The next addition to BRM's fabulous 1/24 scale Group-2 Mini-Saloon cars is the Alfa Romeo 1300 Junior GTA.

           

These images of the first pre-production model were released by BRM a couple of weeks ago. The first three cars are due to arrive with retailers next month (March 2020) and will be priced at £105 each in the UK.

I have to say that I am personally very excited by this release. One of my earliest memories is of accompanying my father to buy his 1970 Alfa GT 1300 Junior at a car dealer. It was his last chance to have a sports car before me and my sister would need a sensible family car to sit in the back of. The red Alfa had 'one careful lady owner', but got a good thrashing from my dad for the next three years. I remember the leather bucket seats in the back, the sensational noise from the 1300cc twin-cam engine and roadholding that scared the living daylights out of me along some of our local country lanes. Not that I ever turned down the offer to go for a ride in the Alfa and I always came back with a smile on my face and adrenaline pumping through my veins.

The BRM model is the GTA version of the Junior - with the lightened Alleggerita aluminium body panels and race prepared by Autodelta. The 1300cc engine in the GTA Junior was derived from the 1600cc GTA unit, but with a shorter stroke. With fuel injection, it produced 178 bhp and a top speed of 130mph. Both the 1600 GTA and 1300 GTA Junior were very successful on the track, including in North America. That success was matched by the slightly later GTAm cars.

The 1300 GTA Junior scored nine overall race wins and 54 class wins between 1968 and 1984 - the 1971-2 European Touring Car Championship Division 1 rules certainly favouring the Junior. Thanks to the Division 1 class wins, Alfa Romeo won the ETCC manufacturers' title in 1971 and 1972 - GTA Juniors taking a clean sweep of class wins in 1972.

From the first three BRM cars, the livery that jumps out at me is the 1300 GTA Junior that won its class (Division 1) at the 1972 Jarama 4 hours - round nine of the 1972 European Touring Car Championship. Driven by the Dutch pairing of Toine Hezemans and Gijs van Lennep, the car finished fourth overall...

   
   
   
BRM-105 BRM Alfa Romeo 1300 Junior No.33 4h Jarama 1972 Winner Div.1 - 1/24th Scale

Without the flared arches, a 1/24 scale GTA Junior should be around 66mm wide, which places the BRM model into their Mini-Saloon range that can race on the wider 1/32 scale sectional track systems (Ninco and Policar), but will be rather tight on Scalextric. The recent Opel Kadett GT/E came in at 72mm wide, so perhaps the slightly over-exaggerated  wheel-arch styling on the Alfa has pushed the width out to something similar? Underneath, I expect the Alfa's chassis and running gear to be very similar to the Kadette:  slotracer.online/community/showthread.php?tid=940

The other two liveries due next month are also rather nice. The first is the Alfa that came third in class at the 1972 Jarama 4 hours - driven by Luigi Colzani, "Pooky" (Vincenzo Cazzago) and Vittorio Venturi, three regular GTA Junior drivers through 1972...

   
BRM-107 BRM Alfa Romeo 1300 Junior No.35 4h Jarama 1972 3rd Div.1 - 1/24th Scale

The final car was the Division 1 class winner at the 1971 Paul Ricard 12 hours - round seven of the 1971 European Touring Car Championship. The race took place over two days, with one 6 hour race per day. The #40 Alfa was driven by Gianluigi Picci and Guy Chasseuil. Picci was another regular GTA Junior driver in 1971 and 72...

   
BRM-106 BRM Alfa Romeo 1300 Junior No.40 12h Paul Ricard 1971 Winner Div.1 - 1/24th Scale

A big thank you to Neil at Pendle Slot Racing for the pictures and release information. All three cars are available as pre-orders from Pendles: www.pendleslotracing.co.uk/brand/brm/group-2-cars

Hi Chaps

Can anyone please help with this, just bought a

Scx Digital Advance E10286 - DIGITAL LANCIA FULVIA 1.6HF SAN REMO 1972 WINNERS

didn't notice it was digital, massive school boy error!
Anyway you can flick a switch underneath to run on analogue track, so it does work.
Only thing is the front lights don't work, rear lights do work ok.
If you put back to digital mode all the lights work but the engine doesn't run!

