I recently was the "winner" of a box of AFX old style track, two russkit controllers some other junk and one Matchbox Speedtrack Catch-Me Monza. It is mostly white with an orange and red stripe down the middle. It was covered with twenty years of dust and gunk. I took it to be a challenge. The first challenge was that the shoes do not fit the width of a normal ho track. I substituted some TCR shoes that are wider to make them touch the rails of an HO track. It came to life.

Does anyone collect these? Is there a cult following or anything? I am curious why they would come out with a product so close to an HO scale racetrack and then bastardize it by making the width of the rails slightly more narrow.

Matchbox wanted people to only buy THEIR compatable stuff. Silly, I know. They threw away a HUGE chunk of the market, eh!

Hey Blue-

While I know the cars are LARGE, bulbous and about as far away from HO as you can get before being considered another scale (1:43 ?) not to mention they will not pass on certain tracks (do to their size) and assuming you have changed the pick-up shoes to begin with (as stated the are to close to run on most tracks)…..they did however produce some very interesting cars that for the most part were not modeled by other manufactures.

For example:

Monza Funny Car
VW Sciricco
Jaguar XJ
Porsche 935
Porsche 936
Renault Alpine
Renault Elf
Triumph TR7
Fiat Abarth
Ford Escort II
SAAB 900
Super Boss racing truck
Pinto Sportsman Dirt Track Racer (My favorites)
Gremlin Sportsman Dirt Track Racer (My favorites)


BTW, do not ask how I know all of this! :rolleyes:

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www.SlotCarJohnnies.com (http://www.slotcarjohnnies.com/)

The Matchbox cars are about the same size as Ideal and Majorette slotted and slotless cars.
I understand that Matchbox was/is used far more in Europe than in the US.

Joe

The Matchbox cars are about the same size as Ideal and Majorette slotted and slotless cars.
I understand that Matchbox was/is used far more in Europe than in the US.

Joe

Was...or at least I have not seen any, other then at the slot shows we attend....but beleive it or not, you can still go into a toy shop and buy a Majorette TCR (Yes, that's right slotless Total Control Racing TCR) car. They make a few slotted as well!

The idea doesn't work any better that I have seen.......but Europe still has several slotless slot car s available from various manufactures. Even Carrera has a 1:43 set up!

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www.SltoCarJohnnies.com (http://www.sltocarjohnnies.com/)

I kinda liked Matchbox cars. You have to widen the pick ups on most of them to run on Tomy, AFX, Tyco track.. towards the end of their run,they made a really nice TR-7 that had special wide pick ups to run on standard HO track.

If you buy the european models, sometimes you get lucky and find the ones with the green-wire HP-7 style motors and the wide pickups making them ready for 12V and up systems right away. They have some little electronic doodads and copper spaghetti going on, but I gut all that as well as that little traction magnet.

Even the 6V versions can be converted using Tyco TCR pickups (slightly modified, of course) but those motors with the thin wires in place of brushes will burn up pretty soon. The armatures are ok, they just need regular brushes/barrels.

Shame they didnt continue the line, the chassis are very versatile and handle great--theyre fast and slide around like you wouldnt believe. Ive used some on some of my resin cast bodies and when I find a bodystyle in good shape that I like, with a serviceable chassis I convert it to run on regular track.

I have collected almost all that were sold in the US market from the late '70's/early '80's ?.Almost all were converted with plastruct mounts to run on either Tyco 440-X2 wide or TOMY G+.They had a very cool "Funk factor not unlike the old Lionel Power passers or Ideal TCR that the mainstream HO did not have.Most bodies were proper 1/64 but some were actually 1/43 or 1/32 scale.

Neal :dude: