When you think about it, it’s really quite amazing when you realize that the first successful slot car sets were produced over 100 years ago. What’s even more amazing is how they’ve evolved from simple layouts that were relegated mostly to living room floors on weekends, into scenic, full-sized courses occupying entire garages and commercial showrooms. With some of the most exemplary samples of private courses resembling stretches of authentic racetracks and costing over $500k, they’ve come a long way from the kit your parents bought you.

Make no mistake though: unlike so many other scale-sized hobbies, the enthusiasm for slot cars hasn’t waned over the decades – it’s grown. Guys that were fans 50 years ago are still fans today; slightly greyer perhaps, but with a lot more space, income, and passion to throw into a hobby they loved when they were younger. And they, in turn, are introducing a new generation of fans that are as thrilled by the thought of being in control of a miniature race car as they were.

Slot car appeal

For decades, the point that distinguished slot cars from other mini-car hobbies has only gotten stronger: their accessibility. Even now, you don’t need to cordon off an entire room in order to have a great setup. All you need are the right sections of slot car race track and the cars for the scale you want to race in. With as little as 2²m and the right combination of straight tracks, curves, lane change sections and curves, you can build a 1:32 scale layout that’ll be as challenging to navigate as it is entertaining for anyone who watches you drive it.

It’s surprisingly alluring even for younger people because the “in-hand” technology that’s integrated into modern slot car racing isn’t all that different from the handheld synchronization that they’re already used to, with a visceral boost to go along with it. Slot cars have never been more appealing, and bridging the gap between nostalgia and the future has never seemed easier.

The small scale advantage

When you compare slot car tracks to any other form of scale-sized racing, the advantages are clear. It’s not only why the hobby’s survived so long – it’s why there’s always new life being breathed into it.

• Cost

Relative to other scale-sized hobbies, slot car racing isn’t expensive. A complete kit with cars, tracks, and all accessories to set-up a race-ready track costs roughly half the price of some beginner RC cars. For the price of a high end RCer, not counting accessories, you can assemble a massively impressive 1:32 slot car course covering the prototypical equivalent of over 2km.

• Space

When you consider, 2²m isn’t a lot of space, but it’s still more than enough to set up a challenging slot car track. As a minimum, you’d need a warehouse-sized space to have the same amount of fun with any RC car. Although anything less than going out into an actual street isn’t going to be much fun at all. With slot cars, there’s no danger from having to compete with anything in the “real-world.”

• Excitement

Let the weather do what it may, you and your mates can run slot cars all day and all night, come sunshine or rain. When the skies turn grey and the downpour starts, the RCers all have to come inside. And they’re going to come to you asking if they can have a turn.

The digital slot car generation

If you can remember the golden age of slot cars, then you probably remember that those slot car track sets were all analog. Drivers didn’t control cars, per se, they only controlled the power supplied to 1 of up to 4 track slots that the cars were in.

With ARC® (App Race Control) and ARC AIR® technology, however, modern slot car race tracks now allow the handheld driver controllers to be digitally programmed directly to individual cars through smart devices. Incredibly, anything from this group of performance characteristics can be assigned to any individual car just as it be would on a prototype, and the car will behave the same as a prototype would under those conditions:

• Light or heavy fuel load
• Unique driver setups
• Engine output relative to car handling
• Smoothness of the throttle curve
• Camber and caster of car calibration

Even performance factors under a variety of weather conditions can be pre-set through the app – all making modern digital slot cars an interactive experience like no other in any of the scale hobbies.

Wireless operations

It also goes without saying that anyone who remembers those analog controllers also remembers what it was like to sort through, trip over, and find themselves generally entangled in metres of connection wires. Today’s sets are completely wireless, allowing a driver to not only control accelerating, braking and lane changing functions, but to move untethered around the track. Controllers even vibrate now to take drivers to a level of physical immersion that couldn’t have been imagined previously.

Lane changing

The programmability that’s built into slot cars now allows for genuine lane changes. That’s up to four cars following directly behind each other – which wouldn’t have been possible with the analog-powered lane controllers. Being able to lane change on certain sections of track introduces an additional layer of strategy to an activity that might otherwise be seen as simply going round in circles. Changing lanes at the right time could help you win a race, but changing at the wrong time will almost certainly make you lose.

Car choices

Slot car choices used to be pretty good, but they weren’t the best. If you were a NASCAR or endurance race fan the choices weren’t bad, but they were downright painful for everyone else. Now, you can separately purchase and pilot anything from a Bathhurst Ford Falcon to a classic ZL-1 Camaro. With a complete slot track race set, your choices can range from A9X Holdens to Mercedes GT3 supercars. The options have never been greater.

The conclusion

At the end of the day, it’s easy to see just how different today’s slot cars are from previous generations. The technology and the appearance of the car models have changed, but the fun and excitement hasn’t changed in the least. More so than ever, setting up a great slot car race track is a nod to having a good time with mates who share a common interest in scale-sized hobbies.

If you’re feeling nostalgic or want to introduce a younger person to something new, then now’s a great time to consider buying a new slot car set. You’ll feel good about it – and if you feel the urge to make it even bigger and dedicate a permanent space to it, don’t feel bad. You’ll be just like the rest of us.