It's been a while since we had a coffee and a chat. Here's a few thoughts from me, tell me your thoughts on what makes a slot car important. Am I right?
Bought the Subaru for my grandson who is 9. His only criteria was that he wanted blue. He loves having a car that is his and he can race it around the track as carefree as he wants. Grandpa loves him having a car that I don't mind when he shoots it off the track going too fast in the curves. Sometimes these inexpensive cars seem insignificant, but as you point out, they may be more important than we realize.
To name a car of the year is subjective I feel as there are so many classes, styling, innovation and in general criteria to be judged. I do believe that the continuation of this hobby is by the development of new racers, but the innovation will come from the older, passionate and experienced ones, you cannot have one without the other. To me there is no Best Brand or Best Car to be honest the car of the year is the car you had most fun with and appreciated the most in the year you bought it.
Good food for thought. We all classify our cars differently. "Best, favorite, unique, nostalgic, treasured, important," and the list goes on. Personal decision. I've got a Scaley VW Beetle on preorder. Probably won't be fastest or best or even good looking, but means something to me. And relatively rare in the slot car world.
Policar id say on the basis that its great value for money and better quality than the big family brands for the price which is what families and kids need to get them in the hobby
I think you’re absolutely right! Those Subaru’s represent fantastic value and mean an affordable introduction to slot cars. And you can actually customise themselves if you want. I’ve bought all 6 colours so I can have a reliable club car class. 6 for the price of 1 1/2 revoslots…
Part of the beauty of slot cars is that there's something for every "audience". Us old guys appreciate the cars of the past, and the younger crowd gets their Subarus. As for what's important, I think that's going to be different for everyone. SCOTY is based on many criteria. Popularity of the car/livery/driver is only one of them.
You make a very good point Dave- I guess we all should be focusing more on the younger generation, and cars they can relate to, IF we all want this hobby to survive.....
If we're talking about modern cars, I miss the Scaleauto Porsche Hypercar...... Car of the year is to me also how Rahul defined it: the one you bought this year and enjoyed the most!
Most important to who is the question? Us slot car fans or the slot car manutacturers, as they know people in their 50's probably have more disposable income to purchase their cars than younger folks. I wish I wasnt in that category but I am 🙂
Interesting topic. Our SCOTY will be whichever car we've had the most fun with at the end of the year. I know that Sasha isn't keen on the Scooby, but then again, she's not just a regular kid that's getting into slot cars, so her expectations are higher from a detail perspective.
💯% agree on this Dave. Whenever I’m running a car, a large part of me is the same small boy 30+ years ago up early on a Saturday to run some laps on the lounge room floor. If there weren’t cars I could run unsupervised then, I probably wouldn’t be here now.
Oh I think you've hit the nail with that last sentence. Fun stuff is more fun as a kid if you can be unsupervised, very important as we oldies forget that bit often.
Just received my first two slot.it cars, only non-Carrera cars. They are a blast but still working on making them run right, Audi R18 Ultra guide is giving me some grief getting it to move smoothly but BMW McLaren set new track records by 2 seconds. So impressive over the Carrera cars. Thanks for the video as always.
Excellent question, I’m not sure about the Subaru, I think it will be define more to what they have had exposure to , I ve had more kids wanting photos of my street mk2 escort than my Subaru sti……
I kind of agree and that's why I like the new carrera starter sets with current gt cars. They are important but being almost 50 my favorite cars are the older style. But I do need to round out the collection with some current LMP cars! Always room for one more car!
I am in my early 40s and I only know what those cars (and drivers) are because I am into cars and racing. I agree that the most important car is the street car. Growing up half of our HO slot cars were NASCAR, the other half were street cars.
I think I've got to agree with Rahul because what you have fun and enjoyment with is not what everyone else will. All slot cars have a relevance just to different people
but Rahul is talking about what's important to him personally, and that's different for all of us which si why I didn't really focus on that, and I'm talking about what's important to the hobby in essence :)
Them POLICAR are decent Dave . I watched your review on them, and well..... I bought 4..... Different colours of course😂... Maldon coffee, nice.. iam just 10min from there.
I got mine a bit later on ebay and converted it to digital. It runs good, added a ton of weight to it and it handles great. Planning on buying all 6 colors and use my 2014 NBR as the pace car.
My earliest memory of F1 is Mansell in his Ferrari days, which was 88 and 89, I was born in 81 so that makes me 8 or 9, so your calculations seem on to me. I agree with the younger audience thing, its same in hotrodding, no younguns want late 20s Fords so the hobby is in danger of dying with the old guard unless we can keep the appeal up (which is hard as its so damn expensive!)
