Looey from Oz explains: A short while ago, whilst I was still basking in the glow of finally getting my long coveted Bandai Captain Scarlet SPC, you posted a piccie of the Triang Rovex Captain Scarlet chase set and asked if this was the ultimate "wish I had this" set.
And I thought, no, if I was going for a slot car set, it would be this one...
Which of course set me on seeing what one would cost me these days. And the answer is STUPID MONEY (probably about a thousand quid in your money) and of course, they were always notorious for not working properly, so messing around with a vintage toy really put me off.
Then I discovered Scalextric had released a reasonably priced MICRO set featuring the classic Aston Martin and I HAD to have it!
When I received it, was really nice, but it didn't have enough track to do what I wanted to do, so I found a used Batman set very reasonably priced on eBay and soon I had enough roadway to recreate the street chase from No Time To Die in style!
I started off by designing and laser cutting cardboard buildings for the surrounding village landscape.
Finally I had enough to provide a decent village and I began setting them around the track layout I had planned
Next I laser cut some cobble stencils and repainted the black roadway in more appropriate colours and soldered everything together as I fastened it all down to my lightweight baseboard.
My final layout looks like this...
And now Mr. Bond in his Aston Martin, can tool through the World Heritage Italian village of Matera and spray machine gun bullets into the ancient masonry...
And of course, if this set had been actually made back in the 1960's it would have come in a box like this...
Now all I have to do is thank Scalextric for making such a nice product to begin with...
And draw a comic about how I fell off a ladder while taking photographs of my finished layout...
And maybe tape a micro camera to one of the cars and try to film a movie of driving around the set...
Hmmm, looks like I'm not finished at all!
"The name's Looey, that's Looey with a double O..."
Looey Morley,
OZ
Brilliant! I like that.
ReplyDeleteThat is truly a work of art!
ReplyDeleteWow! Just wow!25 or so years ago we had the traveling Bond exhibition, included it had a Bond chase set with a looped spring coil that die cast cars with a metal peg would sit in, I imagine it's just as costly as a collectible, something cheaper I can recommend is finding a PS2 and purchasing the "From Russia with love" game, of course there isn't the satisfaction of creating something from scratch but you do have a lot of Connery shooting stuff and the Aston Martin game play is great fun, you face off against T-34 tanks on the streets of Istanbul and there's whole Jet-pack levels and my favorite piece of kit was the 100 shot attaché case gun turret! Leave that beauty on high ground then creep around in the undergrowth to get the bad guy! Brilliant! -MJ
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely feckin' bonzer! Although one can't help wondering if the thousand-quid option wouldn't have been the cheaper route, if you factor in your hours!
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Wow, what an amazing layout. A lot of work, and a lot of love went into that. I am glad you did not have to cut out all those tiny windows by hand. Your vintage style box top is also great, and totally in period. I hope you did not incur any serious injuries in your ladder fall.
ReplyDeleteI understand Gilbert did similar fully landscaped model railway layouts to the James Bond slot car set.
Excellent work Looey.
ReplyDeleteBut how do you know what's in the next Bond movie before it's been released ?
It's all on the official Scalextric box lid! I've seen trailer #1 for research and I accidentally saw a photo that....
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Shows the DB5 now has M 134 gatling style miniguns behind the headlights instead of Browning machine guns in the turn indicators!
I had serious doubts the M134's could fit, seeing as most of the fenders are taken up with front wheels, but overlaying plans, it's just possible. -If Q Division cuts about 18 inches off the barrels! (well, I assume they are for close combat situations anyway!)
AWESOME! Truly worthy of a spectacular 007 chase scene. Need to film it :-)
ReplyDeleteI'm waiting for the HD microcam to arrive in the post!
DeleteIt's only 30mmx30mmx12mm! I'm hoping to glue it to the side of the Jaguar with a lump of blu-tac and film a chase through the entire set!
Ahem! I did a similar thing when I was supervising the model train layouts for Superman Returns, but they never included that footage in the DVD extras!
A veritable tour de force! Let the chase begin!
ReplyDeleteJust curious, what is the outer case on the carded SPC? Looks nice.
That's just me and my little laser -can you believe it? Buzz Buzz, Burn Burn...
DeleteI have a habit of making custom designed display cases for my collectibles, to keep the dust off -plus I have this toy shop window fetish. Everything just looks better behind glass!
It is not just the amount of space the armament takes up that bothers me. Depending on the version, the .30 calibre Browning machine-gun has a rate of at least 400 rounds per minute, up to over 1000 rounds per minute for the aircraft guns. The 7.62 mm M134 Minigun has a rate of fire varying between 2000 rpm and 6000 rpm. So it is going to go through a lot more ammunition than a Browning. Where do the ammunition boxes and feeds fit ? Also, what happens to all the spend shell cases, are these ejected all over the road ? Things like this trouble me, even if the films are total fantasy.
ReplyDeletethis is absolutely great,a masterpiece,really! ew
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