Tyco Nite-Glow Slot Car Racing Set

Here are the guts of a Nite-Glow car. Basically they are the same as the regular Tyco slot cars of the time with the addition of a tiny incandescent bulb at the front to make the headlights light up. This picture shows both a first and second generation of Nite-Glow slot cars. The first generation Nite-Glow slot car employed a zener diode to regulate the intensity of the headlights to the same brightness no matter the track voltage. They cheapened the cars later on removing the zener diode which caused the incandescent bulb to change intensity with the track voltage and made the slot car less realistic.

Here is a picture of the bottom of a first generation Tyco Nite-Glow slot car. The magnets are the black areas at the center of the car. They help the car stay on the track by being attracted to the steel rails embedded in the track. The steel rails provide electrical current to the slot car. The magnets also are part of the PM (Permanent Magnet) motor causing the armature to turn when electric current is applied to the armature via brushes contacting the commutator. Click here to learn about DC motor operation. I played with this set so much that I wore grooves right through the pick up contacts. When I was a kid I filled in the grooves with solder to try to extend the life of the contacts as you can see from the picture. This worked pretty well except that the soft tin/lead solder wore out more quickly then the original copper contacts.

Here is a comparison between a first generation Tyco Nite-Glow slot car (top) and a brand new slot car made by Walthers (bottom). Not much has changed in ho scale slot cars in the last 20 years. The Walthers ho scale slot cars work quite well on my old Nite-Glow set.

Here is a picture of my Nite-Glow track set up on a table. As you can see this table doubles as train table for my vintage 1960's Lionel train set.

The original plunger style slot car controllers that came with the set wore our a long time ago. In the early 1980's I replaced one with a Tyco pistols grip controller and the other with a pistol grip controller from Aurora.

The original Tyco power pack still works great and does not overheat.

Here is a picture of the two original Tyco Nite-Glow slot cars that came with the set. I believe the yellow car is a Ferrari and the purple car, which I nicknamed the "purple people eater" when I was a kid, is a Carrera.

Here is picture of a second generation Tyco Nite-Glow (bottom) and a brand new Walthers slot car (top) on the track.

This is what the Tyco Nite-Glow Ferrari looks like with it's headlights on in the dark.

This is what the Tyco Nite-Glow Carrera looks like with it's headlights on in the dark.

Here is a really cheesy flyer that came with my Tyco Nite-Glow slot car race set.

The top of this page shows Tyco Nite-Glow HO slot cars offered in 1978.

Here is a picture of the inventory list of the parts that came with Tyco Nite-Glow slot car set. Unfortunately the "Winner's indicator" and other accessories broke and were thrown away years ago.

Here is a picture of accessories you could purchase for your Tyco Nite-Glow slot car set in 1978.

The Tyco Nite-Glow slot car set provided me a lot of entertainment when I was growing up. I recommend purchasing a slot car set for your son or daughter to share the slot car racing experience with them.