News has broken over the past few days of a new 1:24 scale car in the popular TTS / BRM Group-2 Mini-Saloon range. It has been confirmed that a front-wheel drive model of the Autobianchi A112 Abarth will be released by TTS next year, with an official announcement around Christmas time. Here's the video that spilled the beans...



The car will appear in the Total-sponsored Scuderia Vesuvio colours (above) and the Alitalia scheme from the Rally Storico Campagnolo of 2010...

   

There will also be a white body +chassis kit and a white body kit available with the first two liveried cars.

The A112 Abarth was an important car in European rallying in the 1970s, including the single-make Campionato A112 Abarth - which ran from 1977 to 1984 and featured the likes of Attilio Bettega, Fabrizio Tabaton and Gianfranco Cunico. The A112 Abarth was also extremely popular with continental boy racers. The cars are now a common sight on historic rallying events...

       

Certainly a lovely addition to the range, I am intrigued to see more in December - especially under the body at that rumoured front-wheel drive. I'm sure the UK distributor - Pendle Slot Racing - will send us pictures when they have them.

https://www.facebook.com/festivalofspeed...379249703/

   

We received this news today from The Hobby Company Limited - the UK distributor for Carrera...

Quote:The Hobby Company wish to advise that from 31/12/20 we will cease to distribute the Carrera slot & Carrera RC ranges in the UK.

Carrera’s owner Stadlbauer was purchased in May 2019 by Quantum. Quantum is also the Parent Company for Revell Gmbh, who own Revell in the UK.

In January 2020 the new Management made the decision to combine various elements of the Stadlbauer & Revell businesses. One such synergy is to be the UK market, where they consider it is more appropriate to have Revell, selling and investing in marketing of all Group brands, rather than continuing to work with The Hobby Company as a Distributor for just the Carrera brand.

Carrera items will continue to be available from The Hobby Company until the end of December – with any out of stock items still obtainable via special order by us on a 10-14 day lead time from Carrera in Austria.

After 1st January Carrera will be available from Revell UK.

Although this news is not a surprise, it's sad to say goodbye to the Hobby Company, who have been fine custodians for Carrera in the UK and supporters of SlotRacer Online. We wish everyone at the Hobby Company all the best with their many other model kit and toy brands.

   

Carrera Evolution CA27637 Ford Mustang GTY #55. Available now. RRP £39.99.

Both Carrera and Scalextric have released a new Ford Mustang in 2020. The English company have added the GT4 racing Mustang (here) to their range of modern GT cars. In contrast, the Austrian/German company have released this big beefy Mustang GTY - a seemingly fantasy Group 5 Silhouette-style creation, probably based on the 2020 road car. Much as I've looked, "Mustang GTY" only brings up the two Carrera models.

This latest release has a big rear wing and carries the #55 number and Ford Performance livery. I suspect the fifty-five refers to the fifty-fifth anniversary of the launch of the Mustang back in 1964. It's certainly a slick livery and plenty of people swoon over a muscle car on steroids. The GTY will be a fine companion for Carrera's new-for-2020 Porsche 935 GT2 track car that is expected later in the year.

Underneath the body is the usual Carrera inline set-up, self-centring guide and JST connectors that mean the Evolution car is easily converted to Digital132. This model is also available as a digital version, with working lights.

   

The #55 Mustang appears as a set car in the new Carrera Evolution "Break Away" set - alongside the new-for-2020 Chevy Camaro pace car.

You can buy the Carrera Evolution Mustang GTY now at Pendles, MRE and other UK Carrera retailers.

         

Scalextric C4173 Ford Mustang GT4 Multmatic Motorsports - British GT Championship 2019. Available now. RRP £40.99

The Ford Mustang GT4 is a brand new Scalextric car for 2020. Unveiled back in January, the prototype showed a nice stance and a cute Mustang 'cut-out' on the motor cover...

       

The first of two liveries for this year has been released in the past few days - and it is the 'works' Multimatic Motorsports car driven by Scott Maxwell and Seb Priaulx to two class wins and runner-up spot in the GT4 Silver Cup during the 2019 British GT Championship season.

       

The Mustang GT4 was developed jointly by Ford Performance and the Canadian company Multimatic from the Ford Shelby GT350R-C. It was earmarked to compete in sports car championship racing series around the world, including the IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge, Pirelli World Challenge GTS/GT4, and various European GT4 series, including the British GT Championship.

       

Maxwell and Priaulx gave the #15 Multimatic car GT4 pole position on debut at Oulton Park and clinched the class win in race two. Multimatic ran a second Mustang in the 2019 British GT Championship and a third car was entered by the RACE Performance team - a livery that will be released later in the year by Scalextric.



The Mustang GT4s have been racing in North America since 2017 - the Ford Performance and Multimatic partnership moving on together after the success of the Ford GT project. There are now plenty of customer cars and a wealth of great liveries that may well be on the Scalextric Team's to-do list...

