On a particular day in 2021, I found that my passion for the slot car hobby, which I had cherished for about 17 years, suddenly faded away. To be precise, I couldn't see myself wanting to continue this hobby any longer. "This is going nowhere..." I thought at that moment, "This is an unhealthy relationship."
While it's great to get along with others who share different preferences on the track, there were moments when it drained my energy. That's why I made a conscious decision to maintain a healthy distance from anything or anyone I didn't resonate with to safeguard my mental well-being.
Coincidentally, around that same time, my long-time friend Aizawa-san, affectionately known as "Ken-Papa", handed me a few small items at our local commercial track. He stopped me and retrieved something from his slot car box, saying,
"I thought you might appreciate these, and you have a knack for fixing things just the way you like."
In reality, I wasn't particularly fond of those outdated british cars, but I sensed a profound compassion from him. Therefore, I accepted them in silence at that time.
It's been a year since then. In that moment, I was absentmindedly gazing at them without any specific thoughts, but suddenly, I felt something click in my head, and I felt the urge to organize my ideas. I rummaged through a drawer and found two well-preserved old Ninco Ferrari 166MM chassis and NC-1 pods. Another search in a different drawer yielded the necessary components.
Over the past year, I had distanced myself from slot car hobbies and acquired some new tools and equipment for airsoft gunsmithing. Among them was a lathe machine, which I realized could also prove valuable for crafting slot cars.
The reason I used to avoid these old sports car kits was due to their narrow tread and limited selection of wheel hubs.
Now, I can easily reduce the width of the alloy wheel's thick hubs or trim one side flange of the axle bushings using a lathe machine. By addressing this issue, it becomes much like the process required for building other cars.
This time, the body and chassis are supported by four points, instead of the original Ninco's two points, in order to ensure a strict clearance between the wheel arches and tires when the body tilts.
The progress went like this:
The car bodies remain as they are, but I completely replaced the chassis, including the power units, and crafted new half cockpits to suit my preferences. I modified the drivers by cutting away half of their bodies, adjusting and re-gluing their shoulders to extend their arms, and doing the same to change their neck angles. I quickly created half steering wheels using leftover materials and attached them.
After adding some weight, touching up on minor chips, and assembling everything, here's the final result.
I believe these wheels might be too sophisticated for these cars. If I had used colored mini light wheels, they might have given a much more rugged appearance than these.
It was enjoyable to delve into this after a long hiatus, but I'm still uncertain about returning to this hobby. At the very least, it served as a small form of rehabilitation for me.
<Aug. 2022, video added>
Slot Car 37：Airfix Triumph TR4A on NC-1-like Speed!