Dave, You're a clever man my friend. Shifting the focus from voting for a "Prom queen" or "Class President" etc. To what car might generate new and younger involvement to sustain the hobby. Hmmmmmmm,,,,,,,,, Oh how the mind begins to percolate. Dang,,, sorry - I guess I had coffee on the mind,,LOL. Best Regards, Jack
Dave, I have to agree with you. My vote is the Subi cause I've always enjoyed watching Rally Championships. It has a place for me in my collection and I just picked up a 1995 world champion Subaru slot car. I will prolly never own the Datsun cause Im not a huge fan of muscle cars. The schumi car would be second on my list only for its history in the racing world. However, even though I feel you nailed it on the head with your explanation of "car of the year" I feel that the Mercedes has to be the chosen one out of the three only because of what it represents. There is an unquestionable history there, whether you're a fan of F1 or not. It's all racing related. That Car holds more value in the fact that someone made the choice to create it and document that piece of history in our 1:32 world. That kind of thinking is also what we need in this hobby to keep it going strong so the cars we race have, if at the very least, sentimental Value. Flashy cars to get the young ones in. Realistic race driven cars to keep it going. My two cents😅
As always, an interesting take - and pretty logical. The 510 hype this year has surpassed the Shadow hype from last year, and that was a car that only Can Am fans from the 70s would remember (very fondly, as did I). I bought a Shadow but had no interest in the Datsun at all. You are right about the Schumaker car, but I'd think most of his fans would be looking for an F1. The Policar could represent an interesting trend, the level of value being quite high...but we'll see if that approach goes anywhere. SCOTY is an interesting concept. What I find fascinating is how younger folks who may have no recollection at all of a vintage car actually racing are convinced by the hype that its slot car reincarnation is the best thing ever - because "many people are saying..." 😅🤣😂
The most important car to me I don’t actually own but will be on the hunt at Gaydon. It’s the SCALEXTRIC C052 Ford Escort Mexico RS1600 my nan bought me this car for Xmas when I was a kid and had a lot of memories for me
On coffee, my wife is Brazilian and they have got a lot of coffee in Brazil - more than anywhere else. She drinks Nescafe Instant - something not dissimilar similar to most Brazilians. On motor racing then my first consciousness was the Hunt -v- Lauda season of 1976. I do not recall the Nurburgring but I do recall the season finale in Japan when James Hunt took a soaking to become World Champion. I read back from there. Oh, and the 1976 Scalextric catalogue loomed large in my consciousness. I still have most of these cars from back then. Here today then the Datsun 510s have been iconic. It's a mistake to start from something cheap today because there's so much cheap and disposable from recent decades as alternatives to these most excellent value Policar models. As always, it depends on what we like. I was never much of a Schumacher fan (the guy waved to me across the Silverstone pitlane during late June testing around the turn of the century) but that green and white 'German' aesthetic just doesn't do it for me. Nothing wrong with Germans or the Porsche brand mind. So and as the Datsun is the only new mould then this has to be the best so far. One that went under the radar is the Scalextric Land Rover. I don't much 'do' on this brand but the gear train and the aesthetic get up is tremendous. I think it helps being smaller than I had imagined. Meanwhile, the 'big boats' including Blues Bros, Fab 1 and the NYC Taxi just leave me cold. How these can ever run and 'race' on Scalextric track is beyond me? All that said, I am a sucker for the classics from the late 1950s through the mid 1970s and, guess what, the manufacturer's are looking to offer up my 'sweet tooth'. I wonder why?
Agree 100% Dave ...to be honest I didint fall for all the Datsun hype ...I might get one or maybe not ..but the policar is definitely on my list and not just one of them .Ile be buying four ,for visitors to try to race and at this price I will happily buy 4 and let new drivers go mad . I very quickly had made my mind up that the Datsun would never be my car of the year later . I just dont understand folk wetting themselves over it 🤭🤣 thanks for the post mate 👍
You've got to look at it from the perspective of others to understand why on certain cars, for sure. The 510 was big here in the US because it raced here, and most of us old codgers had the HO version growing up in the 70s. But I can relate, as I am baffled as to people going gaga over the new Scale Auto Porsche for $100, but then again I don't care for prototypes lol.
