Note: Yesterday, Mark Stevenson, using “news” about the revised Mercedes-Benz GLS as an object lesson, points out how wasteful car manufacturers’ and suppliers’ press releases can be. They waste pixels, paper, our time and ultimately get in the way of providing worthwhile content for you, our readers.
Not all press releases are a waste of time, though. I coincidentally happened to be buttoning up this post when Mark’s editorial went live and realized that my particular piece was 100 percent the result of getting a much shorter press release, albeit from a much smaller car maker (in both senses of the word) than Daimler.
It’s always nice to get paid, but one of the better parts about this gig can be the interaction we have with readers. We’ve written about TTAC reader John Kit and the enthusiasm John and his teenaged daughter Emma have for making realistic slot cars based on historic sporting automobiles. I was particularly touched by the custom Jim Clark Lotus Cortina they made that was inspired by a post of mine. They don’t just make one-off slot cars; John set up Studio 65 to market 1:32 Jaguar X120s that Emma makes, scratch building the chassis and casting the resin bodies herself. The Jaguar was followed by a Ferrari 340 America. Recently, Emma wanted to build something “fun and cute”, so now they’ve introduced their latest slot car: the Austin Healey “Frogeye” Sprite.
Emma Kit and her scratch built vintage slot cars.
The Sprite slot cars’ accuracy even goes as far as the nomenclature, since Frogeye is the nickname that British enthusiasts gave to the car we colonials call the “Bugeye” Sprite. Available in whatever color you want as long as you like blue or yellow, like the rest of Studio 65’s slot cars the Sprite features a hand cast and hand painted accurate 1/32 scale resin body, a hand soldered brass chassis with a front motor, driveshaft, and brass pinion gears, hand detailed full driver figure, high density resin wheels with set screws, and trued urethane tires.
Studio 65’s slot cars aren’t cheap at $175. In an age of $10 lattes, though, $175 for something that bridges the gap between hobby, toy and hand-crafted art is hardly extravagant and the price includes shipping to anywhere on the planet. The small firm also sells slot car accessories, like the hand-painted trackside figures in the photo below.
Correction: John Kit contacted me and informed me that while the Jaguar and Ferrari slot cars are $175, Emma has figured out efficiencies that let them price the 1:32 Sprites at $110 plus shipping.
Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, a realistic perspective on cars & car culture and the original 3D car site. If you found this post worthwhile, you can get a parallax view at Cars In Depth. If the 3D thing freaks you out, don’t worry, all the photo and video players in use at the site have mono options. Thanks for reading – RJS
I miss slot cars…the first car a kid drives and in many cases, the most fun ones.
I do too. I miss the smell of the electrical track and burning motors.
I too loved that smell. And the smell of soldering.
Still love the smell of soldering when I futz with something large enough to solder.
1/24 slots or just go ride bikes.
I’ve been fortunate enough to watch Studio 65 grow from a passion project to a full scale business. Many long hours at TTAC were punctuated with a trip over to John’s slot car track (a scale replica of Spa) and “driving” everything from an XK120 to a 90s V10 F1 car.
As another journo friend said “here’s one press fleet we aren’t banned from!”. And the last one I still have access to :)
This is pretty darned cool. I vaguely remember the 1:24 slot cars that my Dad had in the mid-70s. But they were thoroughly played with by then, and didn’t run that great. The sets and cars I had as a kid in the early 80s were all 1:64. Our local hobby shop had two permanent 10 lane tracks, that you could rent by the hour. On Saturday mornings, they set up one huge track that went the full depth of the store, and held races for $1.00/ea. Great post! Ronnie and Murilee never fail to get my clicks here.
I really would have liked to know that girl several decades ago.
This is a great example of being passionate about something and doing it to the very best of your ability. I’m going to show this to my daughters. Emma is a great example to young girls everywhere.
Very nice indeed ! .
I remember those huge 10 lane built up slot car tracks in the 1960’s much fun although I never had a slot car .
I hope Studio 65 continues to be successful .
-Nate
This is very cool!!
I used to race slot cars occasionally…HO, 1:32, 1:24 scale
still have a bunch of them: keeping them around, in case my latent dream of building a monster track in the basement ever happens :D
I like the better visibility & closer scale speed 1/24 scale ( I think HO cars go 500mph or so, according to the scale? ), and the fact you can build any model kit around a chassis, and go crazy with details
1/24 tracks need a lot of space though! 1/32 is a good compromise
I admire all the classic car designs of yesteryear; kudos to John & Emma for building these replicas
Slot car racing is a fond memory for myself as well. I had a friend who had a 1/32 Strombecker track which got me interested. For Christmas that year Santa (my dad) bought my brother and myself a figure eight track – the only configuration that could be made. The “wire” in the track was not the flat strip nor “rails” but was coiled wire embedded in the plastic. The controllers were simple on/off buttons. It was still cool for us. I eventually purchased a 1/32 Cox Ford GT and a 1/24 Cox Chapparal (sp?) along with a Cox controller. My brother had a 1/32 Maserati which was very nice also. There were tracks springing up in many towns at the time and my hope was I could go to one of these tracks and race/drive the cars. Only got to go once which was great fun.
Later my brother and I inherited some Aurora HO track and cars from a school friend. These were all pre-Thunderjet 500 cars. We bought our own cars – he a Thunderbird and I an XKE. My brother got a deal from a local guy who was older than us and purchased a large box of track for $20. We could then make a four lane layout which was fun which could cover a ping pong table, but we usually did a much larger two lane. Since we had the older style controllers – which resembled a dashboard/steering wheel combo with scale speeds to 100+ mph – we would connect those in and also wire in our “pro” controllers. Those would “override” the older ones. We usually set the older controllers at a rate of speed that allowed the car to go all the way around without spinning out and then use the “pro” controllers for bursts of acceleration.
In the 80’s, at some point, I sold my two Cox cars and controller to a gentleman in Ohio. Still have the Aurora Thunderjet 500 XKE. Tried to get my own kids into slot cars back in the 90’s, but it was truly a me thing and not a big interest for them. Kudos to Emma and her dad. Their cars look truly great!