First-Ever Angle-Winder Slot Car Revisited

Fantastic, Dr P!

I wish I’d had that line about adding extra weight when I first started
soldering! But that’s a beautiful, evocative car- I remember those spindly
frames, just how we used to do them before the big pans appeared. And Bob
Kovacs seems to have the Lola-Aston blue-green color sorted out all that
time ago- it’s been bugging me recently! I don’t suppose you have a record
of the exact shade used? There’s another scratch-built Xylon in it for you if
you do…

Yours in hopes rather than expectation, but thanks for the fascinating post!

I am afraid that even Bob Kovacs would be in
dire trouble to supply us with a correct mix…

That is a really great car.

I’m a little disappointed that that car hasn’t
provoked more of a reaction amongst our gentle readers. I was looking
forward to a raging debate. Especially from our Rail, who I thought would
immediately nominate some antique steam-powered rail car, with a myriad of
excellent reasons.

I’m sure you don’t underestimate it as being the world’s most important as
far as I’m concerned, but I am surprised that no-one has tried to dispute
that tag.

I wasn’t aware at the time who designed and built the first actual
angle-winder, but certainly was greatly affected by it. In-lines were suddenly
as obsolete as 26D sidewinders were a year or so before. Such a huge and
immediate improvement in handling! I had to start bashing my carefully made
U-brackets into funny obtuse angles and hunting round for spur gears again.
Has any other single chassis development had such a dramatic effect?

Mind- I remember reading about a US racer called Doug Henline, who for his
own reasons (possibly the obvious one!) stuck to in-lines for a bit longer
than most, and seemed to be able to win through sheer driving ability. But I
may have got that one a bit tangled up. I usually have.

And the front axle-on-drop arm thing always passed me by. I could never work
out the point of that Dynamic chassis, never having owned one (too expensive
at the time, and still now!), and never being startled by it’s performance
in other people’s hands. But I was very young then. Drop arm OK- keeps the
guide in the slot regardless of what the front wheels are doing. But as soon
as you connect the drop arm to the front wheels you lose that advantage.
There must be a logical explanation…. Perhaps US tracks were smoother than
ours….

Drop arms don’t work unless sprung down or have a
mag on top .Just as an example say you have a car with a drop arm approaching
he top of a hump as the car goes over the hump the drop arm which carries
the same momentum as the rest of the car caries on in the same direction
and stays flat and wont drop of its own accord . therefore un-sprung non
magnetic drop arms don’t work the only thing they might do is if the car tips
then the guide might stay in the lot slightly longer ,but if the drop arm is
locked to the front wheels the wheels will touch first in the corner and
stabilize the car the hinge just adds a certain amount of de coupling
similar to running a loose body on a plastic car .

And Philippe the car is a classic but didn’t Chas Keeling build the first
angle winder with his KS powered Harvey aluminum special . This car as I
recall was 4 wheel drive and had the motor diagonally across the chassis to
drive the front and rear wheels ,I think I have a pic somewhere.

Hmmm. Thanks Grah. I think I understand. I was
always thinking in terms of the tipping effect rather than the ‘hump’ effect
I suppose. We did use to spring the arms a little or put loads of lead on
the end, and the amount of travel was pretty small anyway… I use a magnet
now. But that momentum you mention doesn’t necessarily apply if it is a
random deflection on the wheels rather than a hump in the track anyway, does
it? And presumably those ‘rally’ cars with drop arms to use on special
tracks are a bit of a waste of time… although I have no experience of
them. But I do agree about the ‘decoupling’ effect, probably the most
important.

Cool car though, no doubt about that!

Don’t know about the rally tracks but look at the
picks on slotcentre and in GSR they look sprung I have used a sprung guide
on Ninco track to help with the bumps but I’m not convinced as I tend to run
tripods anyway but lets not get back into the tripod VS 4 wheel argument
again . I have just down loaded the pics and might have to make a replica of
this chassis just for the sake of it , I don’t have a Pactra motor to use but
I have a Rikochet which is of similar appearance, any idea what wind Husting
used on the arm so I can get the power some where near.

