Digest 9

All the good stuff from week 9, plus a special feature on a dramatic change in car design

Proxy Racing

SlotRacer proxy racing stickers

There was some discussion initially about whether we needed a Proxy Racing section on the SlotRacer forum… but then the Coronavirus pandemic struck. Suddenly, proxy racing became the only reliable and safe way for people to ‘meet up’ and race slot cars. It certainly looks as if plenty of first-time competitors and hosts have caught the proxy bug!

We obviously now have a dedicated proxy forum, we have several proxy racing series either onging, or being arranged, we can offer practical advice and assistance, and we also have some exclusive glossy vinyl stickers available to event organisers. So why not drop by and check it out, or better still join in?

Rusted and dirty, HO scale Camaro

Scratch Building

Scarlet Ferrari Can Am model car

Slot Cars

Green Scalextric Lotus 25
Turquoise Aztec HO Dragster

Accessories

Tracks & Scenery

  • Whichwood QuarryA video from Whichwood Quarry track using a number of techniques, including stop motion animation and compositing.

Media

Pages from Slot Magazine
  • Slot Magazine #44 – March / April 2021 – The latest edition of Slot Magazine – #44 March/April 2021 – has just been published. The 67 page full colour glossy magazine is on sale from selected WH Smiths stores and from Pendle Slot Racing.

Design Feature

In our special feature this week, we take a look at how a complete paradigm shift in the design language of the automobile changed how cars look forever.

In 1971 Marcello Gandini sent out an edict to car makers the world over, insisting that they must stop designing their cars with the soft, sensuous curves that they’d been used to over the last couple of decades, and instead turn to sharper, more angular forms.

Or at least that’s what it must have felt like to anybody with their finger on the pulse of future trends when Lamborghini unveiled Gandini’s astonishing LP500 prototype at the 1971 Geneva Motor Show. This was a concept car, of course, but three years later it actually went into production as the Countach, a word aptly expressing astonishment in the Piedmontese language.

Yellow Lamborghini Countach

The flood gates had been opened. In quick order the auto makers flocked to Gandini and Giugiaro’s studios to investigate the possibilities of this new language, and before long everyone wanted a sharp lined, angular design in their portfolio.

Of course this is a huge over simplification of the story, and as we’ll see below, the search for this new language began many years before. The question is why?

Why did the Italian design houses believe we needed to change the shape of the car? After all you could quite easily argue that the quintessential grace of a Jaguar E-Type, or an Alfa Romeo Tipo33 Stradale were as close to perfection as it is possible to achieve.

Red Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 Stradale with a cloudy sky and concrete building
Metallic grey Jaguar E-Type in a moody studio shot

Perhaps it was simply a change in fashion, a desire for something new. Or perhaps it was the dawning realisation that the forms of the day had gone as far as they could, they’d reached their zenith, and the only way to move forwards was to effect a complete change in direction.

Striking green and black Alfa Romeo Carabo
Ferrari Modulo  and Lancia Stratos Zero on display
  • BMW Turbo1972 BMW Turbo, one of the greatest cars in the BMW stable
1972 BMW Turbo with an orange nose and burgundy body
A gold Jaguar Ascot with black details

But it wasn’t just exotic Italian concepts and supercars that were drawn to the origami school of car design. Even mainstream manufacturers took the ideas on board. The original VW Golf was a classic example, as were the FIAT X1/9, Citroen BX, Austin Princess and many, many others.

Black Austin Princess

So was this new way of thinking a success? Well, to a degree it certainly was.

Though it might not have been as classically beautiful as the best of the older, aero influenced style, it certainly became popular and fashionable. It was almost de-rigeur in 1970s and 80s and its influence has carried through to this day.