Typical mid 70s UK slot car

Hi Joel
Interesting find and very typical of the cars that folks like me were building up to about 1978
ant hawkes is an interesting character and was I beilieve a member of the presto park club near norwich during the 1970s and 80s
He was in the catering business and at one time was manager of the castle hotel in norwich ,seem to remember he did cheap packages for slot racers at presto open meets
slipped off the radar during the 90s but popped up about 1997 when he was managing pontins holiday camp at southport and gave all the competittors cheap accomodation and entertainment in the holiday camp
again seemed to disappear again after that but I have a feeling he may still be doing a bit of slot racing ,in production car events or even BSL possibly in the lancashire area
If no one comes forward joel I,ll make a few enquiries
no idea who the hell larry ward was

Cheers tony

Nice find Joel - you beat me to it!

I see that Tony is on the case...

And I resemble your remark about pointless discussions - everything we do is pointless!

Also, it's not the Dunes de Flandres, but the "Tour des Flandres", and there are photos under that very topic, thanks to Anthony (Abie) and Vincent.

Don

PS: a lot of money to pay just to get a set of Taylormade gears, eh?

QUOTE can someone confirm the Mura is pre 72??
Hi Joel,
While the can design did not change from 1971 when it was introduced, to 1977 when a new hole pattern was available for open-class racing (while the standard 2-hole survived through 1990 for lesser racing classes), this is likely a 1977-1978 production Group-15 motor, possibly with a faster armature. The endbell design with the larger bearing and notch for sidewinder main rails did not appear until 1972. A sure sign would be the use of "short" magnets in the can: Mura began producing their own shorter magnets to fit the shorter armature stacks of the X12 and GP15 arms at about that time. 1976-1977. The can color also looks like that period for the many production short-stack motors they manufactured for Parma for their angle-winder steel-wire and brass RTR cars. Also the body is of the Hesketh-Wolf 1975 F1 car, so I would think that the whole car was built in 1976.
Of course Ant would be the one to verify my guesses.

Ant Hawkes here! Looks like a forgery to me!! Seriously though, I did build dozens of chassis (mostly called Wildcat Chassis)and RTRs in the 70s and 80s when racing mainly in Area 10 at Presto Park but in the mid 70s Nick Thrower and I were racing at Enfield (NorthMet Club, Hatfield and occasionally N London) - then I went back to Presto until a couple of years before it folded in the mid nineties. I now race at Netley, Bournemouth, Roedale, Coulsdon and anywhere else I can get to!

Chassis building for other people has virtually stopped because time is short and I maintain around 30 of my own cars - amazing how many variations on the classes and motor restrictions are in force all over the place, meaning different cars for every club. In any case current chassis are less fun to build than the old hand-cut spring steel and hand-filed brass sheet varieties. Thanks to John Goldsmith, my old chassis are known as ANTiques.

Larry Ward, incidentally, was a racer at the Heron Club (Russell Ward's Dad?) and Chuck Palmer was an American guy who built the Palmer Formula 32 chassis which was probably the best of the bunch, certainly the straightest and strongest, unlike the one I wrote an infamous review about in that era! JG (John Goldsmith) will remember both Larry and the review!

Am still in the holiday business running a holiday village near Chichester for a Norfolk Broads -based family business.

Any chassis you'd like identifying, era, purpose, design, why did I bother, etc., just ask!

ATB, Ant