Related Systems and Developments
A number of technological developments have been tried over the years to overcome the traditional slot car's limitations. Most lasted only a few years, and are now merely historical curiosities. Only digital control is currently in production.
Around 1962, AMT's Turnpike system (USA) used multiple electrical pickups within the slot itself to allow drivers to control, to a limited extent, the steering of special 1:25 cars.
In the late 1960s the Arnold Minimobil system (Germany), also marketed as the Matchbox Motorway (UK), used a long hidden coil, powered by trackside motors, to move die-cast or plastic cars down the track via a slot and detachable pin. Cars in different lanes could race, but cars in the same lane moved at the same speed, separated by a fixed distance.
Also in the 60's Eldon Industries, Inc. produced 1/32 Scale Slot Cars and Sets With a very modern lane change system for analogue cars branded Selectronc that used lane change sections with a dedicated lane change controller. The cars and transformer used diodes to separate the control signals from the hand controllers that allowed for both cars to run independently in the same lane.
In the mid and late 1970s several manufacturers including Aurora, Lionel and Ideal (USA) introduced slotless racing systems that theoretically allowed cars to pass one another from the same lane. Most used a system of multiple power rails that allowed one car to speed up momentarily and move to the outside to pass. Though briefly successful as toy products, none of these systems worked well enough to be taken up by serious hobbyists.
In 2004, a number of traditional slot car manufacturers introduced digital control systems, which enable multiple cars to run in the same lane and to change lanes at certain points on the course. Digitally-coded signals sent along the power strips allow each car to respond only to its own controller.
In addition, imaginative manufacturers have used the slot track system to allow the racing of a variety of unusual things, including motorcycles, boats, airplanes, spacecraft, horses, fictional and cartoon vehicles, snowmobiles, and futuristic railroad trains.
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—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“No civilization ... would ever have been possible without a framework of stability, to provide the wherein for the flux of change. Foremost among the stabilizing factors, more enduring than customs, manners and traditions, are the legal systems that regulate our life in the world and our daily affairs with each other.”
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“I don’t wanna live in a city where the only cultural advantage is that you can make a right turn on a red light.
Freedom from labor itself is not new; it once belonged among the most firmly established privileges of the few. In this instance, it seems as though scientific progress and technical developments had been only taken advantage of to achieve something about which all former ages dreamed but which none had been able to realize.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)