Any suggests?

Thanks
Graham

Got some really nice used Scalextric Caterhams and apart from having to change one pinion, even though I could see nothing wrong with it using magnifying glasses, they're great - apart from one.

The rears on that offer no traction whatsover, which seems to be down to perished? hardness rather than the original compound, as the others are ok.

I could swap  the rears with the fronts but I'd like to do away with the magnet really, so can anyone recommend replacements please? 

I have seen elsewhere that they are an odd size?

Thanks for any help offered.

I am putting this on here on behalf of all the newbies. Its a second hand set I bought from a seller in the UK who sells these layouts as a starter set for us beginners for less than £100, which I think is good value for a Scalextric sport digital set (with lots of border that I am yet to fit) .

I cannot match the wonderful track layouts that I will be racing on, so this is meant as a test track to set up the cars on, so it's all I need... 




p.s. not sure how to rotate photos...

Looking for a car to race in  1948-1960 Goodwood events. I'm thinking:-

Ferrari F555, or
Lancia Ferrari D50

Happy to consider new or used, I am hoping for a mechanically sound chassis, but am a bit more flexible on the condition of the body. 

Thank you for looking.

Greetings All...
My name is Bill Winski and I am from Aurora, Colorado, in the U.S.
I have a painted and sceniced 4-lane Scaley Sport track (the Circuit du Soleil):

   

The Scalextric Jaguar I-Pace individual cars are finally here and on their way to UK retailers.

       

C4042 Jaguar I-Pace - Red. RRP £40.99
C4064 Jaguar I-Pace Group 44 Heritage Livery. RRP £40.99

The Scalextric Jaguar I-Pace is an electric slot car model of the battery-electric Jaguar SUV which won both the European Car of the Year and World Car of the Year in 2019. You could say this is the most accurate Scalextric car ever - even down to its sound! The Scalextric model focuses on the Jaguar I-Pace eTrophy cars that run as a support series on some ABB Formula E weekends...

       

The I-Pace eTrophy is a typical one-make series with the chunky SUVs providing some great action on the tight Formula E street circuits!



I had a look at the pre-production version of the red I-Pace last autumn and surprisingly fell in love with it. I think the I-Pace could provide a fun and colourful grid for a one-make Scalextric Digital racing series...

   

I was a little disappointed not to see more I-Paces in the 2020 catalogue, but with the 2019 set and cars so late to the market, I am sure we can wait until 2021. The I-Pace is one piece of Scalextric tooling that has joined other Hornby Hobbies models at a new factory in Vietnam - a move outlined in the magazine 'Hornby Hobbies - a Model History' that was published last year. Unfortunately, the US government's imposition tariffs on Chinese goods last September sparked a full-on stampede of big US toy companies from China into Vietnam and it seems this completely clogged-up the output for smaller companies like Hornby.

The C1401 I-Pace Challenge set is already available (RRP £109.99) and features the two really nice liveries. They do have the typical set-car blacked out windows, but - who knows - we might see them at some point as full-detail individual cars...

   

If you want to follow the I-Pace eTrophy series this year, the 2019-20 season (eTrophy Season 2) continues with Round 3 in Mexico City on Saturday 15 February and finishes with Rounds 9 & 10 in London over the weekend of 25-26 July. There are also plenty of highlights on YouTube, with some races covered live on EuroSport.

   

A long and impressive list of new Fly cars for 2020 and early 2021 is beginning to circulate, so I thought it was time to share it here.

The first two new cars are BMW 3.0Ls - the first the Jägermeister Alpina Racing Team car driven by Nikki Lauda and Brian Muir in practice and qualifying for the 1973 Nürburgring 6 hours...

   

The second BMW 3.0 CSL is the red #51 car driven to third place at the 1974 ETCC round at Zandvoort by Huub Vermulen and Rob Slotemaker.

