[dvd3500]

I know Dave frequents here from time to time but I found his latest video very interesting.
I agree with many of his sentiments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1n816J1JM0

As someone who only played mildly with H0 cars in the 80's and came into the hobby in around 2013 I can't delve through years of memories and i didn't experience the "golden age" myself so getting his insight helps me focus on how best to increase the uptake of the hobby.

I have recently been allowed to go into our club as I please and guess what? Nearly every day I have free and my son has friend(s) over he wants to go slot racing.
When I got the run through on how the track worked I asked how to reduce the voltage and he stared at me for a minute and said "they have to learn to drive so we never do that"... needless to say I figured it out and I started them at 9 volts, then upped it to 10 and finally the 11 we normally race.

The had a blast. I expected to stay there 1 maybe 2 hours. We were there a full 5....!

It might have helped that we had done a tour of the Hockenheimring beforehand though. :-)

[JasonB]

Yes, I think he probably is to a degree.

[Scuderia_Turini]

Dave is definitely correct on the dumbing-down aspects and the attractions of "complete world" type marketing. 

The snag with all toys is the affordability.
The vast majority of parents are wary of spending a lot of cash on items that may only have a short life usage. Not sure who started the concept of "My First ..." (Sony ?) which gives people an entry level product alongside the availability of more costly and desirable packages, and that seems sensible and all of the toy-market slot car systems have these. If parents see that their purchase is being well used they can then confidently spend more.  

Specialist slot-racing companies don't need to attract low-budget buyers although Slot.It seem to be doing that with the Policar system and it will be very interesting to see how that product fares in the coming years. 

Leo

[JasonB]

I've always thought the manufacturers who are specifically aiming at the younger market could do more to set the imagination rolling.

Dave's point about setting the racing in an environment seems obvious to me, and probably to anyone who has added scenery to their track. It really does add so much. It surprises me that nobody has ever really taken on the idea that Airfix used in their Monte Carlo Rally set.

Obviously with that set they included some simple printed card to recreate mountains and create elevations. But in a modern set they could make simple flat Gotham City buildings for a Batman set, for instance. Or San Francisco buildings for a Bullitt set. Or famous James Bond scenes for a 007 set. Or the streets of Milan, or maybe mountains for an Italian Job set. Or Le Mans buildings for an LMP set, or crowd scenes and pits for a general racing set. You get the idea, just simple, cheap, printed card, to go around the boundary of the track, or to create elevation, like the Monte Carlo set.

Personally, I think that anything that reduces our hobby to just a racing experience, without encouraging the imagination, misses the point that human beings, young or old, are both competitive, and imaginative.

[autoavia]

Dave does make a lot of relevant points but to me one of the biggest reasons why there are less sales is because, over the years, Scalextric dealers have simply disappeared from a majority of town centres. If you want the public to buy they need to be able to see the product and the surest way to fire their imagination is to dangle the product under the nose of the prospective buyer without them needing to go search for it.

 The loss of dealers also means that there is nowhere to go for help and advice if a car stops working and I know of several children who were bought Scalex sets which were consigned to the loft after a short time because a car stopped working. Often the problems are things like damaged braids or a cracked pinion - all very easy to repair but, in modern times, most people just don't have the basic skills to find and resolve these problems without help from a knowledgeable dealer and Dad never has time to drive miles to find help usually expecting that he is going to have to spend a fortune on repairs when he gets there which is not usually the case. A large part of the reason for the breakdowns is that children just aren't taught how to look after things anymore which is why the poor abused slot car has given up the ghost.   
 
 When I owned my own model shop in the late 80's I looked at stocking Scalextric but it just wasn't viable.
The deal was that I had to take a certain number of each set and once I had committed to buy the sets I could buy other items BUT Argos, who were a few hundred yards up the road were selling the base Mighty Metro Set for around £35 and Hornby wanted me to pay £35 plus vat for the same set so my option would be to sell them for less than cost or still be stuck with them when it came to committing to buy new sets the following year.

