Lotus 40

[mikael]

The Lotus 40 photos posted by JC (in the Jim Clark thread) bring back some memories about a certain slot-car model of that car. In the '60's and 70's there really was a slot-car craze "everywhere" - also in Denmark. My dad purchased a 1:24 Carrera track - and one of the best cars we had was a Carrera Lotus 40 model, just (exactly) like the one in the shown photos (borrowed from Ebay). (The track was just a rather short oval - but it was quite ok ...) Performance-wise, that Carrera car was very good. We had a couple of homemade 1:24 competition cars as well (with home-made chassis, made from piano wire and brass plates, soldered together, as was customary then - and state-of-the-art Japanese Mura motors), but that Carrera Lotus 40 was almost just as good. (The one we had - bought on a trip to Germany, I recall - actually came with wheels and tyres different from those shown in the photos. It was real competition-style wheels and tyres; machined aluminium wheels, accommodated with very "spongy" rear tyres, and very narrow (American dragster-like) front tyres. (The track and the cars are long-lost - I really don't recall what happened to it all. In my motocross years I lost interest in it and everything was probably given away ...)

Addendum: Looking at the photos of the real car, it appears that the Carrera model was not that accurate. The mid-section appears to be too tall; the real car was much more "low-slung".

[charleselan]

Great thread Mikael, which brings back so many memories of those times.

The Carrera Lotus 40 looks a fine model indeed and is now no doubt highly collectable. Of course it looks a little thick in the mid section, but as the real car was so unbelievably low not surprising. Trying to fit the slot car running gear into something so low would have been very hard in a production based model of the time.

Back in the day I had a plastic injection moulded Supershells body kit of a Lotus 30 manufactured in the UK which could be bought with a purpose made chassis and motor combination. The motor was quite small and made by a company called "K's". Even with this motor I found it difficult to get the right low stance on the car which had quite an accurate body shell. Sadly the model ran about as well as the real thing, it never performed well at all.

I remember those Japanese Mura motors as they were the thing to have for those that raced on big club circuits, but way too much for most home slot tracks.

JC

[chrisb]

that is excellent Mikael, a bit above my levels of understanding but the Carrera underbody reminded me of the Airfix racing cars, and they rather inflexible circuits that were just unreliable - but I did prefer it to the Scalextric cars and circuit but of course Scalextric proved more popular

[René]

That's a great slot car Mikael!

Carrera made one of the best slot cars and sets available at the time. Their build quality was top notch (German!) and they made some very good looking cars also. The brand was sold in 1985 when the hobby became less popular and almost faded into oblivion but was restarted in 1999 by an Austrian company who still own the brand. So Carrera is in effect Austrian now. The slot hobby had a huge revival since then and is still going strong and so is Carrera.

I like the layout of the Lotus with the swing arm for the pickup guide and most noticeably the sidewinder motor layout (transversely placed motor) which makes it possible to create a full depth cockpit/driver compartment. It is interesting that Carrera used this setup back then but don't use it now anymore which makes their current cars not as realistic and detailed as some of the competition. Modern Carrera cars have the motor in longitudinal direction so the interior is just a flat tray even in their 1/24 scale range which they still make.

The motors have become smaller over the years and in the late 90s/early 2000s, Spanish manufacturer Fly introduced their Classic range on the market. These cars stood out for realism and detail, despite the smaller 1/32 scale. Fly used the same sidewinder layout to create a full depth and detailed interior. Their Porsche 917K and Ferrari 512S became real classics and changed the hobby forever. I don't know why Carrera doesn't use this layout anymore but I guess they are more focussed on a younger audience while many of the other manufacturers in the hobby are focussing on the collectors and a bit older audience (like me… ) with ultra realistic models.

Anyway, the Lotus 40 looks great and is a real collectors item now. And looking at it more from the side it does look quite low to me.



The car was also available as a kit, even more desirable now if you have a good one.