What Is a New slot worth

Hi all.
It's my view that, as resin bodies or complete cars come at a premium, there is a reluctance to put a considerable amount of money on the track and risk marring a pristine model. This also applies to modern slot cars of the same value. How many of us race the really exspensive commercial models or even an older Scalex,Fly, Ninco etc. model which may have a considerable value? I have seen a few Fly truck owners wince at the suggestion of actually RACING their prized possesions!
Resin is a lot tougher than we give it credit for and may be as durable as normal ABS plastic or similar under race conditions. But very few want to put it to the test. Also a resin model is invariably of a hard to get model and usually (but not always) a vintage car of some kind. These always have lots of vulnerable fiddley bits. With the ever increasing availability of an increasing variety of resin bodies it is a pity to deprive yourself of a possible classic slot car.
When raced in a non traction magnet situation, these cars tend not to reach the 'Self destruct' speeds of the off the shelf plastic offerings, and if built as a scratch kit they can be built with relative economy. The last hurdle would be to accept that the car you have just spent ten hours painting and assembling is worth the event.
I have built numerous scratchbuilts to varying degrees of detail but I get better with each model I build. Below are some pictures of my first resin body project. It has some minor details that I would rather have improved on but at the time they seemed ok. The model is, of course, the Mercedes W196 as driven by probably the greatest all round driver of modern times. J. M. Fangio. As far as I'm aware, this is not available as an off the shelf slot car. When I have placed it on the line for a run, other racers have stopped to admire it. For those who are toying with the idea of building a resin car, I say, GO for it, the first one may not be the best but every one that follows will get better and better, but most of all RACE them.



This body was obtained from A2M and had to have a degree of fettling to bring out the detail in the bumps, humps and intakes. My only complaint was that they insisted on charging me VAT even though I live outside the EU. Things I would do differently on the next one would be to improve the windscreen, not make the panel seams so extreme and spend A bit more time on the finer details such as grilles mirrors and radiators.

...you know now why I sold mine?
But his kits and parts are achieveable! And his Chaparall 1 is the best resine kit I ever had! Surface is so smooth - you might paint it immediately out of the box
the resine kit is 86€ - plus a driver figure 9€ plus a Sakatsu-chassis 49€ plus some small parts - you'll end up with app. 180€ for all the parts - and then fun starts...

Those pheonix racecars are AWESOME!

But generally I find the detail on the newer scalextric, fly and revell/mongram to be very nice (carerra a hairs breadth less detailed but still lovely, scx slightly less again but still very very acceptable). For me, the main temptation of racer, le-mans minatures, anni-mini etc isnt the resin or the extra detail, its just you can't get those cars elsewhere

oh well!