I am over 50 I like the 510 but not really a big fan of it i would rather have a american muscle car over it from the same time period, I would say the cheap policar is the car also, it's so inexpensive its built really good and if you just pop a normal motor in it this policar will be a car to be reckoned with on the race track. policar pumping out these great quality inexpensive cars is very nice to see with all the slot cars today being so expensive and most not so good out of the box.
Once in a while someone will bring something to the market that makes customers and competitors alike say "How have they done that? Could others do that too?" And sometimes it causes a real shift in expectations. To my eyes Fly did that years back by giving us a quantum leap in the amount of detail and appearance accuracy. Maybe magnet strength too, but since I race non-mag that's less important to me. I mention this because I think that Policar has done something similar with the price point of these cars while still giving an acceptable level of detail, familiarity (you can see what model the car is) and drivability. I don't know how they've achieved that mix, but I wish others would do the same. So I agree with you Dave, I think that's probably the most important car out of those three. It's true that other makers have tried to do something along the same lines in the past, but typically with "fantasy" shapes, or with generic liveries put on cars from niche racing programmes - most likely to avoid licensing costs. But Policar has done it with a "see it in the street" model. It's an impressive accomplishment and like you say, hopefully one that will help sustain the hoppy and the community of hobbyists.
Or your in your 70,s and use to race in the 60,s Scalextric set the one and only,and looking for a hobby ..late mid-crises before the lights out..then the blue would do.Many thanks Slot R..
The new slot cars like the Subaru are only important if the younger generation are introduced to slot cars. Until the industry markets themselves better, especially to kids, growth in that direction won't happen.
yeah the industry relies on grandad getting a car for the grandkids because Dad's generation on the whole was too busy staring at a Playstation and hasn't got a clue. Grandad's aren't a sustainable marketing commodity!
Bought the Subaru for my grandson who is 9. His only criteria was that he wanted blue. He loves having a car that is his and he can race it around the track as carefree as he wants. Grandpa loves him having a car that I don't mind when he shoots it off the track going too fast in the curves. Sometimes these inexpensive cars seem insignificant, but as you point out, they may be more important than we realize.
8 to 80, the most important slot car is the one you've loved and enjoyed the most be it your first, last, or somewhere in between. Great chat!
To name a car of the year is subjective I feel as there are so many classes, styling, innovation and in general criteria to be judged. I do believe that the continuation of this hobby is by the development of new racers, but the innovation will come from the older, passionate and experienced ones, you cannot have one without the other. To me there is no Best Brand or Best Car to be honest the car of the year is the car you had most fun with and appreciated the most in the year you bought it.
Hello Dave, good show. In my humble opinion the most important car is the one that you really wanted to see made.
Good food for thought. We all classify our cars differently. "Best, favorite, unique, nostalgic, treasured, important," and the list goes on. Personal decision. I've got a Scaley VW Beetle on preorder. Probably won't be fastest or best or even good looking, but means something to me. And relatively rare in the slot car world.
Policar id say on the basis that its great value for money and better quality than the big family brands for the price which is what families and kids need to get them in the hobby
I think you’re absolutely right! Those Subaru’s represent fantastic value and mean an affordable introduction to slot cars. And you can actually customise themselves if you want. I’ve bought all 6 colours so I can have a reliable club car class. 6 for the price of 1 1/2 revoslots…
Part of the beauty of slot cars is that there's something for every "audience". Us old guys appreciate the cars of the past, and the younger crowd gets their Subarus. As for what's important, I think that's going to be different for everyone. SCOTY is based on many criteria. Popularity of the car/livery/driver is only one of them.
You make a very good point Dave- I guess we all should be focusing more on the younger generation, and cars
they can relate to, IF we all want this hobby to survive.....
If we're talking about modern cars, I miss the Scaleauto Porsche Hypercar......
Car of the year is to me also how Rahul defined it: the one you bought this year and enjoyed the most!
Most important to who is the question? Us slot car fans or the slot car manutacturers, as they know people in their 50's probably have more disposable income to purchase their cars than younger folks. I wish I wasnt in that category but I am 🙂
Interesting topic. Our SCOTY will be whichever car we've had the most fun with at the end of the year. I know that Sasha isn't keen on the Scooby, but then again, she's not just a regular kid that's getting into slot cars, so her expectations are higher from a detail perspective.
💯% agree on this Dave. Whenever I’m running a car, a large part of me is the same small boy 30+ years ago up early on a Saturday to run some laps on the lounge room floor. If there weren’t cars I could run unsupervised then, I probably wouldn’t be here now.
