After the slot racing boom followed by the crash of the late 1960s, "Champion of Chamblee" remained the world's largest pro-racing oriented slot car company. It then lasted under 3 different ownerships, eventually purchased by Parma in 2008.

Originally based in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia and headed by investor, banker and slot car enthusiast Jim Williams, it began its operations in early 1964. By 1967 Champion had become one of two "motor kings" in slot racing, the other being Mura, a smaller company based in San Leandro, California. From 1967 on, the two companies fought a battle for supremacy that lasted until Champion collapsed as a major motor supplier in the late 1970s. By that time, the Mura hardware was outperforming the products from Chamblee.
But before that fate, Champion proved a formidable force in both performance and marketing, virtually dominating the market in the South and East Coast of the United States as well as in the United Kingdom.

Champion began its product line with an aluminum sidewinder chassis for the "big" Mabuchi FT36 motors. This chassis was sturdy and reliable compared with other period hardware. Shortly after, they introduced a line of silicone tires and wheels with a "Tru-Lok" collet-style assembly similar to those found in the K&B "Series 2" kits, using the stronger straight axles. They followed this by acquiring the leftover Mabuchi FT36D and FT16D motor supply from several bankrupt "wannabe" slot racing manufacturers, such as Hawk and Renwall. Champion will follow that practice for several years, acquiring leftover inventories as other companies folded.
 

The "700" series motors

Champion introduced the "701", a "hand selected" FT36D (can-side drive) in late 1964. Dark silver with a white stock end bell, it retained its stock armature, shod with # 30 AWG brown wire. The "lesser" ones were taken apart and the armature rewound with #29 AWG red wire and dynamically balanced by grinding large chunks off the laminations! They were called "702". Few of the "red-wire" motors were built as they were quickly replaced by a new version using a dark red brownish wire. Sometimes, the rewound motors were fitted with two self-tapping screws as the cans retaining tabs easily broke.

The next step was the "703", rewound with # 28AWG wire and using new full-coverage nylon insulators, then dynamically balanced. The 702 and 703 used the stock Mabuchi motor bearings, but the 703BB (ball-bearing) was also available with a small flanged, un-caged ball bearing on the outer part of the original large brass bearing housing on the motor�s can.
This later was replaced by a large high quality flanged and properly caged ball bearing. Later, both 702 and 703 could be purchased as "PB" (plain bearing) or "BB" versions. These gave way to the "704", "705" and "706", evolutions of the "703" with less and less turns of larger and larger gauge wire. This led to the "707", with rewound arm, new "ARCO" magnets and one-piece magnet shim. The armature, as in the 703 thru 706 motors, received clever nylon insulators encaging the whole stack, a large high quality commutator and # 27 brown wire. Some 707 received the ultimate evolution, a Champion-made Celcon end bell with a small un-caged ball bearing, pent-roof brush holders and plenty of air circulation. Called the 707BB, this upgrade had also been available earlier on the 702BB, 703BB, 704BB and 705BB.  Most 7-series motors are dark silver, but there were green ones which used the old Renwall and Premier leftover cans, and the metal foil labels vary in color from gold to silver with black or blue markings, some with red accents. Some are quite rare today. All used the stock Mabuchi red and green vinyl clad lead wires and all were sold in a Champion plastic tube with a vinyl cap. Left, 701 and two 702s in silver and green.

A sealed Champion 703 armature showing its full-coverage nylon insulators, the letters A-B-C written with a felt pen over the poles for balancing purposes. The stacks were ground as needed, a pretty barbaric system, but it worked. Note the large commutator, the very best in the business even by today's standards.

A scarce dark green "704BB". This motor has a ball bearing only on the can side like most of the "BB" series except for the scarce ones fitted with the Celcon air-cooled end bell. This motor is not fitted with the ARCO magnets, as only the "707" was equipped with the stronger shimmed magnets. This mint example was kept by Champion's president and owner, Robert Rule, for over 35 years. Note the packaging, a printed plastic tube with a vinyl cap.

