Neil's design choice

MARKETING - 13 October 2004

Being the third in a family of four boys I can’t really remember a time when we didn’t have a Scalextric of some sort in the house. I remember my first car; the 6 wheeled Tyrell John Player Special in black and gold. It looked good but that was about it – it wasn’t much on the track.

Time has moved on and I can quite honestly say that for thirty years I haven’t thought about Scalextric much at all. That is, until my son Elliot’s recent birthday. A shopping spree later we returned home with a Scalextric Sport Advanced System ‘Bash n Crash’ set. Everything a 10 year old and his Dad need in one box: track, cars, jumps, mega sound hand throttle. But the goods didn’t stop there - Scalextric have redesigned the track fittings. Gone is the system of looped tabs and nipples, which were at best a right fiddle to clip together and at worst - if you had a big track - quite painful. Now the track just slots together no effort required, and Scalextric have created some conversion strips so you can adapt your old track to work with the new system.

Now I know that this cunning design innovation isn’t about to revolutionise the society we live in. Yet in a small but very significant way it’s made my life better and I think that should be praised.  A brand that modernises for today’s ten-year-olds while simultaneously keeping forty year olds enthusiastic deserves it.  Scalextric must have eyes in the back of its head.