       

If slot car enthusiasts can't wait, IndyCals have produced several liveries for the lovely 1:24 scale Tamiya model kit - and hopefully those will be available soon in 1:32 scale.

The #15 Multimax Motorsports Mustang GT4 is available now from Scalextric - and over the next few days from all your favourite Scalextric retailers. This model will also be included in the forthcoming ARC Pro Platinum GT set.

   

   

   

Bit of a surprise at my local hobby shop (Time Tunnel Models)  this morning - new SCX/Scalextric Compact has reached the UK along with SCX/Scalextric Advance.   Compact sets show as "Wireless".

Leo

   

Bit of a surprise at my local hobby shop (Time Tunnel Models)  this morning - SCX/Scalextric Advance has reached the UK along with SCX/Scalextric Compact.

Leo

   

The National Scalextric Collectors Club (NSCC) is currently in its 40th year of existence, founded in January 1981 (not 1980 as their website erroneously states). It is almost certainly the oldest such enthusiasts club in the world and its monthly magazine is the longest continuously running English language publication devoted purely to slot cars anywhere.
 
It has never had a huge membership but has consistently punched above its weight and been responsible for initiating many of the things we take for granted these days such as swapmeets, limited edition cars and the UKSF. Several of today’s major slot car suppliers such as Pendle and MRE can trace their foundation directly back to their membership of the NSCC. As with all such clubs it has had its fair share of ups and downs but has managed to survive financial crises, committee upheavals and the rise of the internet so I thought it time to document its full story.

Part 1
Prehistory
The 1970s were an exceptionally low point in the history of Scalextric following the bursting of the slot car bubble at the end of the previous decade. The market had almost totally collapsed due to declining interest and the advent of new mechanical toys such as Hot Wheels. Several of the smaller slot manufacturers had gone bust, as had Scalextric’s parent company, Triang, in 1971. Scalextric managed to survive under new ownership but the range was drastically cut back and production of new cars was severely limited for the next few years. Quality took a nosedive with cars such as the Mini Clubman and Porsche 935 amongst the worst ever produced by the firm. Slot racing clubs had also mostly disappeared with just a few well-established ones managing to cling on.
 
By 1977 however, there was the glimmer of a revival in interest and some new racing clubs appeared, amongst which was the most important as far as this tale is concerned – The London Scalextric Club.

Roy Charlesworth, the club’s founder, worked as a dance instructor at the Harmony Ballroom, located above the Odeon cinema in Wood Green, North London and so he was able to use the dance hall on a Sunday to build a circuit and host races. The track sections he used in the beginning were old Plexytrack from his previous club nine years before when model slot car racing had succumbed to the might of the commercial raceway.

He advertised his race days in the Exchange and Mart and was surprised at the good response he got as people came from all over London and the South East to race every two weeks. The club grew so well that it organised a South of England Championship for several years. The 1979 event attracted a 60 strong entry and one of the drivers racing that day was a 15 year old John Herbert from Romford, Essex. Though he had never even seen the circuit before he went on to finish 3rd, beating most of the home drivers in the process. Johnny, as he later became better known, went on to greater things in real cars, winning F1 Grand Prix as well as Le Mans. A report of the race can be found HERE. The following year the club lost its premises but soon found a new home at St Marks Church Hall, just 200 yards from where it had begun, and they race there to this day every Tuesday evening.

Aside from the racing quite a few of its members had begun to collect early Scalextric cars which could be picked up for as little as a pound each at that time. Foremost amongst them was a certain Roger Gillham who was already working on the first edition of his legendary ‘Enthusiasts Guide’. Accordingly, Roy decided to start a collectors branch of the club, it was a separate entity with a subscription of £3 a year and produced newsletters in 1979/80. I have 6 of them in my possession but there may have been more. Here is #2 which also came with a couple of pages of members’ sales/swaps/wants.

Apart from Roger there were several members who would become well known to the collecting fraternity such as Martin O’Reilly, Shaun Claremont, Chris Gregory, Reg Palmer and Eddie Collins. Surprisingly, the branch had some members in the USA including Lee Stokely of California and Chuck Lawrence from New York. I have no idea how this was achieved in those pre internet days! Several auctions were held in the ballroom which were a precursor to later swapmeets, and a visit was also made by Anton Palau who ran a famous model shop in Spain which led to the first significant arrivals of Spanish Scalextric cars in the UK.

The man who started it all, Roy Charlesworth (right) with future editor of the newsletter, Malcom Parker.

   

At last, the Little Monte video!
 
Many thanks to Leo for editing the hotchpotch of videos I sent to him, and for Steve 'Fluff' Patten for doing the driving. These are the first laps Steve had with each car after having done a few laps with the old Merc taxi!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqKlynGw...e=youtu.be


Regards, Lloyd