Since I first conceived this department, I've had an explosion of different lines of my Hi-Spec Scalextric light bulbs (chiefly owing to what you've been clamouring for)! My 1980's/90's light bulbs, the 3mm grain of wheat bulb, had been a consistently good seller since I first introduced them, over a year ago.

This last Christmas (2008), I managed to source a good supply of the screw-in (miniature Eddison Screw) bulbs for the early cars with lights, principally Escort Mk1 and Porsche 911/935. Considering this is a very niche market, they've gone very well indeed.

I had actually converted my own old 911 to accept the grain of wheat bulbs but, since my conversion was totally non-destructive, I was delighted to make it my first 'patient' and bring it back to standard to test the new bulbs!

The third bulb type in our catalogue is a bulb to replace the 5mm wire-ended lamp in Scalextric's 'monoBulb' bayonet-holder, which plugs directly into the underside of the chassis, without the need to even remove the body-shell. I did a lot of searching for a quality bulb which I could add to my range. I found quite a few, but they were all at a price that I would have been embarrassed to ask (and that's even before I added my own profit margin)! Suddenly, two of them virtually (I found them in cyberspace - I'm sorry, I couldn't resist that one - Dave) fell into my lap!

Those first two are, unfortunately, now no longer in production so I've had to sort my range out yet again. We now have three new options, two of which we sell on eBay (we're considering listing the third, but they will only work if you have a considerably more powerful transformer than the standard Scalextric units).

Here are the two we do sell here: the cheap, bright 'XVR' (which is the brightest lamp I have yet found to replace the original Scalextric one that will run off the smaller Scalextric power units), but they do share the original bulb's relatively short lifespan. Tests in my pair of Beetle Cup VWs show good results even on tight twisty tracks where full throttle is only used a few times a lap. We're keeping the price down to make replacement cheap for faster tracks where more time is spent on full throttle, which can be hard on them!

Our current 'Eco' was a compromise which erred too far on the safe side, with a projected life of 46,000 hours at 12-volts. That is not a lot of use if 12-volts never gets as far as your car! They would, however, make brilliant, indestructible track-side floodlights for anyone doing Le Mans (or Singapore). I ran one continuously on 16-volts AC to see how long it would take to burn out. After two months, I got fed up of waiting and decided that was quite good enough!

Railway modellers should certainly consider them for goods yard or station lighting.

Coming shortly will be a range of conversion kits that will eliminate the need for compromise. It will be rather more expensive initially than 'Eco' or 'XVR', but it will give stunningly powerful light and be durable too!