The History of Globe Motors
“Globe Motors was based in Dayton, OH. and was a supplier to the US
Government for extremely hi-tech small electric motors to precisely power the
fins of cruise missiles under DC power. Instant hi-torque and hi revs were
necessary, these small round permanent-magnet motors running at a constant 55000RPM
on 12-volt, and providing power to the fins through a clutch system.
In 1964, when the slot car boom really hit town, Globe created a company to
handle their slot racing side of the business: Versitec.
Globe took one of those missile motors and introduced it to the slot car
world as the Globe SS81. The SS81 was an 18-volt, 1″ round motor with a 5-pole sealed arm,
a serious commutator with welded wires, Alnico round magnet, shunted brushes,
and two quality caged ball bearings. the motor was excellent, quick and virtually
indestructible. Problems were:
1/ price of $14.95 made it more than 5 times more expensive than the others.
2/ the 1/8″ shaft presented problems with finding the right pinions and gear ratio.
By 1965, Globe produced the SS91, a 12-volt version of the 18-volt SS81, and built
a sidewinder die cast alloy chassis for these motors under the name Versitec. They features ball
bearings at all four corners, leaf spring front suspension and adjustable drop
arm. They were largely ignored by the slot car enthusiasts as an oddity costing
a lot of money.
In 1967, Globe-Versitec decided to introduce a specific slot racing motor, at a $9.95 price. The SS101 was a full 1/16″ lower than a Mabuchi FT16, now
universally used as THE motor to have by the pros. It had the 5-pole
arm from the SS91 now statically balanced and set in a new 2-piece can, with black plastic ends receiving the
huge flanged ball bearings and the same brush setup as on the SS91. Again, top
quality materials and parts were used, and these (scarce) motors were little
rockets for rich kids. So their popularity was very limited and Versitec packed
it in in early 1968. They had produced an inline chassis for the motor, but
again this was largely ignored by the public.
The SS101 had a long legacy in its magnets: the strong units were used by MURA
for their first Mura-made cans, inside a shim called a “can-in-a-can” also
marketed by Dynamic. This entire setup could fit inside a Mura or a stock
Mabuchi can, or even a Champion 517-525 series can, as their inner dimensions
were identical. Then Mura made the “B” can, kind of a Versitec SS101 with a Mura
arm and a much lower price. The “B” was an immense failure, and Mura eventually
dropped it in favor of the “C” can in 1971.
The SS101 is in fact, a very quick motor, certainly as fast as the best that
Champion and Mura could muster at the time. If it had been at all used by any
top-level pro, it could have become the “thing to have” in 1968. Since most pros
were linked to a motor manufacturer, it was not to be.
My little Ferrari built for the Bordeaux Vintage Meeting II was trying to make
the point, and it made it all right: too much power made the car difficult to
control…”
COMMENTS by Don Siegel:
The original company, Globe Motors of Dayton, was recently purchased by the SNECMA group of France (one of my clients), which
makes airplane jet engines! I sent an email to see if any of their 60s engineers
were still around but never got a reply.
Anyway, both the SS-81 and SS-91 were offered at about the same time, 1964-65,
when somebody found that these missile motors worked in slot cars, and Globe
must have picked up on this. There were still a lot of 18V figure eight tracks
for the 81, an 18 volt motor. They were $14.95, already two to three times the
price of a complete car! When Globe saw that the market was booming, they created the Versitec division (ca 66), and came out with a complete line of slot products, mostly chassis, gears, ball bearings and motors.
The SS-101 came out in 1967 or 68 and was “only” $9.98, which by the time wasn’t
that out of line. I had one (must have been my birthday or something), and still have the ball bearings but the rest has disappeared! Anyway, I remember it as
being about as fast as the Champions, etc., but at some point it slowed down,
and given my own state of the art, there wasn’t much I could do about it; the
problem in my opinion is that it just couldn’t be hopped up like the more
conventional 16Ds… I did take it apart, with the vague idea of rewinding
and/or replacing brushes, but there it remained in the bottom of my case, while
I stuck to my own trusty rewinds - well, one anyway, with a 60×30 in a K&B case
with Versitec magnets… The 1/8″ shaft wasn’t a real problem either, at least
for a non-pro like me, because with the torque of these motors they could be
geared 3:1, especially on the longer tracks and with the little tires that were
already pretty standard.
The Versitec chassis were nicely engineered, but way too heavy and clunky for
the time. Maybe today in a vintage class they’d be perfect. I have one of each,
SW and IL, and they are on my project schedule.
So that’s the long, sad story of Globe/Versitec. Globe is still in business in Dayton, making precision electric motors and actuators - and under French
ownership. So maybe there’s “une voiture de slot” in our future.
That October 64 ad in MC&T
was the first mention of Globe that I can find; they ran the same ad in the
November 1964 issue of Model Car Science, for the SD-500 (”What can you expect
from the world’s most expensive slot car motor?) and then, in the December 64
issue of MCS, the ad became:
“SCREAMER”
And this time it was for the SS-91, which is very similar to the earlier one,
but not quite the same: it’s a bit thicker, heavier and turns 40,000 rpm, as
opposed to the 25,000 for the SD-500
What do you know? Looking in
my junk box, I do indeed have a “SD-500″, that appears to be slightly smaller in
diameter than the SS81/91 motor, and has a metal-foil stamped ID plate with even
the serial number of the motor. the shaft is 1/8″, the length is the same as on
the SS81/91.
The SS91 and SD lines have now disappeared from the Globe Motors Inc. catalogue
REPLY:
Note that there are two
versions of the SS101, as a later (scarcer) version had small vent holes
stamped on top and bottom of the can. This is the one I used to build the
Ferrari P4 shown on the Bordeaux story on our website. I took the thing from a
brand new box…a sacrilege for top collectors! (oh well, I have another one
anyway). You are correct in pointing out the shortcomings of the Versitec
frames, they were a bit clunky, but well made and their packaging looks great!
As far as pinions for the 1/8″ shaft, I remember never be able to even find any in the 1960’s.