QUOTE I wish I knew . Perhaps Philippe might know.
Bernard, this part does not belong to this set and appears to come from another toy.
A little about Marx:
Founded in 1919 in New York City by Louis Marx after working several years at F.J. Strauss Company, the Louis Marx & Company was an important American toy manufacturer until their end in 1982 when the company was liquidated. Joined by his brother David a couple of years later, the Louis Marx & Company was located at 200, Fifth Avenue, in New York City where it remained for 52 years throughout the Marx ownership. The company began without capital assets, sales base, patents, trademarks, products, processes, machinery, suppliers, or customers for that matter. However, they made up for this with conviction, commitment, good instinct, and Louis's talent and indomitable energy combined with David's operational skills.
The toy boxes were imprinted with the slogan, "One of the many Marx toys, have you all of them?" The Marx logo comprised the letters "MAR" in a circle with a large X through it, resembling a railroad crossing sign. Because of this, Marx toys are sometimes misidentified as "Mar" toys. The company's basic policies were "Give the customer more toy for less money," and "Quality is not negotiable," which made the company highly successful. It produced mostly tinplate mechanical toys before WW2. In the 1950s, Marx sourced many of their toys from Japan, the selected toys relabeled with the company logo. Marusan, Yonezawa, Alps toys were sold under the Marx or Linemar trademark.
The company involved itself in slot car racing from 1962 in collaboration with the Sears department stores. They built very basic, low-quality sets packaged in rather cheesy corrugated cardboard boxes, offered under the Sears "Allstate" brand. Cars were not very attractive and did little to enhance the intellectual and imaginative qualities of growing children, let alone attract a more sophisticated clientele into the hobby. Most of the sets produced were in the 1/32 scale but in fact the actual models were oversize. Because of their very competitive pricing and as for the Eldon sets, they sold relatively well to a starved market. Several track configurations were used, and following the exact sequence of production of the sets and models can drive one researcher quite mad. Marx also assembled some of their early 1/32 scale models in Canada, as well as having them built under license by Plasti Marx in Mexico to save on import duties.
In December 1964, they began offering their racing sets with "engine noise", a specific station providing the desired, electrically supplied racket, something that was hardly needed. Because of their lack of importance and their toy aspect in our bigger subject picture, the earlier products of this very old and large toy company are covered here very briefly.
Marx early models are crude and even more toy-like than those of European period production. Marx purchased their motors from Mabuchi and obtained a special version of the FT16 for their cars, of which both lead-wire terminals were parallel instead of opposite as in the standard versions. This allowed the use of steel ribbons to provide contact to the pin-style pickup with no soldering.
In 1966, Marx introduced a new racing set with a wider track and plenty of lane spacing for 1/24-scale cars, containing models of a Chaparral 2 and a Ferrari GTO. The inline stamped-steel chassis had a sprung drop arm and was powered by the latest Mabuchi FT16D painted a nasty shade of mustard with a black endbell. The bodies had rather crude detailing and were clear coated in lieu of paint. A full, non-accurate decal sheet was supplied. It did not help. The set was marketed by the Sears department stores and the box top sported their logos.
A "Trak-Pak" was also available, the black or gray plastic case containing the car, a controller, spare tires and a large bottle of oil. Again, these sets sold well because of their low price and can still be found in good condition today.
Also in 1966, Marx introduced more models, also marketed through the Sears network. A rather nice 1965 Ferrari 158 F1 model was followed by a 1965 Lotus Type 38 Indianapolis car, complete with the side intake scoops of the prior year Indy-500 winning car. These two models as well as the Chaparral and Ferrari GTO were now offered inside individual plain then nicely illustrated boxes, sealed under a clear plastic blister.
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An attempt to upgrade the existing Chaparral and Ferrari GTO models with a novel chassis utilizing the new Mabuchi FT26 motor and a steered front end, using the rigid body as a stressed member, also went nowhere but one of the prototypes survives at the LASCM.
Marx toyed with the idea of making vacuum formed bodies for a new line of "thingies", to follow the trend that had begun with the successful Classic models. Prototypes were built and some have survived and were auctioned when the company filed for bankruptcy, but that project went nowhere.
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When the slot car industry finally collapsed, Marx went right back to producing millions of other toys.
At age 76, having divested himself of his international interests, this "Henry Ford of the Toy Industry" (as the plaque of this initial inductee of The Toy Hall of Fame states), knew that it was time to get out. In 1972, after careful negotiation, Louis Marx sold his U.S. Empire to Quaker Oats which 3 years later sold it to the British firm of Dunbee-Combex. Lacking the leadership and a star product, they passed the control of development to English engineers, resulting in huge losses from returns of expensive new toys in 1978. This was the last full year of production. Dunbee-Combex-Marx of England, unable to meet its obligations, lost control and filed for bankruptcy in 1980. All remaining Marx assets were liquidated at auction in 1982.
