[ARUP]

Lights in cars are a bit frivolous but I like to put them in cars that had 'em! We have 'Night Racing' which is for cars with lights. I made all of the street lighting for a friend's track that is switched to 'on' for this. We run chipped cars for lane changing. The chips allow headlights to be switched on/off, they show braking lights when decellerating and cars can be wired with LEDs in exhaust that flicker to resemble flames.

My Gordini car has head and fog lights and four brake lights! It was a trick getting all of that installed but it was fun doing it and, to me, looks cool! The Alfa Romeo Sprint Especiale car I built has lights, too. I just drive it. It doesn't race as it is a 'gentleman's car'! I just like to drive it around the track wishing I could have a full scale version. Have a look at it and some of my other cars posted in the forums. I have more on the way.

[CMOTD]

I confess that I was playing devil's advocate a bit when I started this thread but thought it might be a fun topic for discussion.

Bearing in mind that the major 'toy' companies (Scalextric, SCX and Carrera) all fit lights but the 'professional' companies (Slot.It etc) don't, it would appear that those of us who like lights and think they are 'cool' are just big kids playing with toy plastic cars! 

Obviously cars that do race in the dark in real life need the slot versions to be fitted with them provided, of course, that you actually run night races. I draw the line at BTCC and other similar saloon championships though. Current BTCC cars have never run in the dark and it doesn't rain in my garage so lights are entirely superfluous and just look silly. 

We also occasionally had night races at my club but, as the marshals couldn't find crashed cars in the dark, we had to fit so many track lights that we might just as well have raced normally!

[rallyhub]

Bearing in mind that the major 'toy' companies (Scalextric, SCX and Carrera) all fit lights but the 'professional' companies (Slot.It etc) don't,ell have raced normally!

Even rally slot cars from SRC, Avant Slot, Fly, Le Mans Miniatures, Ninco and maybe a few others don't have lights.

[Kevan]

Cars that need lights are either street cars, Rally cars or Endurance racers.

DiSCA stipulate working lights for their 24hr races, plus you wouldn't be able to race in the dark because you couldn't see your car 

[Graham]

We manage quite well at our club, all the room lights are turned off, but there is sufficent ornamental track lighting to see where you are on the track. Torches are given to the marshalls and the cars can run with a colour sticker on the one of the headlights to assist with deslots. We run like that for a number of years with one race early in the year and the other in the Autumn to get the dark evenings.

[GT40Racer]

Bearing in mind that the major 'toy' companies (Scalextric, SCX and Carrera) all fit lights but the 'professional' companies (Slot.It etc) don't,

but the cynic in me points out that they sell a light kit as an add on part - but to be fair given the price of their professional car is around the same as the toy one and they are much better performers its a fair trade off.

I like lights in cars - I am a bit lazy about adding them to cars that don't have them. When I run a car with lights non slot car people will often comment - oh the lights look cool ..... like it makes it more realistic or something..

[ARUP]

Lights add to the realism and I love'em! 

Ditto, but only when they come fitted. Fitting light is not a task I enjoy, or one that necessarily results in working lights on a car!

I snipped the lights out of my white Mini. Then the rules changed to night racing. I raced as many times as I could without lights before being disqualified.

Do you think I could get lights back in the car? Not a chance. I invented a new lanquage just trying (a mix of Gaelic and Japanese I think). I eventually got one bright white LED installed which makes the entire nose glow. Then installed a bright red LED in the back. Now the entire back end glows red. All the guys in my club have a good chuckle over that one. At least it has lights now.

So that the body doesn't glow paint the area flat black on the inside!

[Scuderia_Turini]

Technology tends to lead the way and presumably lights being added to models came from the railway world and subsequently to slot cars.
Much in the same way that die-cast model cars had glazing added, lights added a selling feature and the ability to offer a premium range at higher selling price. After a while working lights became a standard feature for slot-cars and the general public would expect working lights. Of course diehard slot-car fans will say they are not necessary but they probably still like 'em.

[ARUP]

One in our group races a Porsche 'Pink Pig'. She wanted lights so I took the car home and put pink head lights and red tail lights in it. She loves it and wants to race us with it! Anything to stimulate interest is okay by me!!!