And of course I dig through the box to find the cars.
(Which is the ONLY reason I bought the set...)
I take a look and think the the bodies themselves are a bit cheesy. Engines lacking detail and the plastic looking a bit flimsy..
Then I take a look at the chassis.
Jeez Mattell... What were you thinking when you butchered the Tyco 440 into this... One chassis is actually shaped like a parallelogram and does not sit square in the body. The reinforcing was engineered out probably to make the chassis easier to assemble. But boy is it junk.....

How is everyone else?
Scott

yeah, the Twin Mill chassis is stanky. I have one from a Highway 34 set. I thought someone here posted that it's the same chassis used under the big dirt bikes (Jeremy McGrath?) or the Harry Potter Quidditch set or skateboards or something...

Actually, the dirt bike thing is ringing a bell. Like maybe the reason the guide pin is set so far back is that the front wheel of the bike sits down in there...

--rick

yeah, the Twin Mill chassis is stanky.
*snip*
--rick

Makes me glad that I only paid $1.91 plus tax for the set...
Thrift stores are going to ruin me...
Scott

The TwinMill body fit is very tight on the chassis. The Mattel chassis is a bit on the soft side, so I'm sure this combination, handled and stored with the utmost care that a $1.91 price tag would suggest, would tend to get warped, especially with heat involved. I bought a couple of those sets when they were around $5.00 and the chassis were fine. They are 440 style chassis with the single bar traction magnet, not the two traction magnet X2 style. They are okay bash around runner chassis. I'm amazed at how Mattel can pump out these oddball one of a kind chassis for short run gimmick sets, and then sell them for squat. Why they won't put out a serious racing set when there are so many avid collectors in the hobby defies logic.

What.. 40 years ago? You wouldn't have even dreamed that Mattel who inspired MANY of us to move on to slot cars in the late 60's early 70's, due to their (at that time) top of the heap toys..like Hotwheels, etc-etc. to have assumed such a cheesey and low rung on the ladder. I guess other products are their target market share these days and that's what they concentrate on??? I dunno... would be nice if one of the "big-box" companies took HO slots a little more seriously though. Scale/quality control/ collectability/ realism/ end user satisfaction.... you know... all the stuff that doesn't matter anymore. :(

handled and stored with the utmost care that a $1.91 price tag would suggest,

I needed that... :lol:

C'mon guys- you know that most of us were raised and suckered into HO slots about the time the fire burned hot. It was a Chevy vs Ford scenario that fueled Tyco to due battle with AFX (later Tomy) through the various changes and performance improvements. Truth be told and most of you know this (but admit it in denial), HO slots is not mainstream. It hasn't been for years. Mattel is a toy company- it's Barbie and Hot Wheels, not slot cars or trains that Tyco was. The technology has not changed, the interest in reducing cost and mass production of gimmicky slot car sets. You can't walk into Toys R Us and buy a pair of slip on silicone tires for you Tyco or AFX, or even find an individually packaged slot car.

Sad but true- I have not bought a Slot car from a toy store unless it was in a set since 2001. They were LL nascars, clearanced out at TRU for $6 each...

I found some AFX SRT cars in a toy store near my house.
I felt obligated to buy them, just so the owner would get some more.

He didn't

I purchased a Dodge Stealth from Wal-Mart in Goshen,Indiana back in 1996. That's the last one they had to sell and haven't had any since then.
Alas we (those of us in the 60 to 30 year old range) are the last of the slot cars fans. Some of our children like them, but not many. Mine (1 girl and 2 boys) tried them and moved on to other things. When we pass away so will slot cars. But atleast we are having fun with them while we can. Randy.

I was surprised to find the first round of the PM JL pullbacks in TRU back in the day. Once the first twelve sold at my local TRU, that was that. Thanks god for the www. :freak:

And then came the blow out at the Dollar Stores. :eek: rr

I was surprised to find the first round of the PM JL pullbacks in TRU back in the day. Once the first twelve sold at my local TRU, that was that. Thanks god for the www. :freak:

And then came the blow out at the Dollar Stores. :eek: rr

Yeah, I remember finding R1 pullbacks at Wallyworld. I wasn't back into slots yet, but it seened like such a cool novelty that I bought a black Cuda and stuck it in the shoebox with my old Magnatractions. Then when I finally got involved again, I just missed the Dollar Tree blowout (dangit!) and a couple years later that random leftover snap-on stuff showed up at K-B and I bought up everything I could find...

--rick