There are also two Datsun 240Z racers - André Haller's GTS Datsun that he drove with Hand Schuller and Benoit Maechler at the 1975 Le Mans 24 hours; and the car that Edgar Herman drove to victory at the 1971 Safari Rally...

   

Next up are two works McLaren M26s - but with very different liveries...

       

The first - in the traditional Marlboro colours - is James Hunt's winning car from the 1977 British Grand Prix. The second is the Löwenbräu car driven to sixth place by Patrick Tambay in the 1978 US Grand Prix East at Watkins Glen.

The final pair of new Fly cars are especially wonderful - the Toleman TG184s driven at the 1984 Monaco Grand Prix by Ayrton Senna and Johnny Cecotto...

   

This is most definitely the Grand Prix that will stay in my memory the longest - rookie Senna spectacularly hunting down race leader Alain Prost through heavy rain and on a sodden track. The clerk of the course panicked by halting the race as Senna passed the Frenchman for the lead - handing Prost an undeserved win. However, it was a decision that would cost him the 1984 world championship. Karma...

It is unclear at this time which of the new cars will be 'normal price' full-run injection moulded models and which will be the very limited edition resin models that have appeared recently. I am sure we'll find out in due course.


There are some great re-liveries on existing models too - a long list across the various fly ranges, including a good number of rally cars...

A-2010 BMW M1 Daytona Classic 2017 D. Quester
A-2011 BMW M1 Rally Du Var 1981 B. Darniche
A-2012 Ford Escort Safari Rally1971 R. Clark
A-2015 Renault 5 Rally Costa de Marfil 1982 J. Ragnotti
A-2016 Porsche 911 German Police car
A-2017 Porsche 911 Oran Park 1969 B.Foley
A-2018 Ferrari GTO Rally Gerona 1968 E. Baturone
A-2019 Ferrari GTO 1000Kms Paris 1962 P.Rodriguez & R. Rodriguez
A-2022 BMW M3 Rally Vila de Teror 2000 J.M Ponce
A-2023 / 24 BMW M3 24 H Spa 1992
A-2025 / 26 / 27 Porsche 908/2 Targa Florio 1969
A-2028 / 29 / 30 Lancia Beta Giro de Italia 1980


A-2031 Hesketh 308 German GP 1975 H. Ertl
A-2032 HESKETH 308 German GP 1976 G. Edwards

TRUCK62 Iveco GP España 2017 J. Hanh
TRUCK63 Iveco GP Misano 2018 S. Halm
TRUCK64 MAN Jarama 2012 A. Alabacete
TRUCK65 MAN Jarama 2011 A. Conejero
TRUCK66 Mercedes Jarama 2018 O. Santos
TRUCK67 Mercedes Zandvoort 2017 H. Leinz

VAN01 Ford Transit 260S
VAN02 Ford Transit 260S

TEAM20 Caja Audi Quattro A2 Monte Carlo Rally 1984 (Triple Pack)

AS2001 'Sport' Porsche 917K
AS2002 'Sport' Porsche 934
AS2003 'Sport' Porsche 908
AS2004 'Sport' Porsche 934

RACING Toyota 90C-V Taka-Q
RACING Toyota 90C-V Denso
RACING Toyota 90C-V Minolta

And finally - some SlotWings cars carried over from 2019...

W036-03 Porsche 911 IROC 1973 Fittipaldi
W036-04 Porsche 911 IROC 1973 Hulme
W036-05 Porsche 911 IROC 1973 Donohue
W037-03 Renault 5 Rally Villa de Llanes 1983 G. Ortiz

Admittedly, a lot of the list is rather sketchy, but I am sure UK Fly distributor Gaugemaster will let us know more as the year goes on. A few of these new cars are already available as pre-orders at Pendle Slot Racing - take a look here: www.pendleslotracing.co.uk/new/coming-soon.html?manufacturer=64

Stumbled across this range of building kits by M F Motorsport. They do look really good but there are no prices so ...........
......if you have to ask then you can't afford them.

There is currently a listing on eBay for 13 kits with a start price of £795!

I have added them to our index of scenic item suppliers which is a useful source of items for track builders.