I’ve been saying a lot lately that I’m so short of time because I’m working on so many projects and putting in so many hours for my company, but I recently got a chance to make a trip out to “Aladdin’s Cave” in Buena Vista 115 miles from home on the company dime! I had to drive all the way to Gunnison for a 2 day project-almost exactly 200 miles, and a nearly 4 hour drive each way-and that trip took me on the highway through Johnson Village literally right past Performance Slots & Hobbies! What a break! In spite of having to watch my spending due to the need to buy X-mas presents, I wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity like this, so I stopped in to see what I could pick up from Doug and Cindy. I came away with 8 new slot cars of various types, and while half will be profiled later, the first half of that stash is right here!
You may recall my post from last summer about my first Faller slot car; I was so impressed with it that I decided I wanted some more, and the fine folks @ PSH had a little stash of them they had acquired some years ago and really didn’t know what to do with. Faller slotties are thin on the ground here in the US because they were never officially sold here, but they made some nice cars, and I saw several in their stash that I decided I wanted, including one of the most sought-after pieces: the pink ‘64 Cadillac deVille! I took them with me to the freezing environs of Gunnison and did my job there, and then after returning home, as soon as I could get some time on a weekday evening, I sat down at the workbench to scrutinize them and see what results I could get.
The number of different chassis designs Faller used over the years makes my head spin; they must have changed the design almost every year! Strange, I think: seems very unlike European companies, and especially German companies, who in my experience are often very pragmatic and tend to stick with what works. What I had, it appeared, was two different “late stage” designs with inline motors (or “block motors” as Fallerites seem to call them) rather than the earlier designs which were a blatant copy of the Aurora Thunderjet, which almost resulted in a lawsuit between the two firms. The two older cars, a blue Porsche 356A coupe and a white MBZ 190SL hardtop roadster with a blue top, had gray-finish wheels and a chassis design that had contacts which bent at a 90 degree angle up from the chassis pan to the sides to make contact with the motor, which seemed to me like a somewhat fragile design. These models came with a very odd looking guide pin which has a huge base with a locator pin that fits inside a recess in the chassis to keep in place. I would hate to have to replace those!
The Porsche body is decent overall but it does have a minor roof post damage if you look closely. Its a nicely proportioned model, however, and its really cool to have an HO slot copy of a Porsche 356 coupe because to my knowledge no one else but Faller has made one! In the summer of ’21, I acquired a resin casting of a 356 body based on the Hot Wheels die-cast that I did a 5 part series on, showing how I built it from a bare kit to a finished car, but that racer is part of the numbered Ultra G racing fleet, while these Fallers will, of course, be part of The Road Crew.
The 190SL is also unique to Faller, and while not quite “rare” is very desireable and looked really nice in this white and blue color combo. This body had no structural damage, but it did had some ugly brown spots on it that must have been glue of some kind, because it was extremely hard to remove; I wound up having to use some sandpaper and a touch of acetone, which of course caused some damage of its own, which then had to be buffed out with the Dremel and my Meguiar’s plastic polish. In doing this bit of body work, I learned that the bodies of these Faller cars are not made of the same type of plastic as the Aurora T-Jets: they are softer and more flexible, which makes them resillient and less likely to break, but also means the surfaces are easily damaged! So, for those of you who are uninitiated and thinking about picking up some Faller slotties of your own, this is something you’ll want to keep in mind! I was able to clean the body up to my satisfaction, but a few microscopic flecks of that substance remain, because I did all the sanding, scraping and buffing I thought I could get away with and I didn’t want to push my luck!
The Benz fired up and ran almost right away with just a little oiling, but the Porsche needed quite a bit of TLC to come back to life. The pick-up shoes on that one are in terrible condition-in fact one of them is even broken at the front and is just barely hanging on-but eventhough it took a while of messing around with them to get good contact, I eventually did, but those pick-up shoes are going to need to be replaced, and of course I have no spare parts for Fallers…at least, not yet!
I may have some soon, though, because the other duo of newer cars turned out to be tougher! These appeared to be a newer design with a chassis identical to the blue Mercedes 300SE ‘vert I first bought, as they feature the cool looking chrome plated dished spoke wheels and really nice tires with a “Continential” imprint on the sidewall. As mentioned, the pink Cadilliac is one of the most sought-after of all Faller bodies for obvious reasons; the other one I picked was the Opel Diplomat sedan, which is usually seen molded in a light brown; Doug’s stash consisted of no fewer than 3 such bodies, but this was the only gray one, which is harder to find, and looks better besides, so of course that was my choice.
I was able to get the pink Cadillac running, although its noisy and still seems unhappy on the track. A little more cleaning and oil may cure that, but it may also need some micro-adjustments to the worm gear to wheel gear mesh. Fortunately, these well-designed cars offer plenty of ways to do that.
Unfortunately, that was where the fun ended, because to my surprise, the motor in the gray Opel turned out to be completely dead. I say I’m surprised because overall the chassis appeared visually to be in superb condition: so clean it looked almost unused; this would have been the last one I would suspect would be a non-runner on looks alone, but after messing with it for a while and getting nothing, I pulled the motor out of the chassis and put direct 18V power to it from a power pack and got absolute nothing! Bummer!
If I can find a motor from a seller on one of the usual sites I’ll grab it, but more than likely I’ll have to buy a whole chassis, which I’m sure won’t be cheap, and if that’s how it goes, well-suddenly I have a whole chassis of Faller spare parts! That is, for this chassis design…and as many as there are, it’s likely that little, if anything, will interchange with the next Faller slotty I buy! I probably will get a few more, however; I like these cars quite a bit. I have yet to experience all their myriad designs, but the ones I have run quietly and consistently, which makes them perfect for cruising the HO Highway with The Road Crew!
I’ll be looking out for a replacement motor and if I find one I’ll make sure to blog out the repair and rescue mission on the gray Opel! In the meantime, with the 3 runners added to my previously acquired 300SE, I have a cool Faller 4-Some to cruise around the Model Motoring track with!
I never knew Faller made slot cars. I’m familiar with their models for train sets but this is cool to know. There is so much history with these cars like the lawsuit you mentioned. I’d say getting three out of the four running is fantastic and it’s really cool to see them go. They are great models and have really nice proportions. The caddy is certainly neat and that Mercedes sure cleaned up very well! Great Job Bud!!!