The now scarce "705" was offered in the 1965 and 1967 catalogues and can be seen at the right on this picture, using a green-color car from the old Renwall inventory. It is fitted with a can screw on top and bottom, indicating broken tabs during re-assembly with the hot armature. This was indeed, a Champion modification. Later motors used pin tabs similar to Mura's and many other re-winders.

Another scarce Champion 700-series motor is the "706". They also existed as a ball-bearing version and were the last iteration before the definitive and more common 707. However, this particular example is a fake, part of what is possibly the largest forgery ever perpetrated in the world of vintage slot car collecting. More will be soon revealed about this truly extraordinary fraud attempt. The "706" armature and packaging shown here are also part of the soon to be revealed forgery by a prominent person in the world of vintage slot car racing.

Examples of different metal foil labels on 700-series motors. There are at least 4 generations of graphics, the dual-color red and blue being the rarest. The metal foil colors ranged from chrome to gold to red. The blue "702" is part of the forgeries mentioned above, made of standard Mabuchi components and sold as "Champion" motors.

A "707BB" with the later caged bearing, air-cooled end bell and pent-roof brush holders, next to  is a standard plain-bearing "707". ALL genuine 707s had a metal-foil Champion sticker, but Champion sold kits which did not have such a sticker and included all the parts of the regular 707 except for the special and powerful armature. Below, comparison between the Champion Celcon air-cooled end bell (left) fitted with a tiny ball bearing or a bronze bushing, with specific pent-roof brush holders, and a stock Mabuchi end bell used on all non "BB" versions of the Champion 701 to 707 line.

It is obvious that the pent-roof brush holders greatly helped cooling. In subsequent models, the pent-roof brush holders were soldered to the brush housings.

The first Champion chassis was an alloy pressing with a loose drop arm affixed by an aluminum pin retained by a steel clip. It was fully adjustable and the oval-shape reversible oilite bearings allowed one to fit smaller or larger rear wheels. The motor was solidly held by an extra bolt-on plate around the large Mabuchi brass bearing housing.

While it was obviously inspired by the original Classic/ BZ frame, it was much stronger and used bolts and nuts instead of self-tapping screws except for the body mounts, but even this could easily be changed. This picture shows an assembled unit.

After the first Champion chassis was issued in mid-1964, the first Champion RTR car was produced from early 1965, using a Lancer supplied Lola-Chevy body. Champion had a nifty printed card interior on which a copy of the Cox famous "La Cucaracha" driver, molded in translucent nylon and generally painted in silver and black was glued.

In spite of its bulk, the car handled quite well thanks to the rugged sidewinder aluminum chassis design and excellent silicone or foam tires on Tru-Lok taper lock wheels.

The strong chassis first housed a Champion 701 stock motor, but over a period of 3 years in which the car was produced, the motor options changed as the company was offering hotter and hotter version of the big Mabuchi. The last versions had full-race 707BB motors with air-cooled end bell, ball bearings at both ends and ARCO magnets.

Several bodies were offered, from the Lancer or Pactra Lola to the ex-Unique Ford GT, a Mako Shark, McLaren-Elva, Chaparral 2D, Ford X1, Lola T70 and a Dodge Charger. The wheelbase extended from 3-3/4" to 4.5" by moving the front axle location.

Champion wanted to prove the speed and endurance of their cars and motors. In 1966, at the famed Santa Ana Raceway in California run by enthusiast and master modeler John Hale, two of these Lola GT and a Ford GT fitted with the same running gear successfully ran an actual 1200 miles of racing in 80 hours, including all stops for regular maintenance. The tires lasted the distance, and only a few sets of braided contacts were changed. When the motors were disassembled, they showed virtually no wear except for normal motor brush wear. Photos of these cars and the story of the record can be seen in period magazines and local newspapers, and one of the Lola cars is shown in the 1967 Champion catalogue. This record has never been bettered. At least two of the cars, a Lola and a Ford GT, survived.

