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The Birth of Betta & Classic...

In the early years, back in 1956, when model car racing was in it’s infant stages the norm was to race not slot cars but rail cars, which ran on rails rather than in a slot. These cars were made by the purist scale model maker, whose interests were to scale looks rather than to achieve out and out speed!

In those early years bodies were made out of balsa wood by individuals spending many hours making miniature replicas of the cars they most loved. Some were obviously made to a very high standard, whilst others remained to be very average to say the least, depending on the individuals abilities.

So came about the first real sighting of a pure 1/32nd scale body shell produced in England and made by a certain - now world famous individual named ‘Charlie Fitzpatrick’, the founder of shells. He was able to make models of immense quality and using his skills in fibreglass moulding was able to produce for the first time ever, scale replicas of many, many racing cars for the rail racer and as slot racing took over the slot racer.

As competition became more and more serious the need to make cars go that little bit quicker became more and more apparent. Bodies began to appear on the market made from a thin plastic material, at first being manufactured by the Americans. These early bodies were not quite up to the standard of the scale looks of the fibreglass bodies, but never the less they were much lighter, so increased the performance of the cars.

So, Charlie, realising the performance of these plastic shells decided to keep up with latest technology and set about designing a machine and a method of producing these shells to the usual high standard that was now to be expected from the classic slot car works. And so was born the very first vacuum formed slot car to be produced by Charlie under the name of Betta Bodies.

Since then slot racing has gone from strength to strength, we are now offering over 800 body shells and a full comprehensive stock of slot car accessories, a firm proof of our early ability at Betta & Classic to be the world’s number one manufacturer and distributor of model slot car racing shells.

If you have any questions about any item listed in our catalogue or web pages or any general slot car problems, please do not hesitate in contacting us at Betta & Classic, ask for Ian Fitzpatrick...he will be only too pleased to oblige.