Another Mopar Off My Bucket List - Barracuda Fastback
The racetrack that I started with was an Aurora Model Motoring setup back around 1960. My brother and I owned it together. I was just a little scrapper back then and probably did more to screw things up than to enhance them.
Those original motors worked on a vibration design that didn't make the cars move very fast. Over time we constantly upgraded with more track, different controllers and faster cars. Most of what we had stayed Aurora, but we did buy a Tyco car now and then.
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It wasn't until I was about 10 years old that I started changing tires, wheels, magnets,etc... I remember when there were hop up kits that we'd buy. They usually included silver weighted pick up shoes, stronger magnets, silver points, fatter tires, longer guide pins, and rewound armatures. As the cars got faster they became harder to control and unless you had very long straightaways it was difficult to open them up without flying off the track. With the advent of things such as Magna-traction cars, AFX, G-Plus and the like it was easier to keep from sending a car clear across the room when you went too fast, but the cars moved so fast that it was a lot harder to really see them in motion. - They were just a blur.
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I even tried some of the slotless tracks that had you reverse polarity to switch lanes. It was a very cool idea but the cars would often stall between lanes.
The original controllers we had were of this steering wheel design. The best thing about it was that when you were by yourself you could set a second car to go at a constant speed to race against without having your hand on the controller. When we updated to the ones with a brake button (sort of a joke) and a reverse switch we felt high tech. LOL. The plunger controllers were better for speed control though.
Ya, I've sure got a lot of fond memories of those times.
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Now with this new drag strip that I'm setting up I think I may have to break the cars up into different classes based on chassis design. I know that they sell some wheelstander kits that I may have to install on a few of them.
I would kill, to have that wagon.....