1970s Club Racers

[David Lawson]

All my slot cars from the 1960s have disappeared without trace, most cannabalised for parts from build to build as was the way in those days, I have a handful of spares and the odd motor but sadly all my cars lovingly and badly created by my clumsy teenage hands have long gone.

Here are three cars that survived my racing in the 1970s. The Southend Club staged F1 championships for about five years and these cars were put away intact although my BRM P153, Matra MS120, Ferrari 312B, Brabham BT34, Lotus 72, Brabham BT44 and Hesketh are nowhere to be found.


Ferrari


Lotus


McLaren

All the cars used Charlie Fitzpatrick - Betta vacform shells, Mabuchi 13UO motors and scratchbuilt piano wire/brass chassis. All the cars were hand painted and sometimes I think that these days perfect cars with commercially available decals are a bit too easy to build. Maybe there should be an event for hand carved and painted cars only...

David

[gascarnut]

Wow, so cool with the hand-lettering! Very nice, I had the same drive to do scale stuff in those days, but not as much talent.

Can we see the undersides too, please?

[David Lawson]

As requested and sorry for the very long delay in replying!!

This shows the chassis for the McLaren M23



Using the Enzo Ferrari method of construction, back in those days I was always cutting up and re-using bits of cars for the next build. I have no idea what this chassis started life as but as you can see the rear bracket has part of the original chassis rails soldered to the body shaped metal plate of the new chassis. The flimsy drop arm was braced with some piano wire. The metal sheet is actually a flattened out Coca Cola can... Looking at the U-bracket that looks like it has had at least two previous lots of chassis rails soldered to it for earlier cars

The motor is a standard Mabuchi 13UO, the gears are Taylormade, Champion front wheels but I can't remember the rear wheels - possibly Wonderland items.

My slot car construction wasn't pretty then or particularly well put together but they went ok.

David