Here we enter the modernity of the Slot Racing! The cars have a direction articulated like a real one, that is to say with parallelogram. Unfortunately, the electrical design was, as always with Jouef, very spartan (and has become more and more). Bad contacts, accelerators whose wires were breaking, a lot of DIY was necessary,!
In fact, this circuit “belonged” to my brother, but we were obviously playing together. Better, joining our circuit to that of our friends, it became a super circuit! We had taken care to mark our tracks so that we could find ours when the game was over…
This circuit still exists (2013). It does not even miss the track staples. But the car motors (Mercedes, Matra) are very tired! Only the Jaguar still looks good.
The Record 64 (released as the name indicates in 1964) had competitors: chronologically, Scalextric (England) in 1957 and Circuit 24 (France) in 1961. There were many others, see the Wikipedia article. See also the sites Rétro64 and Le petit musée Jouef.
In 2014, I rehabilitated the circuit: thorough cleaning of the tracks, grinding of the rails, which were very dirty or even oxidized, repair of electrical connections and throttles, the plastic of which is very worn, changes of motor magnets, of rear tires of the Jaguar and the Matra (one of the Mercedes has no more motor, the other one has its rotor out of service, winding cut).
In 2017, I equipped both Mercedes with cheap Mitsumi motors. I did not go in for subtleties, cutting the back part of the Jouef motors, the one that supports the axle, to stick it with superglue on the new motor. It was necessary to adapt the motor axis diameter (from 1.5 to 1.8 mm), with a brass tube, also glued. Thus equipped, the cars run a little less quickly, but much more silently, and, above all, they run!
MITSUMI miniature 12V DC motor, 2 axis outputs,
€3.64 per five, free shipping,
at eBay (broken link).