Just clicked "models" on Hemmings, scroll down

[Greg Myers]

http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/category/automobilia/model-cars/

[Eshaver]

Certainly something out of the ordornary ...........

Edited July 29, 2015 by Eshaver

[Dr. Cranky]

Wow, those are super cool.

[mazlak]

Those are TETHER CARS I think.

They used to race them in a circle on a hand line.

They used little gasoline engines like Cox.

They are really cool.

Rick in Richmond

[mazlak]

Probably should have read the link before posting above.

DOH.....!!!

Rick in Richmond

[Ben]

Thimble Dromes!

[Haubenschild]

I saw a car like that on Storage wars , it was valued at 3k in decent condition

[Art Anderson]

Those are gas-powered "tether" race cars. That form of model car racing started just prior to WW-II, and picked up after the war. The early cars ran 2-cycle engines, using battery/coil ignition with miniature spark plugs (so-called ignition engines), in sizes from .19 cid up to .60 cid, fueled with gasoline mixed with castor oil.

Where prewar cars tended to be mostly scratchbuilt from aluminum and steel, after the war, with scrap aluminum being extremely cheap, cast aluminum chassis, even complete bodies, began to turn up in hobby shops around the country. In the late 1940's, engine makes such as Thimble Drome, McCoy, K&B, Dooling came into production as well, along with cast aluminum rear axles with ring & pinion gears.

A lot of gas tether racers learned to make their own car bodies to fit available kit belly pans by carving wooden bucks, then laying up Japanese tissue with ordinary model airplane glue (sorta like the "common man's" fiberglas!), finishing them with fuel proof model airplane dope.

Tracks sprang up all over the country (here in Lafayette, the track surface in our city park survived well into the 1990's as the base for the merry-go-round), with a strong steel post in the center of a paved circular track. Those cars ran against the clock only, tethered to the center pylon, with classes based on engine size. The speeds attained could be pretty amazing--upwards of 100mph actual speed!

Leroy Cox was the man behind Thimble-Drome, his engines were in the .15-.19 range, cast aluminum crankcase and cylinder barrel (later, in the early 1950's, Cox dropped those engines, and began producing the famous .049 Babe Bee, with an extruded aluminum, turret lathed crankcase, extruded cylinder again machined inside and out, with a reed valve for pumping fuel into the crankcase to be mixed with air and pushed into the cylinder by the downward stroke of the piston. About the same time, model airplane engines began converting to glow plug ignition, and the gas-oil mixture gave way to methanol/nitromethane/castor oil mix.

Of the engine makes, Cox was the only one to live beyond the early 1970's, McCoy's disappearing in to the Testors fold about 1965 or so, Dooling fading away, and K&B being pretty much driven under by first Italian (Supertigre) and the various Japanese model engines.

Of course, Cox kept up producing gas powered model cars for decades, both wheel and propellor driven--Testors bought up the Wen-Mac series of 1/2A (.049) engines and produced WenMac's cars until the early 1970's. These cars could be tethered, or run down a straight guideline, but the handwriting was on the wall by about 1970 or thereabouts, when radio-controlled gas powered race cars began showing up.

Still, some neat cars though, and those old, now antique gas powered tether racers do bring some SERIOUS coin at shows, auctions etc today.

Art

[Skydime]

Those are pretty cool. For those who watch Storage Wars, Barry Weiss just found one in a locker. He goes to visit a guy about them and it actually shows one running for those unfamiliar.