NINCO LEXUS SC430

Review by Taxi

Anyone who visits this site on a regular basis knows that I'm a fan of the cars from the Japanese Super GT series, so when Ninco announced that they would be producing the SC430 it went straight to the top of my 'must have' list!

So now it has arrived, initially in two distinctive liveries (hopefully with more to follow), so let's see if the car lives up to expectations.

First impressions are very good. Both cars look great, cleanly moulded with no visible mould lines or flaws. The paintwork is excellent, smooth, glossy and flawless. Tampo printing is very good too, everything is crisp and sharp, although there's a touch of break-up over some panel lines it's minimal. It's obvious that Ninco are putting a lot of effort into the appearance of their cars and looking at these cars and the recent Gallardo, they are producing some of the best-finished cars on the market. The cars are neatly assembled too, all the detail parts like lights, mirrors and tow-hooks fit perfectly. The mirrors are solid but the big rear wing is remarkably flexible, so it should have some chance of surviving those inevitable racing incidents.

Like most Ninco cars, the interior of the Lexus is a shallow tray. It's mainly black, with a painted driver figure, red seat and fire extinguisher and silver roll cage. The dashboard is neatly moulded but appears plain. The car doesn't really need any more than this because the windscreen and side windows are quite shallow and the rear screen is covered so there's very little opportunity to see inside.

The chassis is the usual Ninco angle-winder set up, with a NC5 motor, nylon gears, solid axles, sprung guide and button magnet. As usual with Ninco cars, the front axles are slightly too long (but the rear axles are just right, with the wheels fitting snugly inside the arches).

The body is attached to the chassis with two screws. The side exhausts are moulded as part of the chassis so you also have to lift part of the bodywork to clear them to remove the body. I can see this frustrating people, especially club racers, and I expect a lot of people will either cut the exhausts off the chassis and glue them to the body, or discard them completely. The holes in the bodywork are bigger than the exhausts, so if you leave them in place the exhausts don't stop the body moving.

The chassis has two fairly deep stiffening ribs running along its length. These ribs extend behind the motor too, so the chassis is a bit stiffer than on some Ninco cars. The motor can also rotate slightly in its mount so you may decide you need to glue the motor in place, which also adds a bit more rigidity to the chassis. Loosening the body screws allows the body to float quite nicely although you'll probably need to lightly sand the rear of the chassis to let the body move freely. 

It's worth checking the wheels - nearly all the wheels on my two cars had moulding pips on them. One of the rear wheels on the Zent car had a lump on it which prevented the tyre from seating properly. Two minutes with a knife and a file cured the problem. The tyres seem to be a new compound and no longer have 'Ninco' printed on the sides.

I was pleasantly surprised with how well these cars performed on my little Scalextric track. I guess it's the new tyres, they seem to have more grip on the smooth Sport track. Whatever the reason, the Lexus seems more confident on this track than previous Ninco cars. Obviously it doesn't have the magnetic downforce of a Scalextric or Fly car, but the SC430 will hustle round quite convincingly and whatever ground it loses in the corners, it will make up again on the straights thanks to the powerful NC5 motor.

Initial laps on my bigger, routed track were a bit of a disaster! Both cars lacked grip, lacked speed, had poor brakes and de-slotted easily. Not quite what I was expecting - Ninco cars usually perform very well on this track.

The lack of grip was easily fixed; I lightly sanded and cleaned the tyres and that was it, problem solved. But the cars still weren't running well.

A closer look reveals that the weight at the front of the car rests on the wheels, not on the guide. Even though the guide is sprung, the braids still weren't making solid contact with the track. There's an easy way to check my theory - I removed the front tyres and put the cars back on the track. 

Total transformation - both cars suddenly had power, strong brakes and were flying through the same corners they'd been falling off at just moments earlier.

It's funny how problems sometimes show up on the wooden track when the cars run perfectly on plastic track. But the wooden track is my main track, so I needed a solution. I don't really want to have to run the cars without front tyres, and I don't like tiny front wheels, as seen on many European race cars.

The front axle mounts are slotted, with a bump moulded in to limit the axle's upward travel. I removed the bumps with a small file so the axle can move higher, allowing the front of the car to sit lower. So now the guide sits deeper in the slot, but the tyres rub the arches! There are vertical strips moulded into the chassis between the axle mounts and the wheels. I cut about 1.5mm off each strip and then trimmed the axle to length. Now the wheels have as much vertical travel as they need but the tyres sit neatly inside the arches and don't rub.

Now the cars are performing as I expected. They're fast, responsive and handle well, easily competitive with the Supra, NSX and all the other sidewinders. So these cars performed well on plastic track but it took a little work to get them  running well on my routed track which, to be fair, is what most people would expect.  

I'm probably a little biased because I (like many other people) have wanted these cars for some time, and I'm glad Ninco have listened to their customers. I think the Lexus is well worth considering. They are very nicely modelled, and with a little effort can be made to run well on a variety of track types. In other words, just what we want, and expect, from a modern slot car and a welcome addition to any Super GT collection. All we need now is more liveries...!