[SAMPSON]

Hi,i thought id put on the 4 1/24th scale slot cars MRRC made because one does not see them too often. Its interesting to compare them to the 4 Scalextric cars. Im not sure they were made before,during,or after the Scalextric cars.I dont think they sold any better. I know they seem more rare than the Scalextric cars. There is the Chaparral 2C,the Lola T70,the Ford J,& the Ferrari 330. Enjoy,Bernard

 

[Rob J]

Wonderful, Bernard. The 1/24 Airfix-MRRC cars would be quite rare, and these look in very good condition.
Do you know when they were issued?
The steering front axle unit looks like the old 1/32 MRRC unit but with the track-rod at the front.
Are the bodies vac-forms?
Rob J

 

[tedm]

Yes, the bodies are vac-forms. I had the Ferrari many years ago. One of these cars (a Ford J) won quite a high-profile 24 hour race I recall-against much more high-tech opposition. Anyone remember any details? Great to see these cars....
TED...

 

[superhornets]

hi ted
yes you right ,cant remember the name of the team that won but the race was the 24 hour race at the pmr track in banbury which was a short lived commercial raceway.
.
What made the victory so unusual was that the race was quite late in the 60s (68,69) and was well into the mabuchi can and brass plate chassis era
the technology on the mrrc car was outdated by about 3 years and nobody was running those sort of cars in commercial raceway sprint meets
the motor if i remember correctly was like a king size clubmans motor obviously a tough old car though

cheers tony

 

[tedm]

The motor was IMMENSE-not exactly subtle! I changed my Ferrari body for one of Charlie Fitz's Daf V8 shells-it looked great. If you look at the gearing on the pic of the underside,you may notice the contrate is cut at an angle. I think this was to do with braking in some way-if used with another component. Again, can anyone remember details?..
TED...

 

[SAMPSON]

Hi guys,the race was at Bambury in late 1967. It was a 24 hour race. The track was 140 feet long lap distance. The MRRC Ford J-Type driven by D.M. Vaugham & G.Hughes won with a 54 lap lead over the second place car !

The MRRC cars have a vac-body,the chassis is a 4 piece MRRC steel with ball-race armature shaft.It has brass bevels. Bernard

 

[gasowder]

QUOTE (tedm @ 4 May 2012, 12:10) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>,I think this was to do with braking in some way-if used with another component. Again, can anyone remember details?
Ted, MRRC did produce braking gears. As I recall they were for use with the open frame motors & their associated U bracket. The other piece you mention fitted on the axle & locked into that spiral notch you have noticed, it's length was such that when fitted in the U bracket it left just enough clearance to spin freely. I think what happened when you came off the power & the axle drove the motor, the interaction at the spiral joint forced the two halves appart effectivly jamming the "floating" piece against the U bracket, thus giving "brakes". When power was reapplied & the motor took up drive to the contrate again the floating piece moved back freeing up the drive again. Phew, hope your all with that

Seem to remember they were popular with the Southern area guys to get some brakes with the twin milliperm setups they favoured?
I would guess they would have been quite tricky to set up correctly to get te best out of them?
Eddie

 

[dgersh]

Here's the Airfix-MRRC ad boasting about their Ford J victory at Bambury... from Model Cars October 1967. But I couldn't find any period article from the time, so if anybody finds the date, please add here!

And here's where the Aussies airlifted the car specially to analyze it! In The Australian Modeller magazine from Jan/Feb 1968...

At about the same time, Miniature Auto magazine, January 68, not long before being absorbed by its rival, Model Cars, ran a complete performance test on the car, by Peter Jowitt.

Just to give you an idea how incongruous this all was, here's a short article from that same issue on the Miniature Auto Lap Record Championship, and the kind of car that was winning things at the time - about as far from the Ford J as you can get, although more of a sprint than an endurance car, and a couple months more modern.

Don

 

[Rob J]

Great stuff from the magazines, Don
I have a couple of the nylon versions of the MRRC braking gears. The contrate has a large boss on the outer side and ramps or angled notches on the inner.
The notched collar is secured on the axle (by grubscrew) and the contrate is free to rotate on the axle. On the over-run the collar (and axle) is pushed slightly sideways against the side of the bracket.
As Eddie said, they were made for the bracket on the open-frame motor, the 3 or 5-pole. They could be used in other brackets but then were probably more difficult to set up.
The pinions were brass, whatever the ambiguity on the pack. There are two contrates in the photo, of course, 24 and 32T.
The metal one looks different, from the part of it on the 1/24 car. Perhaps when used with braking a sleeve or grub-screwed collar would be needed on the outer side of the contrate.

