Yet another camera car

Extending my collection of cars used in filming famous motorsport movies, here is the second camera car used in Steve McQueen's Le Mans - a Porsche 908 Flunder in special packaging.

This car was Steve McQueen's personal Porsche 908/01 Spyder (chassis 908-022) in which he had achieved second place in the Sebring 12 hour race in 1970.  For filming at Le Mans later that year, the car was converted into a camera carrier and was equipped with three cameras, one in front and two at the back above the gearbox.

Here's the real car filming at Le Mans:

About time I watched the film again!

There is only one more slot car representation of a camera car that I'm aware of.  I've got my eye on it...

UK Slot Car Festival 2015

Andy and I drove up to the Heritage Motor Centre on Saturday for the UK Slot Car Festival.  Loads of traders and tracks, including the one designed by Martin Brundle to promote Sky's F1 coverage.

One of our highlights from last year was a collection of all the key vehicles in The Italian Job.  This time they did a demonstration of the Minis driving up into the coach with gold from the heist:

I bought a selection of drivers for my scratch built cars (including a couple of broken cars that cost less than a driver would on its own).  I also got a Morgan resin kit and the ready to run car from Fly that I'd had my eye on for a while - a Porsche from Fly as part of their Racing Films set.

The box set comes with the car, a leaflet and a copy of the film with which the car has a connection.

Like the Steve McQueen car I had for Christmas a few years back, this is a filming car, and so features movie cameras mounted front and rear.

Another camera car

One of my Christmas presents from Louise is a very rare Fly model of a Porsche 917K in Gulf livery.

This is part of a limited edition series of cars issued a few years back to commemorate the making of the classic Steve McQueen film "Le Mans".

The car was driven by Vic Elford for high speed filming on the Mulsanne Straight with a film camera mounted on the bonnet, which made for very interesting handling characteristics!

Porsche 911

It's been a bit cold up in the loft recently so not a lot has happened on the Scalextric front.  But I have had a successful clear out of cars on eBay - either ones that didn't live up to expectations, or that I'd bought at auction for such a good price, I thought I could turn a profit... to buy more cars I really wanted.

So the first new purchase is a companion for a Porsche 911 that Andy bought me quite a while ago - a 1973 Le Mans version.

I wanted a similar vintage with lots of livery, and found another Fly model, this time the 1982 911SC Rally El Corte Ingles.

This version is suspiciously plain as delivered.  But underneath is a plain package intriguingly labelled "Adults Only".  This contains the transfers for the main sponsor - Rothmans cigarettes.  After soaking in water and sliding the transfers on to the car, it now looks complete...

Scalextric Swapmeet

Andy and I went to this Swapmeet today.  Loads of traders selling new and second-hand cars and accessories.  A couple of four-lane tracks set up for kids to try out (1/32 and 1/64 scale) plus a 40 foot drag strip.  This had some nice customised cars in both 1/24 and 1/32 scale but I don't really see the attraction of racing cars in a straight line.

Andy pretty much cleared out the hall of Metro 6R4s - the mad 4WD rally version of the Rover Metro.  He bought six, bringing his collection to 14 plus some bits.  There's a race series in there somewhere...

We bought some buildings for scenery and I bought three second-hand cars: a 1995 Lister Storm, a 1993 Jaguar XJ220 and, in need of a bit of TLC, an old Porsche 911.

Here's a great video from YouTube user LondonScalextric of the swapmeet, featuring me at 0:18 and the Lister Storm I bought at 1:20.

Testing, testing...

Louise bought me The Slot Car Handbook for Christmas which has lots of useful information about getting the best out of slot cars.  One recommendation was not to put new cars straight on the track but instead to run the motors in at various increasing voltages.  This is to prevent arcing at high voltages which vaporises bits of brush or commutator inside the motor.  I bought a variable voltage transformer and wired it up to a modified Scalextric Powerbase to act as a testbed.  A piece of MDF prevents the cars shooting off the front and pieces of foamcard underneath lift the driving wheels away from the track.

The other purpose of the testbed is to true the tyres.  Instead of the foamcard lifting the rear wheels clear, a piece of sandpaper is placed underneath and so any bulge in the tyres can be rubbed away.

On the testbed above are two Christmas presents from Andy - both in Martini colours.  In silver is the Porsche 917/10 Turbo Interserie 1974 and in black, a Marcos LM600.

I also got a car from Kieron for Christmas as well, a rather tasty Ford GT40 in silver and black - a Mark II from 1966.

I am, of course, now running these cars in...