When tires were thin and drivers were fat ...
another nostalgic look at Cartrix, Scalextric, and other's offerings from a Golden Era...

by Marek Plachecki

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There was a quote once in Road & Track magazine, actually a caption to a photo of a robust and quite rotund Farina, a well known driver from the 50’s getting out of his Italian mount, the narrow rear tire of the car at his side, along the lines of.... ”the golden era of motor sport when tires were thin and men were fat.” It captured neatly the contrast to toady's fat tired Formula 1 cars and muscular jockey sized drivers. It also brought into focus how far auto racing has evolved, but has it always been for the better? Is the spectacle now any more special or magnificent compared to the old days or was that an era more romantic and exciting? Put on the rose coloured glasses again and harken back to the fifties, a time when I was a small boy and Grand Prix cars were front engined brutes with big steering wheels needed to muscle them through the turns and between the hay bales. You can capture this era through slot cars.

And if you do, do slot cars evoke the Golden era better now than ever? Or were the earlier renditions of the cars of the fifties just as exciting?

To do a bit of a comparison I pulled from my shelf a cross section of cars, all models of Grand Prix machines of the mid to late 50’s. These included Scalextric’s magnificent
Vanwall and Maserati 250F, Cartrix Mercedes W196, A Hawk bodied Lancia Ferrari D50 running on a slightly modified EJ’s repro Monogram chassis, an MRRC Vanwall and Cooper Climax T51, the Cooper (1959) being the cross over model to the modern rear engined era it spawned. For a magnificent historical background to each car I must strongly recommend going to Grand Prix History, www.ddavid.com/formula1, Dennis David’s superb web site. It is a labour of love and Dennis is a model slot race car enthusiast as well and prolific SCI message board contributor.

Let’s start with the Cartrix Mercedes W 196. This a limited edition model by Cartrix from Spain, 1500 being made and quite hard to get this side of the pond. Search European dealers as some may still be had. The car comes in a sturdy tin which opens to reveal a shammy embossed with line images of cars Cartrix intends to make in this Grand Prix Legends Collection. Unwrap the shammy and find the jewel of a car, firmly attached to a plexi glass stand for display. Included is a card with a history of the car and future models. Though Cartrix has been beaten to the punch by Scalextric’s Vanwall and Maserati let’s hope they go on to produce the Alfa, Gordini, BRM 25, Talbot Lago, and Ferrari 555 they picture!

The car itself is lovely with good detailing. I love the mesh screening on the grill and hood scoop. The wheels are nicely done spoked renditions. The car has a rear inline motor so the driver is a half body on black plastic but the detail is very good and the plaid of the original car’s seat is neatly captured on the seat back. The finish is silver, clear and neatly tampoed.

The car is basically quite simple in design, two half shells top and bottom with two screws, one front one rear holding things together. The motor is a unique can, front half resembling an SCX brush layout rear resembling a typical can, nice really. There is a tiny bar magnet beneath the pinion.

Now, I have run a few laps on routed MDF at the club also, so stop your magnet no magnet wars now. The car has great handling and beautiful tail out slides, weighted the way it is with lead and magnet. I put a pair of Ninco Classic sized replacement Ortman tires on and could drive and watch that car all night. At home I now run Ninco Classic tires on the rear and its a blast. This car is a modern slot car that is a fine rendition of a classic and I would recommend it to anyone who wishes to turn back the clock. Honestly this model holds its head up with Scalextric's Classic offerings.

Which brings me to the Scalextric Maserati and Vanwall. What more can be said than already has by "Scottrik" Smith & John "Iceman" McKenzie in their fine review. Both these cars are superb. The Front engined wonders shine with excellent finish, fit and details. The wire wheels are spectacular. The suspension details and brake drums are brilliant. The full figured detailed drivers are great, though I found Stirling Moss to be so pale as to resemble, dare I say, a Japanese fighter pilot that would be more comfortable in a Zero. Sorry I toned him up a bit with Tamiya Flesh tone paint. Ironic. And Fangio’s goggles' white frame? Had to go, touched up with brown. Perfect. Scaley has outdone themselves but wait. Fat drivers and thin tires... remember? Man these tire are thin, to the point of looking spindly. And much has been said regarding the new Scalextric pickup, but honestly, it works quite well, and you really do not notice the pod. There is a button magnet under the drivers seat in both cars.

