This is an almost 16 ft wide slot car race track that was built by the team at 1:32 Customs in Australia. It features a highly-detailed, diorama-style environment allowing two people to race side-by-side.
This track uses 1:32 scale cars, it’s called “Yesterday Raceway” as it was designed and built to be an homage to the classic race tracks from Australia’s past, but it’s not a replica of any one circuit.
The track measures in at 15.9 ft (4.85 meters) in length by 7.2 ft (2.22 meters) wide, making it by far the largest slot car circuit we’ve ever featured on Silodrome.
A Slot Car Racing History Speedrun
Slot car racing has a surprisingly complex history that dates back to the Lionel Corporation in 1912. They debuted a new kind of toy car that was propelled by an electric motor, with power provided by a toy trail rail that was recessed below the track, inside a slot.
These early slot cars were relatively simple, even speed control was an optional extra, and in many respects they were more like toy trains than modern slot cars, but they did pioneer the fundamental concept.
As the 20th century progressed many other clot car designs came and went, but by the mid-1950s in Britain the modern slot car concept was beginning to take shape. It was around this time that the term “slot car” was coined, but by whom remains a mystery, and a number of companies began offering kits which increased in popularity into the 1960s and 1970s.
Some of the most well-known manufacturers were Scalextric, Ninco, AFX (Aurora Plastics Corporation), Carrera, Revell, Slot.it, and Auto World. Today the most common is Scalextric, with many people using the company name interchangeably with the term slot car.
With the rapidly rising popularity of the remote controlled car in the 1980s, slot cars took a backseat for a while, though they enjoyed a resurgence in the 1990s that continues on to the modern day.
The 1:32 Scale Slot Car Track Shown Here
The track you see here is gigantic in slot car terms, measuring in at 15.9 ft (4.85 meters) in length by 7.2 ft (2.22 meters) wide.
It’s 1:32 scale and comes with a collection of cars and controllers. The track works its way around the board in a series of tight curves, multiple hairpins, lane deviations, a bridge overlap section, long sweeping bends, a crossover, various elevation changes, and multiple long straights.
The fine details of the circuit are remarkable, with grass, trees, spectators, tire barriers, working street lamps, and period correct advertising.
The track also has smart LED strip lighting integrated, with adaptive lighting and sound effects that are triggered by 14 sensors located across the track in key areas. There are brass streetlights, a 10 inch digital display screen, and a 7 inch touch-screen control panel.
The track is now being sold on Collecting Cars out of Adelaide, Australia and you can visit the listing here if you’d like to read more about it or register to bid.
Images courtesy of Collecting Cars
Articles that Ben has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