At that time Hornby also had a policy of unloading excess warehouse stock cheaply through one dealer in Southend (now long gone) who then sold all the stuff on at huge discounts effectively killing off most of the other Scalex and Hornby railway dealers in the area. It wouldn't have been so bad if other dealers were offered the same stock but my understanding was always that it was an exclusive deal for the one retailer.    


 It is probably fair to say that most set sales happen around Christmas and for many years Hornby had management who thought that it was ok to produce what Dave described as "dumbed down" sets for catalogue companies and supermarkets who then undercut the Scalex dealers on price. It was only on Christmas Day that the buyer found that the cars had no lights, no interiors etc and that was why the set was cheap and what made it worse was that in some cases the set had been sold in a box with a picture that depicted cars with working lights which meant the customer felt even more let down. I worked for a Scalex dealer in the late 90's and it wasn't unusual to have customers with these dumbed down sets turn up after Xmas complaining that the lights didn't work having been told by the Hornby helpline to bring the set in to us for repair. We got the job of explaining why the lights didn't work while the catalogue, mail order companies and supermarkets just sat back and took their profit without a care in the world while the Scalex dealers dealt with the problems. 

 Dave also mentions putting scenery in pictures in the catalogue which seems a good idea BUT the picture in the catalogue has to reflect the set contents to comply with the Trade Descriptions Act although it would be a good idea to have pictures of scenic tracks on the accessories page to upsell pit buildings etc.   
I also wonder how many people actually buy the catalogue other than diehard enthusiasts/collectors. Maybe it would be better to have a cheaper catalogue which could be included with each set to fire the imagination when the box is first opened.  

 The idea of scenery is fine if you have the space but most modern houses tend to have small rooms which means no space for a permanent layout and often very little room to set up a set on the floor. Even the garage seems to get filled with junk as most modern houses have garages which are too small for modern cars. Unfortunately there is nothing Hornby can do about this.

I know I have specifically mentioned Hornby in my rant but this is because Hornby dominate the UK market. I am sure other makers of "toy" slot cars in other countries have similar problems for similar reasons.

Having retired I would be only too happy to look at setting up a small business offering slot car repairs and a range of cars but I couldn't afford the investment or the space to buy and store sets. From Hornby's point of view they are unlikely to be interested partly because they want to promote set sales and also because they may feel it would be unfair to the toy shops who sell their sets although the nearest shop is between 10 and 15 miles away and has no repair service.

I think Hornby are still trying to recover from the effects of poor decisions made by previous managements over many years together with the effects that changes in retail have had on the hobby trade generally. One of the biggest changes in retail for the hobby industry is that the traditional model shop where you could get specialist advice has been killed off by excessive rents and business rates which make it all but impossible to make a profit and that specialist advice helped massively in selling the product. Hornby do seem to have a better understanding of the slot car market now and have invested heavily in new tooling etc in recent times so they deserve to succeed.  

Incidentally, for those who don't know me, I have been there, read the book, seen the play and the film and after 7 years hard work came out the other end £70,000 poorer. Please don't think I am bitter about this. I had a great time and met many people that I could only have hoped to meet in my dreams but it would have been an awful lot nicer if I still had a business and was still able to do my bit to promote slot car racing and all the other aspects of the hobby industry.

[CMOTD]

Dave has a marginally valid point although he could have put it more succinctly. Compare early Scalextric catalogues and the latest ones in the LIBRARY to see what he means.

However, adding borders and fences to sets is hardly likely to set the world on fire. Ever since the early days, slot cars (and choo choo trains for that matter) have been a short lived toy for children which invariably ended up in the loft after a few months. The percentage of people who progressed to embracing the hobby properly has always been tiny which is why so many old slot cars have survived.

