pendle Slot Racing.

The chassis was simple to construct as it's the same as a ready-to-race Jaguar XK120 from manufacturer Ninco, so everything goes together easily and I just had to cut away at some bits at each end.  The bodyshell was cast really nicely and sprayed up well, first with primer...

...and then in bright red...

I painted the driver and interior, and detailed all the chrome bits and lights on the car.  I'm very pleased with how it turned out, and it races great too - quick with lots of tail slides.

The finishing touch was to give it a set of appropriate numberplates:

Police, Camera, Action!

I came across a company called Tarn Model Foundry online and they had a stand at the Slot Car Festival back in May.  They make a range of unusual racing and rally 1:32 figures, and this one in particular caught my eye.  The quality of the resin moulding isn't great (the figure has a hand missing!) but I had to have it for comedy value - and it looks pretty good once it's painted up...

The first person to be caught by this policeman with his speed gun was James Bond in his Aston Martin DB5:

But by flicking a switch to engage one of Q's little extras, Bond will escape a ticket this time...

Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane in hot pursuit!

At a slot car show earlier this year, I came across Chase Cars who manufacture bodyshells and chassis to recreate the car chases of films and TV from the 70s and 80s.  The unique thing about their chassis is that it leans and steers in the corners, so you get a more realistic appearance when racing their cars.

I bought a chassis and a couple of bodyshells.  First build is the 1977 Dodge Monaco police car as driven by Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane in the Dukes of Hazzard.

The bodyshell comes with roof lights, plastic windows and interior, with Hazard County Sheriff decals.  I had to get axles, wheels, tyres, a pickup and a motor to go with the chassis.

The tough plastic chassis comes in a single moulded piece that needs taking apart.

Quite a few bits...

After a few hours, it looks like this...

The steering mechanism links to the pickup guide so the wheels turns when the guide reaches a corner.  The motor pod is suspended and sprung in the chassis so it can rock when the car drives round corners.

I sprayed the car and applied the transfers.  I dremel-ed out the windows in the bodyshell and fitted plastic ones, and painted the interior with the model of Rosco.

The completed model...

High quality decals...

It is a lot of effort to put together but on the track it looks great, although the chassis is built for realistic roll rather than speed, so it won't keep up with the Scalextric General Lee.  Andy has also bought one of these chassis, so we'll see how they go together when he's built his.

Mighty Metro

As I blogged a few years back, Andy has made it his mission to collect the old Scalextric MG Metros wherever he finds them, in preparation for a Mighty Metro competition one day.  Here's just a few that he has so far:

I thought I would create the ultimate Metro ready to race with Andy.  This was created in three steps:

The left hand side is a original Metro chassis that I bought from eBay (it originally came with the black and red Navico bodyshell like the one in the top row, third from left of Andy's collection).  The car had been extensively modified. It has a MRRC 20,000 rpm FF motor fitted low down in the chassis.  The motor has a brass pinion and the gear is an upgraded alloy type.  The chassis has been fitted with a larger guide with new braids with uprated wiring. It also has lead and extra magnets fitted which I had to reduce and move around to decrease the excessive downforce.  It also has different wheels and tyres.

In the middle is an interior which I sprayed up grey and then painted the driver and seats.

The right-hand side is the replacement bodyshell, again from eBay, which had been resprayed in silver and blue with lots of racing stickers added.  Put it together and you get an a unique, fast Metro with great handling.  Bring it on, Andy!

50 Years of Bondage

I've just bought another painting from Solly at SM Artworks who predominantly paints TV and film subjects.  Since it's fifty years since the first Bond film (and next year, it'll be sixty years since the first Bond novel), this painting is called "Legacy" and depicts three of Bond's Aston Martins - the DB5 from "Goldfinger" (and later films), the V8 Vantage Volante from "The Living Daylights", and the DBS V12 from "Casino Royale" (and trashed at the beginning of "Quantum of Solace").

And here it is in the slot room, pushing Starsky & Hutch round the corner of the chimney breast so that it can pair up with "Super Pursuit" (bought two years ago and featuring KITT, Airwolf and the A-Team van) on the other side of the race monitor.

And speaking of Starsky & Hutch, I managed to track down some flashing LED units for Starsky's Ford Gran Torino, and fitted one into the Plymouth Road Runner police car that I had previously wired in a Maplin flashing LED (which worked when static but stayed on when driving round the track).  The official Scalextric part does the trick.

Another Lotus

I don't have many models made by Ninco but their Lotus Exige model has always tempted me because (a)  the NSCC selected it as their Club Car in 2009, and (b) it's a Lotus.  And one of the online stores had it half-price last week so I grabbed one.  It looks delicate with the long mirror stalks and high spoiler, but the mirrors and the struts for the spoiler are rubber not plastic, so should provide some flexibility if/when the Lotus goes rolling at one of the tight bends.

This model has a fast anglewinder motor as you can see in the last picture - the motor is mounted on a slant and engages directly with a gear next to the right rear wheel.  A great little car.