1970 Eldon Futura Race Set – Retro-Review

Every once in a great while, I run across a complete race set, accessory, or kit that is complete or close to complete. Recently I was able to acquire a nearly new, 1969 Eldon Futura Race Set, that was close to complete. Seeing all the goodies in the box, I could not help but wonder about the race set’s past. Was this someone’s birthday present or maybe it was a surprise from Santa in days past? I thought it would be something new and different to review the set as I do more contemporary releases. These types of reviews will be a rarity due to the nature of finding items in good condition and near as complete as possible. But as I run across items or if someone in my orbit has something I can borrow to photograph, I will add these to the Speed Inc website for reference and enjoyment. A quick disclaimer: These are old, out of production items and are not readily available for purchase. So let’s jump into the time machine and take a look at the Eldon Futura Race Set from 1969.

Eldon Industries was a major player in home slot car racing, mostly in 1/32nd scale. Originally founded as the Ungar Company, Eldon Industries was established in 1962 to carry toy and hobby lines. They were not only known for slot cars, but also for home Skee-Ball and the “Bowl-A-Matic” games and the very popular Billy Blast-Off Astronaut toys in the 1960’s. My earliest records show Eldon getting onto the HO racing scene around 1968-69 after much success in the 1/32nd and 1/24th scale side of the hobby. Cox bought out Eldon in 1979, long after Eldon had exited the hobby lines, including slot cars. The controlling interest in the Eldon toy lines was finally bought out by Rubbermaid in 1990, with the toy lines focused on traditional games, dolls and action figures.

In 1969 kids were flying high on a great series of toys. Classics like Barbie, G.I.Joe, slot cars, plastic models, Hot Wheels and anything tied to the NASA and space were big winners. Eldon took a cool Sci-Fi approach to their Futura Race Set, leveraging the Apollo Moon landing and all the wild movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey as inspiration. The wild designs of the Cirrus and Astro III cars that came in the set, looked like they could make it to the moon and back. Let’s take a closer look at this set and what all came in the box.

The Futura Race Set came with the following:

Note the Astro III box in the top corner. The Cirrus box was the only missing part!

Above: The instruction manual.

Power Pack: The Eldon HO Power Pack is a 14V-20V with .5 Amp. It has an On/Off switch and standard flat-tip screws to secure the power cable and controllers.

The Controller Rheostats are thumb/plunger type units that have 75 Ohm resistance. They have ventilation slots in the sides and they do get warm after about 15 minutes of use. They are perfectly sized for smaller hands, but do get a little lost in the larger hands of an adult.

In 1969, Eldon, like Tyco, was looking to make assembling the track easier than the established “pin and clip” versions that Aurora had in place for years. The Eldon track slid and snapped into place, much like the original Tyco track and the soon to be Aurora AFX track later in 1970. There were a couple of damaged sections of track after 50 years, but they all still locked and worked.

Eldon also included a cool banked curve with built in retaining walls. The banking is about 15° and transitions well to the flat straights coming onto and leaving the banked sections.

The set also includes a 10 count lap counter that trips by the guide pin of the passing car. The Power Track uses slide clips to secure the power pack and controller wires. One wire from each controller goes to the track, the other to the power pack and one wire from the power pack goes to the common rail on the Power Track. Kids had to learn a little basic wiring back in the day.

The Eldon HO Chassis is a can-motor, worm gear driven package. The can-motor is the typical of the day, Mabuchi D-50 motor that was used by several slot manufacturers like Tyco, Riggen and Atlas. The pick up shoe system has a leaf spring feature that eliminates the chance of losing a coil spring like the Aurora Thuunderjet uses. The rims and tires are similar to the Aurora Thunderjet and after-market tires for the “skinny” T-jet rims fit nicely. The performance was decent for a worm gear driven unit. The speed was about the same as seen from an Atlas, Tyco S, Marx or Lionel chassis from this era. It was not as speedy as a Thunderjet, but after some tuning and replacing the stock tires with silicons, it picked up quite nicely. Handling was typical of a non-magnetic chassis and you could easily get squirrelly in the turns. The picture on the lower right hand side shows the rear weight assembly that wraps around the worm gear and rear axle. This weight does improve the grip of the rear wheels and helps lower the center of gravity to improve handling. Without the weight, the wheels spun quite a bit and exiting turns involved a lot of fishtailing.

This is the Astro III car from the set. It could be purchased separately as catalog number 3220. It was listed as number 5-26-300 in the race set. This car is very unique in having the rear wheels covered. The rear section is often found radiused out for larger rear slicks. There was a decal sheet that included the black out sections for the hood, along with yellow and red side marker lights. These were already applied to the car seen here and had ample wear over the years. I do plan on recreating the decal sheet and restoring the cars in the future.

This is the Cirrus car from the set. It could be purchased separately as catalog number 3221. It was listed as number 5-26-301 in the race set. There was a decal sheet that included the black out sections for the hood, along with yellow and red side marker lights. These were already applied to the car seen here and had ample wear over the years. I do plan on recreating the decal sheet and restoring the cars in the future.

Here is the suggested layout from the set instructions. The layout covers an area of 42 inches by 70 inches. I did not attempt to attach the guard fences as they were brittle and would have probably broken in the process. Following the instructions posted above, the wiring was completed and the track ran well after a good cleaning with a 3M buffing pad and some alcohol on a rag. I can see where this set gave someone in the past, hours of fun.

Overall the Eldon Futura Race Set was easy to assemble and operate. The instructions were clearly illustrated and easy to follow. Compared to a modern track, the wiring was a bit trickier, but nothing that a dinosaur like myself has not seen before. The cars were in desperate need of cleaning and tuning, but they are 50 years old. After a good clean up, they ran well. I think the snap track probably fell prey to the same rambunctious activity all young racers put a track through and the tabs over time probably broke. The banked turns with the retaining walls were a cool feature not to be repeated until AFX came out with the Daytona Banked Curves a few years later. The cars were definitely sturdy and the pick up shoes with the built-in leaf springs had fewer small parts for younger racers to lose. Eldon had a good product with some excellent components. They had several nice cars in their HO series. The last tidbit from the race set was a catalog/wish list to plan future track expansion or adding to the slot garage.

-Paul Shoemaker