Neither slot cars nor model railways have ever been a cheap hobby and most households lack the most important ingredient to take them any further - space for a permanent layout. Sets still sell in large quantities at Christmas but, as houses get ever smaller, the scope for more involvement continues to diminish. If rug racing is your only option you are never going to be able to build that dream circuit and any initial enthusiasm will drain away.

Video games, by way of contrast, take up minimal space and are relatively less expensive.

[Scuderia_Turini]

The toy-market and the hobby-market are separate entities. Toys are disposable - how many of us had toys that were disposed of by parents? 

Leo

[Anthony B]

Tony - i STILL marvel that you remembered me from 1984 when I used to do 1/43rd modellling  and from 1 visit to your shop :)

I dont fully agree with Dave.  he is too focused on the now, where companies post 2008 are battling to survive. Have we forgotten that if Hornby had not been bought /refinanced it would no longer be here. And lets be honest - they have got something right as they have been here since late 57.

He has forgotten US - the market. We are fickle, self gratifying and just wanting the 'new'. Just look at the current phone idiotcracy. Slots has not been able to change quick enough through the decades, and the one immensely huge difference is that in the 60's there were corporations involved and millions of units made per item, where as now lets be honest - it is small 1-2 man shows producing 1500-7500 units, and not all of those are sold.

The companies are trying, you can now race using an ipad for a controller, can simulate true races with refuelling, tyre changes etc. 6 cars on 1 lane. No I think the companies have had to focus the little capital they have on where to spend it.

Yes marketing is terrible. That truly needs to come back. Advertising as well.  It needs to be a co-ordinated, well thought out and well planned campaign. But it takes capital which sadly so few of them have.

We are also to blame. Scalextric bring out a superb Lotus 25 - unbelievably difficult LITTLE car to model because of its size (Just look at the attempts from the 60's. And what happens - we get all the 'midwits' panning it, wrong screen, too wide etc.

SO blame needs to be apportioned where it is due, as well as the kudo's.

[autoavia]

I do think that some people need to realise that companies like Scalex have to make some compromises because they are still aiming at the toy market so the Lotus possibly had to be a little wide to make it driveable by children and non-enthusiast grown ups. If the screen was the same for every incarnation of the Lotus 25 there is no excuse for getting it wrong but it could well be that Hornby had to choose a screen that is correct for most of the versions that they will produce in which case the compromise is understandable as new moulds don't come cheap.  If people want absolute accuracy in every model they probably need to buy from the specialists that make resin cars which are beautiful models but their accuracy and attention to detail is reflected in the price and most are really intended to be shelf queens so if you want to race you have to accept compromises.   

I think one problem with all slot race sets has always been that they take a fair time to assemble and dismantle which means less actual play time and that is a problem that just can't be resolved. For some reason it seems there are more people prepared to mount a model railway on a baseboard than people who are prepared to mount a slot track possibly because it is possible to squeeze a reasonable OO gauge layout into a lot less space than a half decent slot track.

My age means that I am a traditional analogue racer so racing a car from an ipad, simulating fuel stops and having six cars to a lane doesn't interest me. I can see the appeal of digital for children and their families and all the gizmos like fuel stops probably look great on paper but I suspect they can be difficult to set up and wonder how many people give up on them when the novelty wears off.
i did visit one DISCA event to have a look at club level digital but everyone seemed to use one lane and punt off anyone they wanted to pass. It was a very bad tempered affair and convinced me that club level digital was definitely not for me.   

 Personal service that encourages the buyer to stick with the product when things go a bit wrong just isn't available in an age when there are few specialist shops. Finding a way to offer that sort of service coupled with marketing that allows children and adults to see the product up close rather than on a computer screen is probably the best way forward.

Incidentally I have a 25 year old step grandson who recently asked me how my slot cars work. He had been under the impression that we built the car, put it on a track so that it ran at a set speed and the last car to stay in the slot was the winner. He did have a Scalex set as a child which soon got wrecked and I bought a Ninco set when he was younger which rarely got used and he still didn't understand the concept of racing a slot car. Something has gone wrong somewhere!