Okay! It's not Powertrack but boy do I remember pestering my Folks for one of these! Unfortunately, they got me one - our local Newsagent had one on a high shelf and one day it 'disappeared'. Christmas 1980 it was mine. Oh boy, wow!
Let me just say that the only thing good about the Sentron 9 was the box. The artwork was cool and the Polystyrene lid quite titilating. The car though, was dire. I mean it, it was awful.
For starters, the thing ran on 2 PP9 9 volt batteries AND 4 x AA batteries. It weighed a ton!. The plastic body and chassis creaked and groaned under the weight and the innovative 'infrared' control meant the thing couldn't be used in daylight! I had to go everywhere holding my hand over the bloody transmitter.
The remote was useless - think 'MB Bigtrak' without ANY of the fun! The poor Porsche 928 body, all curvy and 70's cool soon got smashed to hell coz it just ignored your commands. Mine got known as the skirting snogger...
The other great memory I have is the chronic understeer - or rather absolutely no steering. It had no grip, no power and weighed a ton. It was nothing to look at and was very expensive - around £19.99 at the time I think!
It's electronics were poor and when I took mine apart for the first time it never really performed properly ever again!
It was a turd, and the reason its here is because it's a reminder that Matchbox didn't always get it right and the losses incurred on developing something as poor as this led to the downfall of Lesney.
It's a shame then that Tamiya got it so right. Such was the dominance of R/C in the early eighties that it soon banished slot car racing from boys bedrooms and their imaginations.