At least two of the cars, a Lola and a Ford GT, survived. They were kindly supplied to the LASCM by Champion's former owner and president, Carl Ford. Today, this record remains unbeaten and there are no challengers. It would be indeed fascinating to see if modern machinery could outlast the old machines on the same set of tires and motor brushes.

The two known survivors as found show serious body damage but are still operative and in good running condition. The track was an oval on which braking sections had been taped to allow controller-less operation, so that the cars could run day and night without the help of an attendant. The fate of the third car is unknown after it posed for the catalogue's picture.

A page of the 1967 catalogue showing the "missing" car, bearing a # 3 on its roof. The whereabouts of this car are unknown at this time. Note the destroyed body, meaning that the running may not have been smooth sailing. The same evidence of hard impact are visible on car # 1 seen above.

A near-new CP-105 Ford GT RTR shows the printed paper interior used on all the early cars. There were 3 different versions of these interiors, printed on beige or blue card. Note the huge "silicone" (in fact, molded natural rubber) tires over Tru-Lok wheels and the silver details hand painted from the inside of body prior to spray painting. As clearly visible on this example, the sprayed orange color is bleeding into the brushed silver on the headlights covers.

A Series 1 kit of the Corvette Grand Sport showing the neat way in which the very first kits were packaged. Note the machined Weldun spur gear and the molded "silicone" tires and the very large diameter wheels. This kit was issued in mid  1965.

This series one RTR box with the Ford GT roadster has no stock number printed on it. The stock number was hand written on the small oval inside the round sticker. Note the "707" blue foil sticker at left, meaning that the price was not the same as that of the basic kit.

In 1967, Champion issued their first model using the new Mabuchi FT16 motor.

The model used a Champion-painted Lancer Porsche body, with reinforcing side tape on its sides, in red or blue color.

The motor was the "601" shoehorned into the same old  frame designed for the larger "700" series and the wheels were drilled for lightness and cosmetic purposes. However the drilling was very imprecise and the wheels look like drilled by an amateur.

At left, the scarce box for the Porsche 906 RTR. Very few Champion models were sold in this box design and graphics.

Period pictures from 1967 from Ray Gardner's archives, graciously donated to the LASCM. Top left, president Jim Williams gives team member John Cukras a certificate of excellence. Bob Rule comments on the microphone.

At right are team captain Jack Lane and team members John Cukras, Bob Cozine and Bill Thirwell.

Below are team members and other pro racers gathering at the Holiday Inn during a big ARCO event.

the 1965 and 1967 catalogues, later published with a 1968 added insert, Numerous flyers and a newsletter were later published until the early 1980s. The 1966 catalogue is especially scarce, as it consisted of color printed pages bound by a blue plastic tie.

Meanwhile, Champion was also working with the smaller Mabuchi motor, as the racers preferred its lighter weight. The leftover, hand-selected dark blue ex-Hawk Mabuchi FT16D Can-driven motors were re-christened "501". Most were blue in color as they used the old Hawk leftover cans, but when Revell packed up, Champion purchased the stock of unused SP80 motors and tagged them with the aluminum-foil sticker. None of these silver motors was ever used for rewind duty.

An early and rather scarce  "507" motor with red wire. The can had its tabs nearly broken by a Champion employee as it was opened, so it got the "drill" treatment and received two self-tapping screws to hold things together. Often this resulted in poor end bell alignment and more mechanical disasters upon use.

An early "507" armature from the motor shown above clearly showing the balancing method by grinding the laminations stack. Also note the use of a Tradeship commutator, later to be replaced by a Kirkwood unit.

Second-series "507-R" motor using a Mabuchi FT16D can. Probably a case of using any and all remaining parts available, something Champion did with a vengeance.
Champion made their own end bell with better Celcon plastic, a pair of cooling holes and a better, larger bronze bushing than found on the original Mabuchi endell. Nickel-plated brass items replaced the Mabuchi stock brush holders, with pent-roof holders for better contact and heat dissipation. The armatures were of the last "507" type, with nylon insulators and still ground balanced. Most of the "507" and all the "507-R" were endbell-side drive. Champion issued very pretty ready-to-race cars using this very powerful motor, fitted in a beautiful nickel plated brass rod frame.

