Luiz Claudio Valdetaro's Slot Car Page

A Bit of History and Background

I live in Texas, but I started my collection in the 60's in Brazil, with a Cheetah Cox/Dubro that my brother Joao Valdetaro gave me. I still have it in my collection. Since then I added many other cars.

My favorites? This Cheetah, a Cox Ford Galaxie Gurney-Ford autographed in the trunk by Dan Gurney himself. And finally a very special one: A tinplate Scalextric 1/27 Scale Maserati F1! The very first slot car ever made (1956). The patent application by minimodels depicted this car.

I'm more into racing the cars and having fun with them than collecting the "pure", original car. Incidentally, I do have a lot of originals. However, don't let yourself be overimpressed with my collection... I don't own "Mint in Box" cars. The very few I got my hands on it, I committed the capital crime: I opened the box and built the car! I like to build my cars, and race them.

Of course, if the car is valuable, such as a Cox 2E, I do so very carefully. But I build them and detail them as necessary. A lot of my cars have reproduction parts to make them complete. Most of them were acquired in poor condition and restored to near mint. A lot of them are still going through this process.