Sounds like a great project, Grah! Don’t forget
to stock up with solder. Have you got a source for a T70GT shell?

tx, I was thinking along the lines you wrote, as
I think that some of the earlier rail cars are much more important in the
history of our hobby but this is so subjective that to every person, the
most important car will be different. I think Walkden Fisher’s rail Mercedes
is too me one of the most important cars but I think that it is impossible
to narrow it down too one car.

I can see if you were in America when Gene built this car, pro-racing then
this would be a very important car, but to me personally it is a great car
but it has almost no historical significance as it was just another step in
building faster pro-racing cars.

RR

Gee, Mr P, you been talking to Mope recently?
Certainly picked up the hyperbole ‘ting.

I’m with RR on this one, it may be the most important car in American
slot racing history but surely not the world.

Like you say, “The car appears crude…”

Guess it marks a time, rather like at Indy with the arrival of rear-engined
cars, when the design rulebook was torn up and rewritten, everything else
consigned to history.

Betta make a decent 1/24 Lola T70 GT shell and
it’s available in various thickness.

To be fair, if it was American, then it more or
less meant ‘World’ in them there days!

I liked drop arms and still do, but as a separate entity from all other
parts of the frame – other than its necessary pivot, of course! ie not with
the motor resting on it and not with the front axle on it either.

The curious thing is, that in one form or another, they were all the rage
for quite a long time, yet today, are no longer seen on commercial chassis
or anything else much beside the gimmicky ‘all terrain vehicles’.

No no please no! A blindfold will do!

But thanks for today’s Big Laugh Grah!

There’s always something on the old SF to crack the cheeks. Not always the
right pair though..

Here’s a pic of Chas Keeling’s angled Harvey
Aluminum spec circa 1964

sorry about the quality but its an old pic but as you can see Chas used a
K’s frame motor at an angle diagonally across the chassis to give 4 wd he
used contrate gears and not spurs.

Is this the earliest angle winder or can some one find one older?

I think that one is in a class of its own!

Very neat and innovative, it probably deserves its own special
classification/description.

Diangle-winder?

Philippe I was not trying to belittle the
importance of Gene’s car ,as if we had not been made aware of its existence
back then we’d probably still be racing in-lines ,merely pointing out that
the angled motor albeit for different reasons had been around before as had
the full sidewinder Gene exploited the idea and showed the way to go and I
do think it was a mile stone in slot racing history. It also helped me to
dominate the racing at my then club in Accrington for quite some time.

I have to say I’m still with the Doc on this,
Grah. Mr Keeling’s car, groovy as it is, is a twisted inline, done to get
round the problem of fitting four wheel drive and a guide flag under a small
body (well, a Harvey Al. Spl.). And four-wheel drive belongs, as our man
somewhat harshly puts it, ‘in the bin’ as far as competitive racing is
concerned. The angle-winder idea is a different thing altogether.

And TSRF (blimey- how many pseudonyms are you allowed to have?) kinda backs
up my long held idea that the drop arm was there at least partly to isolate
the guide from the movements of the front wheels. As in the dreaded ISO-fulcrum.

And are you, with uncharacteristic modesty, PdL, offering your own Diamond
chassis as the other comparable break-through in chassis design about which
I initially enquired? Any other supporters for that idea?

I’m getting out of my depth here. I think I’ll just doggy paddle back to the
toddlers pool. But good discussion!

And what other bin-bound ideas were bravely pursued and beautifully
engineered by the bold pioneers of our beautiful hobby, by the way? I used
to fall asleep reading descriptions of intricate 1/32 clutch mechanisms in
‘Model Cars’.

Hi guys

it would really be nice if we could have pics of the different examples of
historical type of chassis:
pans, drop arms, hinged, diamond etc etc.

I stopped racing in 1967-68 after I won several races with Cox Cucaracha and
Chaparral with re-wounded 26Ds . Then the Porsche Russkit with that black
flimsy chassis (which I never liked compared to the beauty of the Cox aluminum
chassis) began to win in all Italy and here in the Italian side of
Switzerland but by the time I had a revolution to do (yes Mr. Pea I was on
“that” side of the barricades

so I quit slot race (also because you could find girls more easily in
occupied schools than in slot cars tracks
)

Anybody would put up some pics please?

