Faller Go-Kart-Rennbahn

We have all enjoyed Bob Schleicher’s articles on race courses you can build on a ping pong table. Faller now gives us an opportunity to build a slot car road course that fits on the top of an end table, the Go-Kart-Rennbahn set. This tiny gem requires some work to assemble, but the result is worth it, and it actually works pretty well. It is 21 inches by 16 inches including all of the scenery and buildings!

The Faller Go-Kart-Rennbahn set after completion of the track and the buildings you can order with it.

The set comes with a pre-painted base with two grooves already routed into it and four small depressions beside the grooves in which metal braid is attached. The braid looks like a miniaturized version of the braid used to make commercial tracks and it comes with a sticky back, making it relatively easy to place on the base. It is small enough (true1/87th HO Scale train) that it requires magnifying hobby spectacles to get it right, The hard part is attaching the crossover wiring at the two crossover sections of the track. It is very difficult to get it attached in such a way that you don’t short one rail or another. I finally gave up and soldered the braids together, and that worked fine. The construction process (shown in Figure 2) took me about four hours, and the instructions are well done.

The laying on of the pre-glued braid is faily easy, but time consuming.

The set comes with two controllers, in the form of a racing wheel and tire with a tread shaped button for the throttle. There is no transformer, but any 12-16 volt transformer from a slot car or train set will work. I used a Marklin Minitrix transformer I had lying around. The set also comes with two tiny Go Karts that are pretty accurately scaled at 1/87th , and run quite well. I ordered the three buildings that are marketed with the set, which include the grandstand and tower set, the pit, and the Kart Café buildings, which are re-releases of the Faller slot car buildings of the 1960’s and 70’s. Because of the size of the set, and the buildings, I decided to build a box to contain the set and buildings out of thin birch plywood, as shown in Figure 3. I also created a background graphic for the box sides, which made the track more realistic.

The box built to contain the Go Kart set.

The buildings are pretty straightforward to build, but they have a lot of parts, and require a little time. The parts are colored, so you really don’t need to paint anything. I do plan to use train layout weathering powder to make it a little more realistic. The buildings and some trees and people I added to the layout made it more realistic and added to the play value of the set. Once all the buildings and scenery were place in the box with the track, I was pleased with the resulting look and feel, as shown in figure 4.

The completed Go-Kart set with the buildings and scenery placed in the box I built for it.

The play value of the set is high, because there are no magnets on the karts, and you have to really be careful with the throttle. The controllers are relatively sensitive, so that once you get used to them, you can control the cars fairly well. It is easy to spin out in the tighter corners if you do not feather the throttle a bit. The cross over tracks present a bit of a challenge because you have to give the kart enough throttle to get across the cross over, without spinning out in the next corner after the cross over. It can be done after a bit of practice. Only the Go Karts that come with the set and a few n-scale slot cars like the Micro Machines slot cars from the 1980’s can run on the set because the braids are so close together.

The Faller Go-Kart Rennbahn set is excellent for collectors and might make nice project for a father and son. I would not recommend the set for children or collectors who want a high performance track. That being said, however, it is a great addition to a collection and is a fun project to take on. The set can be ordered through Walthers or through your local hobby shop.

The Faller Go Kart set provides good racing action, on a challenging road course.