Champion sold most of their parts separately or in kits packed over a card with a clear plastic blister heat-formed directly over the parts. These two "507-R" kits show two different cards and parts layout, but are basically the same kits. Note that the earlier can (at right) can is already fitted with the magnets and the armature stack with the insulators and commutator, while the later let you do this task as well as fitting the arm with insulators and commutator. How can you tell the later kit? The magnet shim is nickel plated in black, a sure sign of things to come as later 517 and 525 were eventually equipped with black shims never seen on earlier motors. A bit of detective work and deduction is often needed to figure things out.

When the "507" series production began, the motor rapidly became the choice of most East Coast and southern pros, led by Champion Team captain Jack Lane and team members Bob Cozine, Ray Gardner and Bill Thirlwell. Using hand-built, in-line brass rod chassis designed by Bob Cozine and Russkit Lotus 40 bodies, they pretty much cleaned up the Eastern and Southern pro races and rendered this motor and its subsequent evolutions the most popular for a long period lasting until the mid 1970s. Champion produced replicas of such chassis, first with parallel then tapered rail design, as Cozine was evolving his design. Very few of the dark blue 507�s survive today, as they were used, and used-up. Most ended in a trail of smoke after the end bell gave up the ghost

Last of the Champion-marketed Mabuchi "16D" was this FT16BB twin-shaft model issued in 1967. Named the "5001", it was sold separately and in Champion car kits and some RTRs. It was by far, the best of any stock Mabuchi FT16 ever issued. The can served as a basis for the first few "517" before Champion had their own chrome-plated can in production. At $3.50, it was a bargain. It was also available in black in 1969 and can be found in many period Champion RTR cars.

 It was available only for the new "medium" Mabuchi (FT26 end bell-drive) and for the FT16, and as most pro racers had been doing, attached to the chassis by the two fastening holes on their endbell. A novel feature from pro-racing was the adoption of simple brass tubing as bearing surface for the rear axle. Russkit had shown the way and the Champion motor mount was directly inspired by the Mike Morrissey-designed Russkit motor bracket. This chassis was used in many variations including a widened version for sports cars. Catalogue # 270 (FT16) or 271 (FT26).

Some versions had an independent front axle setup, others had an "iso-fulcrum" arrangement in which a nickel plated wire brace was actuated from the rear axle and held the front wheels. On this picture, such a setup is shown on top.
The CP-245 (16D) 255 (26D) and 265 (36D) MKII version shown below features the same front wheel "iso" mount but the frame itself is a 3-piece all stamped sheet-aluminum design on which the motor becomes stressed. The motor mount bolts onto the end bell while the drop arm bracket is attached to the back of the motor can. The problem is that the weak tabs holding the can to the endbell were to say the least, overstressed, causing the motor to open itself during operation. By the time these were issued, Champion was using genuine, and very popular with the pro racers, Cox "quick-change" guides. A series of RTR cars and kits were issued with both types of frames, the first (cat. # 132) using the hot 507 motor and sports car bodies. By 1968, the "700" motor line was abandoned, and Champion sold their remaining inventories of the big Mabuchi motors in low-cost kits and RTRs until the early 1970s, all these equipped with low-cost "Snuggler MK2"-style chassis.

The new "600" line (the Mabuchi FT26 "medium" size motor as marketed by Champion) sprouted in early 1967. The all nickel-plated, Mabuchi FT26-based line started with the "601" set as the "selected" stock motor. The "607" became the rewound unit with ARCO magnets. Both these "26D" motors had Mabuchi-built cans with 2 holes stamped out on the end bell side and two more above and below the can bearing for a future assembly screw arrangement to help out when the can tabs broke.
A second version of the "601" and "607" can was rapidly issued, featuring only one vent hole.

Various "600" series cans. From right counter clockwise, the stock nickel-plated Champion 601 can with extra mounting holes, the second series with only one cooling hole, the other side left shut to improve the magnetic field. The early 617 can with alloy-caged brass bushing and the later version with 525-style bushing.