So out come my tweaks. And this may offend purists, but the cars look better. Front tires come off and rears go to front.. hmm slightly more width. Rear tires replaced with Ninco Classics... looks acceptable... and remove tiny screws (5 on Maser and 7 on Vanwall ) to separate top and bottom and replace button magnet with larger Fly button. This is very easy on the Maserati but a touch of adhesive is needed in the Vanwall to hold the magnet in place. Back on the track.

The Vanwall now runs smooth controllable 5.2’s and 5.3’s but still can’t keep up to the now absolutely silky Maserati pounding steady and consistent 5’s and a fastest at 4.8 sec.!

I run 13.8 volts with 25 ohm Parmas. Honestly, turn it down to 12 volts and you can run these cars all day and love it.

Oh yes, again a limited run on wood and both cars are a blast though slippy on stock rubber. Replace with Ortmans as per the Mercedes and you have cars that are magnificent!

But wait there is more. How about the older models? The MRRC Vanwall and Cooper and the Hawk/E.J Monogram Lancia need a look at.

The MRRC cars (Vanwall and Cooper) , built to original speck, with the MRRC brass chassis were, frankly, acceptable in their looks but dogs in the handling department. The design of the chassis was dated and the cars had a real sixties slot car look and feel, but the kits came with a modern s can motor and the cars were just a handful and desloted in turns with no provocation. So major tweaking started. I rebuilt the the chassis according to an article in... Model Car Racing 16 (p.42 Leading Link Front suspension by Dan Wilson). I replaced the motors with SCX RX41's. I glued a cross brace of plastic under the pinion gear and glued on a flat thin button magnet from Scalextric. I changed the wheels at the rear on both ( BWA on the Vanwall) and spoked fake mags by MRRC on the Cooper. The rear of the Vanwall is shod with Carerra Classic tires and the Cooper also runs Carerra Classic rubber. Major changes but easy enough to do and a great learning experience for those who grow into the hobby towards the construction end.

The MRRC Vanwall was good in its day but shamed somewhat by Scaley's excellent new rendition. Articles have been written in MCR that improve its looks and detail. The Cooper stands on its own. So how do these much modified cars, albeit old school modifications, run?

Surprising well thank you! The Cooper turns consistent 5.7 laps and seems a bit slow in the acceleration department but quite smooth. The MRRC Vanwall runs 5.9 sec laps. The RX41 mill just does not have the RPM but the drive is most satisfactory. Put in S cans and things could change but I don’t have the urge.

And then there is the Hawk bodied Lancia D50. Was I ever happy to track down this original model kit from the sixties on the net. Since childhood I have wanted this car and now I have one. I know it may be the most modeled slot car ever in terms of scratch building but I don't care. I just had to try to build one. My favorite donor chassis is EJ's repro Monogram brass chassis which can be used with a variety of motors, in this case a Ninco NC2. I trimmed the brass mounting flange at the rear to slip into the tail and cut off the front of the chassis where the pick up originally fit.

The pickup now rides in the hole originally meant for the front mount. I soldered a washer there for the post to pass through. Tires, wheels and inserts are all EJ's . A bar magnet is glued to the frame beneath the pinion. The driver is EJ's and scrap plastic filled gaps on the side pods at front and rear and around the front axle. Not a bad effort and quite passable if I do say so myself. Screws pass through the slots on either side of the bottom of the chassis into plastic posts glued in place on the body interior. I like the way she looks.

But how does the car run? The Lancia looks fat, squat and neat. It consistently runs times of 5.4 to 5.5. The Ninco NC2 feels so torquey and smooth.

So what can we conclude from all this? If you want great looking and great running cars from the Golden era of the fifties the modern out of the box offerings by Scalextric and Cartrix are excellent. If you want to tweak more and fiddle and build and experiment you have many sources and options, not just those mentioned here, but resin models and clear plastic bodies from different sources on the net, that will challenge and develop your modeling skills. As the cars in this article show, set up well, the cars are all competitive. How and on what you choose to run them is up to you.

The cars I chose cover a span of about five years during the fifties. Some like the Mercedes and Vanwall never ran against each other, but put on those rose coloured glasses and blur history’s facts a bit and you can almost smell the castor oil and hear the squeal of tortured tires. The Cartrix and Scalextric offerings are close enough in performance that any one could win given the talent of their respective drivers. The MRRC and Hawk offerings are close
enough and broaden the field and steal upsets.