Zaccaria
Gallery
coming soon on tilt.it: how to move a pinball by yourself without damage
for your car ;-)
Hot Wheels is one of the very few pinball machines inspired by Formula 1 racing cars. Formula 1 has always been very popular in Italy, so it's not surprising that it was a highly successful machine: you could find it everywhere. There was a time when I almost hated it: "please give me an American pinball!" I cried entering a bar with another Hot Wheels machine :-)
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A new home for this pinball (click to enlarge)
But the theme wasn't everything in this machine: first of all, this was a FUN machine. In my opinion, there were multiple reasons of its success:
- A simple layout with a couple of unusual features
- A nice and rewarding shot (the upper orbit)
- Very fun play in the bumpers area, with 10 stand-up targets
- Simple, but not too obvious, game rules.
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Middle-lower playfield area (click to enlarge).
Zaccaria borrowed some ideas from Willams' " Space Mission": please note the kickers inside the slingshots, and the swinging target at the center. Italian players discovered a way to cheat the game when the ball entered the slingshot kickers that allowed them to score an unlimited amount of points, and a software revision had to be released.
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Swinging target (click to enlarge).
The swinging target is controlled by the same relay that enables the flipper coils, and thus is turned on for the whole duration of the game. Unlike Space Mission, the kickers don't throw the ball directly to the swinging target.
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Slingsghot kickers and swinging target.
Here's a Space Mission playfield to compare. Trivia: which other pinballs had a swinging target and/or slingshot kickers? :-)
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Playfield touch up, before and after.
Zaccaria playfields are known to be almost impossible to wear out.. well, almost. Here, we have some wear between the flippers that I'm touching up.