Oh I think you've hit the nail with that last sentence. Fun stuff is more fun as a kid if you can be unsupervised, very important as we oldies forget that bit often.
Just received my first two slot.it cars, only non-Carrera cars. They are a blast but still working on making them run right, Audi R18 Ultra guide is giving me some grief getting it to move smoothly but BMW McLaren set new track records by 2 seconds. So impressive over the Carrera cars. Thanks for the video as always.
Fun chat Sir. Enjoyed with my cup of joe! Looking forward to another.
Very good points, food for thought. Its about how one for?s theirs thoughts as to which it should be. Thanks, Dave
Hi Dave. You have absolutely hit the nail on the head.
Excellent question, I’m not sure about the Subaru, I think it will be define more to what they have had exposure to , I ve had more kids wanting photos of my street mk2 escort than my Subaru sti……
I kind of agree and that's why I like the new carrera starter sets with current gt cars. They are important but being almost 50 my favorite cars are the older style. But I do need to round out the collection with some current LMP cars! Always room for one more car!
I am in my early 40s and I only know what those cars (and drivers) are because I am into cars and racing. I agree that the most important car is the street car. Growing up half of our HO slot cars were NASCAR, the other half were street cars.
Hard to argue with you're logic Dave.
I think I've got to agree with Rahul because what you have fun and enjoyment with is not what everyone else will. All slot cars have a relevance just to different people
but Rahul is talking about what's important to him personally, and that's different for all of us which si why I didn't really focus on that, and I'm talking about what's important to the hobby in essence :)
Them POLICAR are decent Dave . I watched your review on them, and well..... I bought 4..... Different colours of course😂... Maldon coffee, nice.. iam just 10min from there.
I bought the 2014 Nurburgring sti when it came out. There's a video of the car at the event.
I got mine a bit later on ebay and converted it to digital. It runs good, added a ton of weight to it and it handles great. Planning on buying all 6 colors and use my 2014 NBR as the pace car.
My earliest memory of F1 is Mansell in his Ferrari days, which was 88 and 89, I was born in 81 so that makes me 8 or 9, so your calculations seem on to me. I agree with the younger audience thing, its same in hotrodding, no younguns want late 20s Fords so the hobby is in danger of dying with the old guard unless we can keep the appeal up (which is hard as its so damn expensive!)
Dave,
You're a clever man my friend.
Shifting the focus from voting for a "Prom queen" or "Class President" etc.
To what car might generate new and younger involvement to sustain the hobby.
Hmmmmmmm,,,,,,,,, Oh how the mind begins to percolate.
Dang,,, sorry - I guess I had coffee on the mind,,LOL.
Best Regards,
Jack
Dave, I have to agree with you. My vote is the Subi cause I've always enjoyed watching Rally Championships. It has a place for me in my collection and I just picked up a 1995 world champion Subaru slot car. I will prolly never own the Datsun cause Im not a huge fan of muscle cars. The schumi car would be second on my list only for its history in the racing world.
However, even though I feel you nailed it on the head with your explanation of "car of the year" I feel that the Mercedes has to be the chosen one out of the three only because of what it represents. There is an unquestionable history there, whether you're a fan of F1 or not. It's all racing related. That Car holds more value in the fact that someone made the choice to create it and document that piece of history in our 1:32 world. That kind of thinking is also what we need in this hobby to keep it going strong so the cars we race have, if at the very least, sentimental Value. Flashy cars to get the young ones in. Realistic race driven cars to keep it going. My two cents😅
Well said
As always, an interesting take - and pretty logical. The 510 hype this year has surpassed the Shadow hype from last year, and that was a car that only Can Am fans from the 70s would remember (very fondly, as did I). I bought a Shadow but had no interest in the Datsun at all. You are right about the Schumaker car, but I'd think most of his fans would be looking for an F1. The Policar could represent an interesting trend, the level of value being quite high...but we'll see if that approach goes anywhere. SCOTY is an interesting concept. What I find fascinating is how younger folks who may have no recollection at all of a vintage car actually racing are convinced by the hype that its slot car reincarnation is the best thing ever - because "many people are saying..." 😅🤣😂
many people, many many people, bigly amounts of people 🤣🙃😉
The most important car to me I don’t actually own but will be on the hunt at Gaydon. It’s the SCALEXTRIC C052 Ford Escort Mexico RS1600 my nan bought me this car for Xmas when I was a kid and had a lot of memories for me
the black one with the 6 on the door?
