Description
Author: Andreas A. Berse, ISBN: 9783768838290, 175 pages, Hardcover, published in 2014.
Carrera: 50 Years on Track is published to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Carrera, a slot car brand introduced in the early 1960s by Josef Neuhierl GmbH & Co. The name Carrera was inspired by the Porsche Carrera models which took their name from the Carrera Panamericana road race. Used in the competitive hobby of slot car racing, these are miniature cars, all scale models, that run along grooves or slots in tracks with a pin or blade extending from the bottom of the car into the slot. The cars are operated using hand-held control sets. In 2006 Carrera held its first Carrera World Championship; this race is now held every other year. The Carrera cars are now available in more than forty countries around the world, and has become the world's leading manufacturer for racetracks and accessories. This is the first book to be published on the subject, with many as yet unseen images about this fascinating hobby. Carrera shows the complete history of the Carrera track, including steep curves and loopings, representing current models and absorbing biopics of their owners since 1963.
Synopsis:
The success story that is the legendary Carrera model car racetrack began in 1963. With unflagging dedication and some flashes of genuine genius, Dr Hermann Neuhierl established the model car racetrack as a second toy system alongside the model railway. Although there had been attempts to develop racetracks with motorised model cars earlier in the 20th century, Hermann Neuhierl was the first to build a whole world in a variety of scales around his concept.
57 pages of this book are dedicated to the five decades of Carrera's history and contain profiles of all three owners of this cult brand to date: Dr Hermann Neuhierl, Kurt Hesse and the Stadlbauer family. As well as authentic insights from contemporary witnesses, added interest is provided by a wide range of previously unseen photographs.
In addition, the book also contains a number of extensive reports. These range from portraits of characters like Huschke von Hanstein or Josef Neuhierl and reports on design and safety, to an account of a visit to H. P. Seufert, a long-sewing photographer at auto motor und sport, who has been a slot racing fanatic from the very start. A major interview with Dr Dieter Stadlbauer and his son Andreas, the current owners of Carrera, can also be found here, as well as a somewhat unusual story from the Porsche-Museum in Zuffenhausen.