slotcar7 skrev:i'm a bit surprised by the link with MRRC because, if i remember well, in an earlier post, it was written that the founder of Behco was the Scalextric's Swedish importer..could he deal at the same time with two different, "enemies" British companies..
?
Sorry, but I can't recall anything written about Behco ever being Scalextric's Swedish importer, and certainly not by me (I hope...).
I'm sure Behco may have wanted very badly to have had Scalextric in their range, but the representation for Scalextric in Sweden was from the very beginning ”snatched” by another period hobby company, Sven E Truedsson in Malmö.
Strangely, Scalextric wasn't even the first commercially available "ready to race" slot racing set that was presented by the press in Sweden. That title goes to – VIP (Victory Industrial Products). This is the article about VIP in the ”Teknik för Alla” magazine (TfA issue #6, 1959). The headline says
”Slot car racing as a build-up kit” and the VIP importer is said to be Elov Hansson Inc, an old trading company in Gothenburg:
The very first article presenting the Scalextric system in Sweden wasn't seen until a couple of months later, in issue #11, 1959 of the ”Teknik för Alla” magazine (where else?). In return, the Scalextric article was also quite a bit larger than the earlier presentation of the VIP system (although it had the somewhat odd and a bit misleading headline
”Drift with the slot racer”). Proud importer mr Sven E Truedsson himself can be seen in the first pic of the article:
And the advertisments for Scalextric took even longer to show up in the press.
The very first one was (of course) in the TfA magazine, issue #16, 1959:
Very sparse, nothing more than the mentioning of the words
”Scalextric” and
”miniracingbana” (slot car racing track) in a general ad for different hobbies, but also showing clearly who the importer/representative was: Sven E Truedsson, a company that was at that time specializing
in radio control and model airplanes.
The second ad for the Scalextric system showed up in the next two issues of TfA, #17 & #18, 1959:
This ad was a bit more informative, with a Scalextric logotype and an ”action” picture of a
racing car. In this ad it was also possible to send for and request a special catalogue for the
Scalextric system.
”Write today and send for our our instructive SCALEXTRIC catalogue with every little bit of
information about SCALEXTRIC – SLOT CAR RACING. (Please see the article in TfA issue #11).Seen with today's eyes this was quite a sensation, as the first official Scalextric catalogue wasn't issued until a year later, in 1960. What this extremely early Scalextric catalogue looked like would be very interesting to see. Also if it was a very special swedish edition, written by the Sven E Truedsson staff, or if it had any connection with period written material from Minimodels/Triang. Either way, this early catalogue would surely be worth its weight in gold today if someone could dig up a copy. At the time it was quite cheap, as you could get a copy by sending in just 50 öre (5p) worth of stamps...
The third ad for Scalextric was not published until a couple of months later, in the issue #21 of TfA 1959.
This was the first ”real” advertorial for Scalextric, with a more thorough presentation of the system in both text and pictures and with a few bold headlines:
”THE NEW HOBBY! Drive yourself – get going! EXCITING like in reality!”More to come from the vault in due time. Stay tuned.