@@slotr I can’t remember the number but it was black with gold trim and working headlights
On coffee, my wife is Brazilian and they have got a lot of coffee in Brazil - more than anywhere else. She drinks Nescafe Instant - something not dissimilar similar to most Brazilians. On motor racing then my first consciousness was the Hunt -v- Lauda season of 1976. I do not recall the Nurburgring but I do recall the season finale in Japan when James Hunt took a soaking to become World Champion. I read back from there. Oh, and the 1976 Scalextric catalogue loomed large in my consciousness. I still have most of these cars from back then. Here today then the Datsun 510s have been iconic. It's a mistake to start from something cheap today because there's so much cheap and disposable from recent decades as alternatives to these most excellent value Policar models. As always, it depends on what we like. I was never much of a Schumacher fan (the guy waved to me across the Silverstone pitlane during late June testing around the turn of the century) but that green and white 'German' aesthetic just doesn't do it for me. Nothing wrong with Germans or the Porsche brand mind. So and as the Datsun is the only new mould then this has to be the best so far. One that went under the radar is the Scalextric Land Rover. I don't much 'do' on this brand but the gear train and the aesthetic get up is tremendous. I think it helps being smaller than I had imagined. Meanwhile, the 'big boats' including Blues Bros, Fab 1 and the NYC Taxi just leave me cold. How these can ever run and 'race' on Scalextric track is beyond me? All that said, I am a sucker for the classics from the late 1950s through the mid 1970s and, guess what, the manufacturer's are looking to offer up my 'sweet tooth'. I wonder why?
Agree 100% Dave ...to be honest I didint fall for all the Datsun hype ...I might get one or maybe not ..but the policar is definitely on my list and not just one of them .Ile be buying four ,for visitors to try to race and at this price I will happily buy 4 and let new drivers go mad . I very quickly had made my mind up that the Datsun would never be my car of the year later . I just dont understand folk wetting themselves over it 🤭🤣 thanks for the post mate 👍
You've got to look at it from the perspective of others to understand why on certain cars, for sure. The 510 was big here in the US because it raced here, and most of us old codgers had the HO version growing up in the 70s. But I can relate, as I am baffled as to people going gaga over the new Scale Auto Porsche for $100, but then again I don't care for prototypes lol.
Thanks Dave 😊🏎️🏎️🏎️
100%
Hi Dave I can see what your saying mate
I am over 50 I like the 510 but not really a big fan of it i would rather have a american muscle car over it from the same time period, I would say the cheap policar is the car also, it's so inexpensive its built really good and if you just pop a normal motor in it this policar will be a car to be reckoned with on the race track. policar pumping out these great quality inexpensive cars is very nice to see with all the slot cars today being so expensive and most not so good out of the box.
Good point dave, must agree :)
Once in a while someone will bring something to the market that makes customers and competitors alike say "How have they done that? Could others do that too?" And sometimes it causes a real shift in expectations. To my eyes Fly did that years back by giving us a quantum leap in the amount of detail and appearance accuracy. Maybe magnet strength too, but since I race non-mag that's less important to me. I mention this because I think that Policar has done something similar with the price point of these cars while still giving an acceptable level of detail, familiarity (you can see what model the car is) and drivability. I don't know how they've achieved that mix, but I wish others would do the same. So I agree with you Dave, I think that's probably the most important car out of those three. It's true that other makers have tried to do something along the same lines in the past, but typically with "fantasy" shapes, or with generic liveries put on cars from niche racing programmes - most likely to avoid licensing costs. But Policar has done it with a "see it in the street" model. It's an impressive accomplishment and like you say, hopefully one that will help sustain the hoppy and the community of hobbyists.
you should write my video scripts, you say it much better than I did :)
@@slotr I'm flattered indeed, but your videos are brilliant as they are
Or your in your 70,s and use to race in the 60,s Scalextric set the one and only,and looking for a hobby ..late mid-crises before the lights out..then the blue would do.Many thanks Slot R..
The new slot cars like the Subaru are only important if the younger generation are introduced to slot cars. Until the industry markets themselves better, especially to kids, growth in that direction won't happen.
yeah the industry relies on grandad getting a car for the grandkids because Dad's generation on the whole was too busy staring at a Playstation and hasn't got a clue. Grandad's aren't a sustainable marketing commodity!
Ha, midlife crisis… oh, wait a minute… 🤔…. dammit!
At least we’re all young at heart
It's gonna be hard out doing the Revo 510s for the car of the year! Thanks Dave!