1956 Gottlieb AUTO RACE pinball machine

For your viewing pleasure, today we're featuring Gottlieb's Auto Race.
This machine was manufactured in 1956. It was designed by Wayne Neyens with artwork by Roy Parker. The theme is very cool and the vintage art package gives this game a definite 50's look and feel.
The goal of the game is to advance cars 1, 2 and 3 to the finish line to light the gobble holes for special. One car in the "first win" position earns one credit, two cars earns two credits and three cars earns three credits. But for each car in the "second win" position, three credits are earned meaning this game can pound out up to 9 credits for the special. That's pretty groovy, baby.
Anyway, this machine was a complete basket-case when I brought it into the shop. It had some funky after-market transformer installed that was putting out all kinds of strange voltages. That was replaced with the proper transformer along with many other parts that were missing or broken.
I've got this game high-tapped and I installed yellow-dot flipper coils. It's pretty spicy, really; probably a bit too quick -- certainly way faster than Wayne ever envisioned in 1956. Is it fun? It's not bad. Most of the action takes place in the lower 1/3 of the playfield and with those powerful flipper and lots of spots to drain the ball, ball times tend to be pretty brief. But it's a cool vintage machine and it's been a lot of fun to work on.

[@joegibson6041]

The Gottlieb titles never end. I wonder how many machines they made in total?

[@extramile150]

well done!

[@puck30]

Nice! Never saw that one!

[@rubensasia3161]

Nice pinball good Job Man

[@cardtrix1970]

Nice! Lots of quick action!

[@jodini5]

Thanks for the vid! That thing is awesome!

[@xpump876]

nice

[@theproplady]

There's an emulated version of this at PinSimDB.org. (You can play it on the Future Pinball emulator.)

[@blastforth]

That's neat.

[@douro20]

"No prizes, no wagering"...I'm surprised it doesn't say "It's the law!" underneath that. Do you still have this machine?

[@londonpinball]

Nope. Sold it to a friend years ago. But he still has it.

[@robertlozyniak3661]

The whole idea of a gobble hole is just wrong.

[@BAKU2K2]

Robert Lozyniak, Okay so gobble holes do waste ball but at least it's better getting the ball down there than going down the center drain because you earn points and possibly a special when going down a gobble hole, going down the drain scores nothing.

[@blastforth]

I think I played this one as a kid, and I felt jipped by the "drain" hole.

[@ThePretzelHead]

Big no on the inability to catch a ball...but that's racibg

[@jonoedwards4195]

Running way to fast, an old 70's trick nobody hardly knows is,, secretly packing under the front legs to slow the game down, a Bloke did this way back in front of us kids at the Entrance caravan Park in Australia, he used a couple of rocks!

[@jonnorris4204]

The Ball-Roll tilt device prevents people from putting ash trays (or anything else that lifts front of game up a little bit) under the front legs.

[@stonyrerootkit8922]

Two, count 'em, TWO gobble holes!!! Epic Fail, unless yer the owner/operator. Special? Perhaps, if yer real good using them 2 inch flippers, or REAL lucky, otherwise, plan on feeding ALL yer lunch money in to this POS from the distant past. 🐙🚫❎😢🆖😒😩🐽🐌🌋⌛🔨💣✂😰🎱🍅🚨🚧

[@coreycooke4690]

It's actually a reasonably fun game. Don't knock it 'til ya try it. :)

[@rockstrong4342]

dang, you sound angry.