So it came to pass that, about once a month, my father came home with a box of "slot car stuff" (and an Australian shop assistant saved some more towards his continuing trip around the world), which was put on the dining room table so that he and I could comb through it, making up runners from the fallen. When the store changed it’s layout, the box would be full of scenery and buildings and soon we had a track on a proper permanent base. I recently came across some pictures of it. Click on the "gallery" section in the header to see them.

Delving into the box soon taught me how to maintain and tune a slot car but it also taught me that cars were plentiful and very cheap, I have to admit to more than my share of atrocities. But I was young and foolish... I am not young anymore !!

I particularly remember having far too many Austin Healey 3000’s and deciding that a hardtop version would "be a bit different". I looked around and found that the roof from the Aston Martin DB4GT would fit, so I cut the roof off of a spare Aston and the rear of the tonneau from the AH, it was quite good, so I made two more for my dad and my younger brother !

Of course, I was soon occupied with other things, girls, real cars, and marriage. My father packed everything away in the loft to be forgotten. Then there came the fateful day when my parents moved house, and just asked if I would like my old slot car stuff ?? And the bug has bitten deep this time.

My current circuit is in a room in my loft and pictures of it can be seen from the "gallery" button in the header.

I do find that, having my cars in the loft, they are subjected to a wide temperature range and whilst the 60’s cars are OK, the later cars tend to develop splits in their tyres which starts to get quite irritating, not to say expensive ! but I have been saved by the power of the Internet, well more accurately by Jack Stinson of Columbus Ohio, who has taught me to cast my own copies in silicone. Not only do they withstand the rigors of my loft. They perform better too !! You will find Jack’s page in my links section.
These silicone tyres have meant a new lease of life for my older cars which were suffering from thirty five year old hardened and perished rubber and far too much wheel spin to be fun. And have stopped me from having to buy new tyres for all my newer cars too !!

I still have a few more moulds to make, but soon I will have made tyres for all of my collection. A list of the cars in my collection can be found in the header above.

That’s a lot of tyres !! To see how I make my tyres, try looking in the "making tyres " section