Welcome
Digest 49
Published by JasonB on Dec 2, 2023
Our round up of the week’s slot car action.
Featuring an F2 Stock Car, four Porsches, an Alfa Romeo, a Callaway, Steve McQueen, Batman, and a bunch of grab ’em while you can Turners. Plus we have a free, downloadable slot car themed calendar, and the best forthcoming events, videos and photos.
Slot Cars
Now Available
- Pendle Slot Racing F2 Stock car The eagerly awaited PCS F2 Stock car kit is now available from Pendle Slot Racing. The 1/28 scale kit comes as either a practical, working slot car, or as a more detailed display model. You can find out why, and how the 3D modelled kit was produced on the blog post linked above.
- Revoslot Porsche 911 GT2 Revoslot have released three new liveries for their Porsche 911 GT2. The Mizuno livery is inspired by the Porsche 962C which raced in the 24 Hrs of Le Mans in 1990, the Blaupunkt livery is inspired by the 962 which finished third at Le Mans in 1989, and the BASF liveried car drove at the 1998 Laguna Seca 500km.
Going, Going, Gone
- George Turner Models George Turner has announced a list of 37 kits that will be discontinued in the near future. There is 5% discount on all the kits listed, and free postage if you buy two or more. These won’t be around for much longer, so it’s worth having a look, so you don’t miss out.
Coming Soon
- Fly Porsche 917k Fly have announced another model in the series recreating scenes from the making of the classic film ‘Le Mans’. The two figures, reclining behind the Porsche 917k above, represent Steve McQueen with original director John Sturges, who later quit mid-production.
In the Pipeline
- Slot.it Alfa Romeo 155 Slot.it have announced a new livery for the Alfa Romeo 155 V6TI which is expected to be released around Q3 or Q4 of 2024. The model recreates Alessandro Nannini’s car from the the eighth round of the 1996 International Touring Car Championship at Nürburgring. Nannini qualified on pole and went on to take victory, and fastest lap in both races. A dominant performance.
- Scaleauto Callaway C7R GT3 Scaleauto have posted prototype photos of a new model for the GT3 line, a Callaway C7R GT3, which is obviously based on the Corvette. The first model is expected to be a white kit, with a Whelen Motorsports livery to follow.
Calendar
- 2024 SlotRacer Calendar Get ready for 2024 with the SlotRacer Calendar, which is now available to download and print. The calendar has a year to a page frontispiece for easy reference, then separate pages for each month with plenty of room for your notes, reminders, doodles and scribbles. Each page features one of Doug Johnson’s fabulous slot car photos, and the calendar prints at a standard A4 size.
Events
- UK Winter Slot Car Market – 3rd-Dec-23
- Worthing HO Wednesday – 6th-Dec-23
- SSRC Vintage Night – 8th-Dec-23
- Worthing Digital Saturday – 16th-Dec-23
- Bury St Edmunds club night 5-10pm – 17th-Dec-23
- Worthing HO Wednesday – 3rd-Jan-24
- Bury St Edmunds club night 5-10pm – 13th-Jan-24
- WHO Digital Wednesday – 17th-Jan-24
- Worthing HO Wednesday – 7th-Feb-24
Videos
Photos
TeamSlot Alpine A110
Photo by Mamoru Teranishi
More Issues
Updates
BRM, the Inside Story
May 5, 2023
Calendar
Dec 12, 2022
Clubs
Nov 30, 2022
Lost & Found
Jul 20, 2022
On This Day in History…
| 09-12-1961 |  |
Features
BRM, the Inside Story
Published by JasonB on May 5, 2023 in Features, Updates
We have a new and fairly substantial motor racing history section which we’ve added to the site. It could be encapsulated by just three letters, BRM, but in truth the full story would make a decent sized book.
The inspiration for our new section came from a British Racing Motors team mechanic, Dennis ‘Sheriff’ Perkins who worked for the team for well over a decade from the mid 1950s onwards, and who took photos throughout his time with the team.
Of course Perkins wasn’t a professional photographer, he was first and foremost a BRM mechanic. In fact he was so good at his job that he was elected to membership of the BRDC, being proposed by Graham Hill and seconded by Jackie Stewart.
But he took photos of some important motor racing events, and he took his photos from a different angle to the press, or the spectators. He snapped his pics from behind the scenes, from the oil stained pit boxes, from the workshops, or even from the team transporter which he drove across the continent in his slippers.
Through his photos we will tell the story of British Racing Motors, from the disastrous and all too obvious failings in the early days, through to being world champions and one of the most consistently successful teams in Formula One at their peak, before they were brought back down to earth with a bump, as the team declined.
BRM had always set out to match and beat the best in Formula One. To do that, they absolutely insisted that they should build their own engines as well as the chassis. They wanted to take Ferrari’s approach, and when it worked, it really worked, but when it didn’t, it really didn’t.
Nowadays of course, we can expect a netflix documentary for every F1 race, no matter how insignificant. But in those days there were a very limited cohort of press reporters and photographers. So this little treasure trove of photos from the pit lanes and paddocks of the 1950s and 1960s are important.
We’ve tried our best to tell the stories of not just BRM, but of the individual races for which we have photos, many of which have their own fascinating tales to tell.
We’ve tried to tell the story of the BRM drivers and the BRM cars. We’ve used a wide variety of sources for all of the information, including contemporary reports.
We’ve also included slot track plans for every circuit, and a comprehensive list of BRM slot cars.
So there you go, that’s a rough outline of what we’ve got for you, hope you enjoy having a look and a read.
Many thanks to John Perkins, son of Dennis, for his kind permission to use these photos. Many thanks also to Dennis ‘Sheriff’ Perkins himself, not just for his sterling work with BRM, but also for recording his time with the team.