Mr Pea? (I swear that I don’t read Mao Tse Dong’s red book anymore

Thanks and best regards

Edo (former red guard)

I had a sneaky feeling that the mere mention of
drop arms would trigger another entertainingly educational response! I love
this stuff – lots of history, sensible reasoning, wonderful!

What can I think of next . . .

I’ve been doing my controversial best to stir
things up, Tropi. I wish I had some photos of these old devices, but I think
we’ll just have to rely on goading Monsieur Pea. Maybe Russell has some
stuff still tucked away in his drawers. Or perhaps that’s just the way he
walks.

Here

Chaparral Cox I raced and the Mini-A the “best” Italian chassis then which
took over and beat Cox “Cuc” and Russkit Porsche in 69-70 (if I remember
well).

could you tell me how the 2 chassis qualify: Cox = not really a drop arm?
Mini-a =pan?

Forgive me for the butchery on the body: that was the way we raced

Best

Edo

This is also the first pic test I make from Photobucket so let’hope it works

Edo,

thanks a lot for the Mini-A picture !!

I remember seeing the first model in Milan in 67 – before the race got
underway and ended up in the usual brawl shortly thereafter

They were made by a Mr. Pizzi, right ?

Ciao

Beppe

Now I am sorry to say that I completely disagree
about the historical importance of this car.

So it made Pro-racing cars go faster I have to say SO WHAT,

I believe that if the system had not been built into this car it would have
been built into another slot car by another builder sooner or later.

One thing I have learned though all the hours of researching my book, is
that many slot racers all over the world are often working on the same
problem and often come up with the same answer. Now a lot of the steps taken
at the time of rail racing are still with us today for 1/32 scale cars
etc. The list of important slot racing development is huge so it’s incorrect
to pick up one small improvement and blow it up out of context.

RR

Argh! You pedant, you, Tropi!

But how kind to blame my ignorance on the innocence of youth! And so
accurate an assumption.

It would appear from Tropi’s dissection of my post that my thinking was too
parochial.

Well of course Ninco weren’t around at the time but what I think I meant was
that the mass market merchants, catering for the home user, the toy
business, didn’t pick up on it, otherwise Ninco wouldn’t have been the first
so to do many years later.

i think this is what people mean when they tal
about drop arms

Am I right?

Swiss,

“Built With Passion” tell the story of the time line for the start of slot
racing from diesel rail racing until 1964.

Astro,

I completely agree this car and it’s builder are important as a step in the
development in slot racing and due credit must be given for that but that
does not make it the most important slot car.

andy the chassis pictured in your post is an ISO
fulcrum design which by definition means “same pivot point” The first
commercial application was the Cox “La Cucaracha” shown in one of the earlier posts
on this thread, the idea behind this is the weight of the motor was
concentrated on the drop-arm by virtue of it being mounted on it.

But the more usual definition of a drop arm is a hinged guide arm, generally hinged
in front of the motor but some times from behind.

Hope this clears up any confusion

Not to diminish the value of Gene Husting’s
creation (because I believe it to be a major milestone in slot history),
but…..

Wouldn’t the “most important” slot car be the first one?

I agree with Fergy the most important slot car
is the first one.

RR

Ciao Beppe

I do not remember who made it but can you confirm that the Mini-A chassis
was THE one to win over Cox “Cuc” and Porsche Russkit then? By that time I
was not racing anymore but would hear stories about this Italian wonder…

Hi Edo,

the sequence in Italy was first Russkit Carrera, then Cox Cucaracha and then
Mini-A – but I saw very little of the latter as by that time I was leaving
slots, essentially for the same reason you did (girls, not barricades)

Recently I’ve tried asking about what happened next on the Italia Slot
forum, but the local curmudgeons are not interested in sharing their
knowledge

Beppe

Never though I would agree in a way with
Philippe, but Philippe is right the most important rail cars were those used
by the Southport Club when they introduced electric model car racing to the
world as we know it today.

These rail cars were the most historically important slot or rail cars ever
built, because everything we have today comes directly from these rail cars.
They are really the first truly multi- lane competitive system built
strictly for racing IMHO.

RR