In Vic Smeed's 1965 British book Simple Electric Car Racing he describes these systems (ready-made and fabricated) and says the method "has proved extremely successful. Used by the 1964 Sports Car Champion on both axles, the car being four-wheel drive."
Maybe Tony or another historian can tell us of that.
Rob J

 

[superhornets]

Hi Rob and don
the set of gears you show was typical of the sort of gears that mrrc offered as a set of gears to scratch builders ,I dont believe they were fitted to any of the airfic /mrrc ready to runs as rob said they were nylon contarates and brass pinions
However MRRC did also manufacture metal bevel gears like this which seemed to be sintered out of something like bronze and both the crown wheel and the pinion were metal
I seem to remember they were fitted to the early 4 wd merc kits ,possibly without the braking Pawl
Those i think are the gears fitted to that 1.24 car ,again without the braking part of the set up
Re the nationals winner 1964 it was a twin microperm 4 wd cooper maserati
The microperm motors had very weak magnets and when they were rewound the brakes disappeared hence the need to use the mrrc braking gears
Those twin micto perm cars were very smooth to drive and if the brakes were proberly set up they would have been very nice to drive
Add a top driver like john ramsdale and you have a winning combination
additionally similar cars deriven by laurie hedley in 65 and john essex in 66 won the national sports car championhips
in 67 can motors and sponge tyres had arrived and 4 wd never won another national championship

cheers tony

 

[CJA]

Ey Up Guys.

I have a set of the sintered braking gears in front of me here !!.

The drive-boss has a ramp section and also a spline which fits a notch on the gear for when braking not desired.

The card includes a note that the "U-bracket" should be braced to withstand the sideways braking force !!.

I'll pop it in my race box so that you can see it at the next meeting.

vbr Chris A.

 

[TSRF]

The MRRC 1/24 scale cars are really cool and run fine compared to many period production cars.

We LOVE THEM at the LASCM.

 

[john_m_w]

Relevant to this mildly ancient thread, there is currently a 1/24 MRRC motor on ebay UK. Seller wonders if it's the first time one that has been listed there (it isn't, I bought one about a decade ago) but it does something that I haven't seen before - a still picture of the motor running.

 

[Kit Spackman]

Heavens, nostalgia rules OK.

I know all about that race at Banbury as I was one of the drivers of the car that came second! The winners, Derek Vaughn and Geoff Hughes (note the correct spelling of Derek's name, only one 'a') and me and my co-driver Travis, were all members of the Oxford Meteors Club and got into the 1/24 side of things through racing at the USAF base at Croughton, where they had a MONSTER 8 lane track.

Derek ran the Oxford Model Centre shop in St. Clements and had good contacts in the industry and MRRC asked him if he'd like to run the J Car in the upcoming 24 hr race. But it took them ages to get the car up to Oxford and Derek and Geoff only had one shake-down session on the Meteor's 1/32 scale track prior to the Banbury race.

Travis and I ran a Tamiya 'King Cobra' with a re-wound 36D motor, but our secret weapon was a quick change motor and rear axle pod, which I modified at work so we could swap the whole assembly in about 15 seconds. We figured the motor and the tyres would need changing a few times during the race, unlike the MRRC guys who figured they could run the whole race on two sets of tyres, and they were right! Derek and Geoff just ran away and hid from the rest of us!

The whole affair was very enjoyable, albeit tiring with only two drivers per team, no mechanics were allowed, the 'sleeping driver' had to do any work on the car at a pit stop, but the facilities at The Hall were superb, wonderful food, all supplied as part of the entry fee, and comfy camp beds to kip on etc.

The opposition were mainly sprint type cars, tubular brass iso-fulcrum chassis with re-wound 26D motors and sponge tyres, and all suffered numerous failures. The guys in the lane next to Travis and me had to re-solder their chassis almost on an hourly basis, as well as change motors many times! While the sprint cars were fast they just couldn't last the pace of the older, more robust stuff that we 'Meteorites' were driving.

But that J Car was plain AWESOME, I can still recall Derek blasting past me on the main straight early Sunday morning and me thinking 'That thing's just NEVER going to break down', and it didn't!

 

[stuckinthe60s]

so apparently the winning J did not have the discussed brake system installed? Thought that might have been the winning factor. Great history! Thanks for sharing.

 

[john_m_w]

@ Kit - well, they used to say (in the recent good old days) "nostalgia isn't what it used to be... "

As I approach my 70th year, I find that nostalgia is getting better all the time, and long may it continue!

 

[dgersh]

Thanks for that story Kit - that race has become rather mythic, and we always wondered how an out-of-date MRRC could beat the "fast crowd', but you explain it very well.

2 drivers for 24 hours? No thank you!

Don

 

[gus3049]

2 drivers for 24 hours? No thank you!

Don

We used to do three drivers. Two or three hours a shift is fine if you are young and fit. I was....fifty years ago!

 

[dgersh]

It was one of the frustrations of my young slotting career that there was never a long enduro I could enter. I think we did a couple 2 hour races at our local hobby shop, solo.

When I started again in 1992, endurance races were very popular in France, so I was happy: but during the first one I entered, when I was in my mid-40s or so, I found out that I get cramps when I drive more than a half hour or so! I wound up finishing the race driving left handed... that was a 12 hour race, but with more teams than lanes, so it lasted longer, and no lights on cars. When we finally did a real 24 hour race with lights, I also found out I wasn't especially good at night. So, bah humbug and all that. 8 x 3 minutes is fine with me!

Don

 

[gus3049]

Richard very kindly looked these reports out for me. Luton 24 hours races 1967 and 68. Boy do they make me feel old! Vic is my middle name, there were three Gordons at The Hollies club when I joined!