Lancer made more bodies in more scales than all the rest of the "clear" body manufacturers combined,........they were also the nicest detailed by far., and could be painted/detailed to look gorgeous. In the mid to late 60's, (and through the 70's) if you wanted the best performance from your T-Jet (or 1/32 or 1/24 car), using a Lancer body was mandatory.
Lancer was THE name in "clear" bodies for many years, whether you were running HO cars with friends at Home or racing in the 1/32 1/24 commercial track series.
In the late 60's early 70's when I was actively running HO cars, they all had Lancer bodies, with my favourite being their Ferrari 330 P4.........I still have a few in each of HO, 1/32, and 1/24.
You can remove a lot of the "yellow" on vintage Butyrate bodies by leaving them in a sunny window sill for a few days.
Chers
Chris Walker
A little History,.......article "stolen" from another Forum.........this refers to 1/24 only,.....if you add in HO and 1/32 the number of different bodies produced was likely in the 500 + range.
Lancer started manufacturing bodies in 1963. Their only product was slot car bodies, and they turned them out continuously until at least 1970, a total of about seven years. Needless to say they made a LOT of different bodies; the listing above includes about 200 different bodies, by far more than any other manufacturer.
Lancer had, at least at one point, a problem with their part numbering system. Between the 1/32 scale bodies and the 1/24 scale bodies, their success and inevitable growth (not to mention a slight failure to plan ahead) they ended up having to re-use some of their part numbers. The result of which is that in a few cases, there are two very different Lancer bodies carrying the same part number! In other cases when they made more different kinds of bodies than their were numbers in the series, they ended up with -A, -B and -C part numbers.
Most (but not all) of these anomalies involve re-using 1/32 scale body part numbers for newer 1/24 scale bodies, so there isn't too much confusion, and all of the re-used part numbers are below 200. I have marked all cases of re-used part numbers in blue, and noted them in the "Variant" column.
Lancer's Numbering Scheme:
001-199 Scale bodies (all types) made of thicker Butyrate.
200-299 Open wheel scale bodies (GP and Indy) made of thicker Butyrate.
800-899 "Pro Series" lightweight; current (for late 1960s) race car bodies made of .015" thick Butyrate.
900-999 "Super Competition Series" long, low, wide and lightweight (not to scale); even the open wheel bodies in this series were 1-1/2 inches wide.
5100-5199 "Super Scale Series" lightweight; scale bodies made of .015" thick Butyrate.
There are at least three bodies in the 900 group that are of particular historical interest: #912 The Whisper, #968 "The Spoiler" and #986 "Drifter".
In a clear departure from Lancer's usual style, they are each an original design and do not resemble any particular prototype. Based on the part numbers Lancer gave them, it is reasonable to presume they were first introduced between late 1968 and early 1970, although hard information is unfortunately lacking.
To some they are Thingie bodies, and although this is certainly an arguable point, their introduction would have been (historically) very late in the original Thingie era.
They are not "Aero" bodies either, not in the sense that we know them now. It is also arguable that Lancer never made any Aero bodies, because true Aero bodies didn't appear until two or even three years later, after Lancer ceased production.
What they were, at the time of their introduction, was literally a glimpse of the future. It is likely that even Lancer didn't realize this.
