BZ:
The story of BZ is one of opportunity, success and collapse. It is also closely linked to the phenomenal rise of Classic, as Banshee designer John Power, interviewed by his son Michael thirty years later, explains:
“Sam Bergman (a wealthy 30 year old oil heir from Wichita), was a design client
of mine for several years before he decided that he'd offer a ready-to-run
slot car to the hobby industry. We'd started out together when he invented the
"Call Light" system used in restaurants to signal the waiters that an
order was ready - I designed the original logo for his company, Orb
Electronics, in about 1959. He noticed that hobbyists had only hard plastic
kits that were heavy and very slow, but kids paid money to run them in a
nearby model shop. Also, he thought the little six to ten foot tracks they
used should be larger and faster. He asked me to design both products while
I was working as a Goldwater campaign staffer under Ronald Reagan in October,
1964. I told him that if Goldwater won, I wouldn't be able to do it. But
that didn't happen, so I did. I designed the world's first out-of-the-box-ready,
lightweight stamped aluminum chassis, vacuum formed acetate plastic body,
soft rubber tires and a Mabuchi motor driving brass spur gears,
which caused the creation of Classic Industries Inc. in Culver City.
It was the the Manta Ray, an orange body with a bubble top. It was
patented in my name. I did all drawing and 3D modeling, as well as
engineering drawings for tooling and assembly. I did color illustrations of
the car for packaging, layouts for ads and designed and helped build a 20-foot
booth exhibit for the National Hobby Show in Chicago in February 1965. I then
designed and operated a prototype slot car center on Washington Blvd in Culver
City * called Classic Speedway. It had two 200-ft. tracks of eight lanes and a 65-ft
modified figure eight, in a 4,000 square-foot store with a complete
hobby supply retail area (the building today is a Laundromat with most of the
original sign intact, now spelling "Classic Speedwash"). We were supposed to
franchise these centers around the country. One more was built on Lincoln
Blvd., in Santa Monica. Sam later converted it to an exotic old-car showroom.