[chrisguyw]

When was the last time you raced a thingie Chris?

Well,.............it must have been close to 25 yrs. ago !!!

A few of the folks racing at Ernie Mosetti's (MRSlotcar) commercial track decided that we should have a Vintage "Thingie" series, using production based cars from the mid 60's. Although not a Thingie fan, I was cajoled into joining in, and I managed to find a Cox La Cucaracha in reasonable shape and rebuilt/raced it.

I must admit it was fun (most slotcar racing is), but I would certainly have preferred to be racing sports/CanAm/USRRC cars.

Anyway, I still have the car, and while it never gets raced, I do run it round my track periodically, just to make sure it still goes.

The chassis was taken apart, a brass insert installed on the center "ISO" motor carrier/guide tongue, and a nut bolt was used to both freeze the drop arm, and to allow for ride height adjustment.

The motor (a Cox "Nascar" FT16D) was taken apart, period Arco 33 magnets and shim installed, the gimballed can end bushing was soldered in, and it was rewound with 70 turns of 30 gauge wire, comm cut, and balanced. (Since then it has been further refurbed by John Havlicek, and it is John's rebuilt motor in the car below).
There is a Parma PSE Crown installed in the car in the pic., but it ran in the series with the correct Cox Crown....additionally, it now sits on urethane tires (original "grey" Ortmanns'/Cox taper lok hubs), but did race with sponge boots/stock Cox wheels.



I did paint the body, but as it is polypropylene I should not have done this, as it is a bugger to get paint to stick to.



Cheers
Chris Walker