[woodcote]

Of course Hornby are first-and-foremost a model railway company. However, they have invested a lot in Scalextric to get it ship-shape since the change of owners. The new Micro Scalextric system was long overdue and has really hit the mark with the key young family market. Hornby don't release specific sales figures, but if you go to Amazon (or other retail sites that rank sales), you can see how well Micro and My First Scalextric sell. For Scalextric, they are by far the best-selling sets. With the new improved system, there's also an improved profit margin.

The other main market is collectors, for which the new owners are delivering a feast of new cars - specifically more new tooling every year than we've seen in a long while. Despite all the production and distribution hurdles of pandemic, the new tooling for each of 2020, 2021 and 2022 will be more than 2019. The Scalextric team have said that the 2021 catalogue should be seen as what to expect, not an exception. The issue at the moment, is delivering those new cars to the customers - all the development (as shown in the programme) is in place.

Despite not providing huge sales for Hornby, home racers certainly aren't ignored. Even high-budget, low volume stuff like digital is persevered with - although that seems to have sold well during the pandemic to people looking for a 'stay-at-home' hobby. Spark Plug is very different - aimed at that young family market.

As for club racers - we are really are a tiny niche... And tiny niche companies are best suited to cater for those specific - and rapidly changing - demands. However, as Mr M pointed out, there many clubs (our own included) that enjoy tuning Scalextric cars and seeing what we can do with them. There are similar crazy people in real motor sport who'd always choose to grab a production Škoda to develop than buy a race-prepared Porsche GT.

Apart from the Countach (and the rumoured FK8 Civic), we'll have to wait to January to see what's new from Scalextric  for 2022. Expect a full reveal here on SlotRacer Online.