FALLER AFX

this page will give you a short general introduction into faller slotracing cars but will specialyse on on afx race cars later. (sorry no detailed faller ams infos)

the faller ams ho scale slotcar system was introduced in germany in the mid 1960s. The chassis and motor construction was copied from the aurora company of america.

It was their so called "thunderjet" ho scale slotcar that was so terrific in performance that faller used the design with hardly any changes. In the beginning faller had it´s own design for the chassis but that was not as good as the thunderjet.

However faller had its own track system and the car bodies were also faller made. Opposed to the aurora track which was black colored and the track pieces had to be connected with plastic clambs the faller track was colored gray (a much more real street like look) and the pieces were connected with copper connectors which fit in small holes on the sides. for nearly ten years faller sold their then so called "traffic system" with the purpose of decorating h0 scale railways with realistic electrified running slotcars on the thunderjet basis.

With the picture on the right you can get a clue what faller had in mind when they saw the small electric h0 scale slotcars instead of sending them around a racetrack. But eventually they changed their mind and turned towards real slotracing.

(above faller city traffic set)

It all changed when faller started to sell "racing only" sets like "nurburgring". faller saw that the slotcars were much more than decorative but could also be raced around the track like real racecars.

(above catalogue pic of the nurburgring race set)

the big push towards real racing came with the introduction of aurora afx cars. the afx had a greatly improved performance and the so called "magna traction" cars were the first slotcars to use magnetism to hold the cars on track which was a great jump ahaed. faller saw the advantages of these afx cars and made a deal with aurora to import them to germany. opposed to the early faller cars the bodies were no longer faller made but also imported. faller made this step in the mid 1970s.

The fact that by then the only part of the product made by faller were the track pieces is the reason why most faller collectors stop collecting at this point. even the throttle controllers were imported from aurora then. However this is were i concentrate my collecting efforts as i really like the aurora cars and with the still readily available faller made track pieces you can build a great racing track at considerable low costs.

The feeling of racing these cars is what atracted me to slotcars and not watching them collecting dust so the aurora cars are the best buy as you can still get them for a good 20$. In the beginning i owned also some early faller cars but i decided to concentrate on aurora cars only because the old faller cars are way to expensive to still race them.Instead I swapped them for two hands full of aurora afx cars.

If in good shape the faller track together with a big power unit and good control throttles preferably from Parma pse performs absolutly terrific and is a great fun (especially when build as a four lane track on a saturday night with some good friends and a case of cold ones).

So you probably came to this page because you own either an old aurora or faller track (maybe found recently in an old attic after decades of collecting dust) and want to get it going again and you have absolutly no clue how to manage this. In this case i have some useful information below to choose for you so we get your track going again.!

The three links below take you to your desired information: