SLOT CAR REPORT Jeremy Dunning HITTING ALL THE SCALES There are some great offerings in 1/24 and HO ever before have your customers had more types of slot braking, gas mileage, speed, and acceleration. The flexibility of the cars in more scales to choose from, and they are better car allows drivers to optimize it for home tracks by programming Nbuilt and more beautifully painted. Carrera is the most these features. Fortunately Carrera instructions are very easy to fol - active manufacturer of large scale cars and because Carrera track low in ten languages (I am learning Cantonese from them) To me is designed for 1/24-scale and 1/32-scale cars, a buyer doesn’t and most of your regular customers the tuneability of the Carrera need to get special track to run them. 1/24 is my favorite scale, digital cars is an important factor in making the purchase and are because the cars less expensive than look and behave many of the rivals to more like real cars. boot. The Carrera rendition I am sure that spe - of the Petronas cial care is taken in the (23837) Mercedes design of the Carrera AMG GT3 looks like 1/24-scale cars to give the real car that is them maximum tearing up interna - mechanical grip and just tional racing in the about the perfect level GT categories. The of magnet grip, which is conventional wisdom also adjustable. The is that it is harder to Petronas Mercedes has get a 1/32 scale car a bit of push, or under - to have all the detail steer, in the corners and than is the case with nice throttle response 1/24 but I think 1/24- coming out of the cor - scale is large enough ner. The top speed is that it is hard to hide Larger scales make it difficult to hide any errors and offered in 1/24-scale the Carrera rendi - more realistic than is the any errors or missing tion of the Petronas Mercedes AMG GT3 is flawless in detail. Like all Carrera digital slot cars case with all 1/32-scale the Petronas Mercedes can be converted to analog operation by the flip of a tiny switch, elements. which is located on the bottom ot the chassis next to the guide flag. cars from all manufactur - The Mercedes ers, which makes them AMG is, like all so fun to play with. As is Carrera digital cars, convertible from digital and analog. The digital the case with all Carrera digital slot cars, it is remarkably inexpen - version runs only on the Carrera system but it will run on any 1/32 sive for what you get and all of the GT cars in the Carrera lineup analog track especially those with track borders. The conversion perform pretty much identically. I tested the 1/24 Audi and Porsche from digital to analog only requires you to flip the little switch. The GT cars on my Carrera layout and all were within three percent of car also has lights that can be turned on or off and working brake each other on lap times. lights when the driver backs off the throttle. We have gotten com - Scalextric has always led the league in providing more and placent about all of the amazing features that relatively inexpensive better classic cars. Two of them, the VW Bug (C3204) and Aston slot cars have today. If someone had told me 30 years ago that Martin DB5 (C3722) in road livery are standouts. The VW Bug has cars would have working brake lights, I would have immediately as much shelf appeal as any car in your inventory, you just want to had him drug tested. pick it up and pet it like a cute puppy and the performance does The Petronas Mercedes is so much fun to run, providing not let anyone down. Considering the short wheelbase and track loads of accuracy and fun value. It can be tuned in digital format width, the car performs very well, in part due to magnet strength. If with the outstanding tuning factors in the Carrera digital system for a car is carefully designed with the user in mind it is more fun to 38 sePTeMBer 2018 HOBBY MerCHANDIser Scalextric leads the league when it comes to offering classic cars. The Volkswagen Beetle has so much shelf appeal a person wants to pick it up and pet it like a cute puppy, and the Aston Martin DB5 in stock liv - ery not only looks good but is durable. Although shown in red, the James Bond version of the vehicle is popular with all age groups. The One of the more memorable cars offered by AFX as part of its two offerings have good magnetic strength out of the box and handle Collector’s Series, the Daytona Cobra Coupe of the 1960s was the car both open, and tight and twisty courses very well. that knocked Ferrari off its pedestal. With its American racing blue and white scheme, the HO version captures the long aerodynamic look of the full-scale vehicle to perfection was the car that knocked the GTO Ferrari off its championship perch in the mid 60s. In the old days, cars were designed pretty much on paper or on the floor of the garage with no wind tunnels. The stock Cobra could not achieve the top speed on straights of the Ferrari GTO because it had a large frontal area and was sort of like a brick. so, at tracks like LeMans, Daytona, and spa the GTO could outrun the Cobra because its terminal velocity was about 20 percent better than that of the Cobra. Carroll shelby asked Pete Brock to design an aerodynamic coupe body, which he did freehand on paper. It came out as a beautiful coupe with incredible aerodynamic properties due to its long hood and rear spoiler. Modern GT racers have only a slight Offered by Aurora, which was a leading manufacturer of slot cars dur - edge on the wind resistance and aero-grip than the Cobra Daytona ing the 60s, the Thundercycle was roughly 1/20-scale. Too large to run Coupe. Ironically, there were only six produced. All but one have on HO track and too small to operate properly on other track the idea been tracked down, leaving the missing one as the most expen - was simply too far ahead of its time. Although well built, it was not sive barn fine ever, if it still exists. thought though and many of the cycles were given away at local slot car races. As is the case with many failures of this era the prices on Thanks to the hard work of steve russell and his crew the Ebay are such that if you have a box full of these hiding somewhere in AFX cars work well with real racers all the way down to kid racers a closet you can put your kids through college. running their Christmas present. One of my major problems with HO cars is that they are incredibly fast, which is great for serious racers, but terrible for kids and casual racers because they have such high speed and grip that they fly off the track with no warn - run because it has realistic performance, testing a drivers skill a lit - ing. This gets frustrating for kids especially. AFX has a dual current tle. Too much magnet makes a car unpredictable and unrealistic. power pack that can be turned down to a level that makes the The scalextric VW Bug has just the right amount of magnetic grip. cars manageable for all skill levels. The other nice feature is that The car is very accurately detailed and looks fragile but in fact is the AFX sets and cars are pretty inexpensive. very durable except for the bumpers. The blue and cream version is This month’s selection for slot Car Skeletons in the Closet stunning and very nicely detailed and accurately scaled with a rea - is the Aurora Thundercycle. The Thundercycle was a motorcycle in sonable price point. This is a no-risk inventory addition. about 1/20-scale produced by the king of the 1960s manufactur - The red road version of the Aston Martin DB5 is stunning and ers. It was a neat idea that was pretty well designed but in a weird has nice manners and handling, The balance of mechanical and enough scale that you had to have two of them or a friend with magnetic grip is about perfect. The red color is great, sort of one in order to race. Plus it looked sort of crazy on Aurora HO halfway between Ferrari and Candy Apple red. The wheelbase is track and did not run well on most of the other tracks available. It long and the track narrow, just like the real thing, however it han - was a great idea that was not thought through enough to make it dles very well on tight or open curves. Again, it is highly detailed successful. When I was a kid the local hobby store started to give and yet durable. Dealers may want to also stock the James Bond them away as prizes on saturday races. I still have mine, but it’s version of the car (C3019A) as it has proven to be hugely popular missing the driver’s right arm and handlebar. As is the case with with all age groups. many other failures in the market, they are available at crazy prices AFX continues to produce some really beautiful and famous on ebay.