In 1962, the English company Lines Bros Ltd, owner of the trademark Scalextric, signed a contract with the Spanish company Exin. This Spanish company would sell the Scalextric products in Spain and Portugal, manufacturing everything but the cars in Spain. After some time, even the cars would be done in Spain. Exin created soon their own line of models, being the first one the famous Seat 600 in 1966.
In 1971 Lines Bros Ltd, as a result of its financial problems, sold the Scalextric line of products to Dunbee, Combex and Marx. Exin went on being a subsidiary of Scalextric and selling their products in Spain. And they got more independence from the mother company. At this time Scalextric decided to sell more quantity with less quality and Exin decided the opposite. These were the golden years of Spanish Scalextric. Every child in Spain wished to have one…In 1980 Scalextric was sold again, this time to Hornby Hobbies. It seemed Exin would have no financial problems, they even celebrated the twenty years of slot cars in Spain with a big marketing operation. But soon the problems started for it. The first thing they did was closing the line of Madelman (similar to the G.I. Joe figures), then they tried to increase even more the quality of their products, but computers and video consoles were becoming a bigger problem. They started to sell their slot cars outside Spain with the SCX name. But it could not go on, in 1993 the slot cars line was sold to Tyco. After a very bad management of it by this multinational (the quality decreased and the manufacturing was installed in China to make it cheaper) it was sold again in 1998 to TecniToys. The factory was kept in China but the design came back to Spain, as also the quality and the technological innovations. As a result of that, SCX is now one of the leaders in the slot cars market
In 1971 Lines Bros Ltd, as a result of its financial problems, sold the Scalextric line of products to Dunbee, Combex and Marx. Exin went on being a subsidiary of Scalextric and selling their products in Spain. And they got more independence from the mother company. At this time Scalextric decided to sell more quantity with less quality and Exin decided the opposite. These were the golden years of Spanish Scalextric. Every child in Spain wished to have one…In 1980 Scalextric was sold again, this time to Hornby Hobbies. It seemed Exin would have no financial problems, they even celebrated the twenty years of slot cars in Spain with a big marketing operation. But soon the problems started for it. The first thing they did was closing the line of Madelman (similar to the G.I. Joe figures), then they tried to increase even more the quality of their products, but computers and video consoles were becoming a bigger problem. They started to sell their slot cars outside Spain with the SCX name. But it could not go on, in 1993 the slot cars line was sold to Tyco. After a very bad management of it by this multinational (the quality decreased and the manufacturing was installed in China to make it cheaper) it was sold again in 1998 to TecniToys. The factory was kept in China but the design came back to Spain, as also the quality and the technological innovations. As a result of that, SCX is now one of the leaders in the slot cars market
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