By the middle of 1966, and under the pressure placed by its racers/employees like Bob Cozine, Champion was preparing its little "revolution", all new American-made cans for their Celcon endbells. The first were sold only as complete motors, the "517' and "617".
 

In mid-1967, the Mabuchi-based "507/607" line with a single-sided can vent hole were replaced by an all-new, American-made can with a thicker chrome plated one-hole design. Christened "517" and "617", these were not only powerful but had better endurance qualities. There are several variations of those motors, and they all received the now familiar white paper label with the exact definition for each motor, and often the wire diameter of the armature. These motors had the Mabuchi-like retaining tabs for the end bell, but they were too thick to be practical, so the cans received two holes on top and bottom, and two flathead slotted machine screws were used to attach the end bell.

The motor at left is an unusual "517" using a leftover Mabuchi one-hole "5001" can.

The new Champion "517" can with the early aluminum can bearing housing. This American-made can marked the final break with Mabuchi. It used the Champion Celcon end bell and Champion ARCO magnet with the one-piece nickel plated shim and a single retaining spring. The end bell was affixed by two M2 flat-head slotted screws that would remain the only assembly method for Champion motors all the way to the end. Only Mabuchi parts left were the motor brushes, of which large remaining quantities were available.

From left to right: later "517" can with sintered bronze bushing, early "517" can with aluminum bearing housing and even earlier short-lived "517" with Mabuchi can.

Second-series ARCO 33 magnets with one-piece shim inside a 517 can. The shim should have also enclosed the top of the magnets as they were offset in regard to the armature! If you are running one of these, make sure that you add two small strips of steel on top of each magnet so as to center the armature properly.

It is more common to find the "507" and "607" motors in such a packaging than the "517" that was quickly marketed inside clear plastic boxes with a yellow vacuum formed plastic tray.

This "517" represents the pinnacle of Champion products of the late 1960's and was used by many with success to win numerous races nationwide. Chrome plated springs, shunted brushes, careful assembly and the best magnets in the business, plus excellent armatures of which the sole issue was the use of solder for commutator terminals instead of welding.

The "517" in its later plastic box. It featured shunted brushes, twin-shaft armature, chrome-plated brass spring posts sleeves, but still had the arm dynamically balanced by grinding the stack, rather ugly but certainly not affecting the performance. The "517" was Champion's first motor built with an American-made can and end bell. All later Champion motors were sold in similar clear plastic boxes glued over a card describing the product.

A typical period "517" installation is seen on this 1967-built Californian Honda F1 car with John Cukras-inspired chassis by John Hale, the owner of Santa Ana Raceways and occasional pattern maker for Cox Hobbies. The black end bell used here is a Mura. The body is a Russkit Honda 3-liter F1, a very popular body at the time.

In 1968, things got a bit confusing at Champion. Jim Williams had lost interest in the company and hired a new manager, Bob Rule, "Mr. YoYo". Rule later bought the company from Williams and became its president. The Champion works racing team changed drivers almost on a monthly basis, and things were just not the same. As the industry began to fall apart and most established manufacturers bailed out of the hobby or collapsed, what was left were the pro racers-designed product lines and the emergence of Parma as an Industry leader, that for the next 20 years. Champion kept up in the motor department, as the Mura days had not quite come on a national level. For a while, a Champion mill was THE motor to have in you raced in the UK, thanks to Champion of Europe's very active importer, B.I.C.O. Multiple products were re-labeled and re-named by the British Company, and they had their own team of pro-racers such as Louis Meyerowicz.

A version of the 525 became the "Bob Cozine Signature" motor, the most sought-after motor in the collector's world along with the Mura/Cukras "pink" D-size motor with the flower-power decal. The Cozine-massaged motor (but not personally built by Cozine) was all black, with Bob's "signature" stamped in white on the blind side of the can, and had special threaded precision hardware instead of the usual self-threading screws previously used.