Kids of the 60s: Do you remember slot cars?

[mitchum]

It was a huge craze even up until the early 70s

Did you ever go to commercial tracks?
Did you have a track at home?
1/24 or 1/32 or HO?
Did you hot rod your cars with accessories from the hobby shop?

I wanna know!

thanks,
mitchum

[SeattleGirl]

1. There was a commercial slot car track about a block from my

house. Used to go there all the time.

One of my brother's eventually got his own track, so played with that a lot too.

Don't remember the sizes of the cars.

And I didn't customize, because the cars belonged to my brother (the ones we used at home).

I loved slot cars.

[kayakjohnny]

2. Everything you just said. Remember clear as a bell. They were terribly cool.

You could certainly put someone's eye out though. We'd go up to the hobby shop in Tampa and they'd have 8 or 10 lanes wide. You could race against everyone. And they were FAST.

I can still hear that nutty high-pitched whirring. And the smell of the lube when it heats up. And you could change the tires to those rubbery spongey ones for better traction.

We were freaks about that crap. Glad you mentioned it. Brings back some cool mems.

Thanks.

[skygazer]

3. My brother was into slot cars

I was not allowed near them. :P

[Nickster]

4. Heh. My dad used to be into them. He'd take me up to a commercial track near where I live today.

The building is still there, but it's something else now obviously. I remember him putting a touch of lighter fluid on the track under the tires so the tires would smoke when you held it and revved up the engine. We had some slot car tracks at home too.

[Auggie]

5. Yep

My brother and I went to commercial tracks. 1/24 scale.

Had HO at home too.

Never accessorized -- I was too young.

I remember the commercial tracks -- they were very cool. One of the 1/24 cars we had was a white and gray Chaparral.

Forget all about it until your thread. So much better than video games. Thanks for bringing back the memories.

[supernova]

6. Yes, we had them

I love that thing.

We had a blue car and a a yellow car.

[kayakjohnny]

7. We had a white car and a yellow car. The big ones. You had to piece the track together.

The cars were kind of large and really hurt your knees when they flew off the track. We used to take the bodies off and just run the chassie(?) to make them lighter and weird looking.

They went off the track. A LOT. That ampy little electric sound will be forever etched into my mind. The motors got really hot too. Had to let them cool.

And of course, that hot oil smell. Just loved it. Really did.

[harmonicon]

8. 60s?

As a kid of the 70s and 80s, I had a slot car track. It was a crappy little thing, but they were slot cars all the same.... I don't remember the scale: small. We had a few different cars that had some different attributes, but I don't remember ever customizing anything, apart from setting up new tracks (I think the track was quasi-modular).