Solent Slot Car Club

Havant Industry Heritage Day 29th October 2011

The Spring is an arts and heritage centre in Havant. Scalextric used to be made in Havant until 1972 and is considered part of the town's industrial heritage. Many other big names have been located in Havant as have traditional industries such as paper making. On the 29th October 2011 the Spring hosted Heritage Fun Day, a celebration of local industry. One of the main products to be celebrated was Scalextric. The museum already has a fine collection on display including mint boxed tinplate cars

  

 

The plan at the museum was to encourage people to bring their Scalextric down, set it up and race. Kate Saunders, Heritage coordinator emailed me and asked if Solent Slot Car Club would like to be involved. I suggested that we could present a display of pre 1972 Scalextric. We had never done anything like this so Kevin Rowe and Cedric Whiting crated up lots of their collections and headed off very early to the Spring on that Saturday.

 

We displayed at least one example of most of the cars of the era, many with their boxes. We raced them for the entertainment of the visitors. The motor cycle and side cars were popular for their novelty value and they raced surprisingly well. The buildings were shown with their boxes, which included the control tower, event board, medical hut, grandstand etc. We had some sets including one with rubber track and a you steer conversion set. Catalogues and other literature were laid out. Some non mint copies were put out so people could thumb through them. Lots of other accessories were included, a starter on his rostrum, track side signs, Start/Finish banner and boxed track sections such as the Goodwood Chicane. The event was attended by over 300 people.

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