SCX REVISITED

Review by Pace1970uk & Taxi

When Taxi asked did I want to pop over and give a second opinion on a few of the latest SCX offerings I jumped at the opportunity. There to greet me were the Aston Martin DBR9 Team Modena, the Corvette C6R #70 and the Ferrari 360 GTC, three old friends with a fresh lick of SCX paint and all well worth a revisit.

The test track is Taxi’s Forester’s Dream wooden routed track. This track is a combination of tricky hairpin bends, flowing corners, a long back straight and the unsettling corkscrew section.  Any cars shortcomings cannot be hidden behind the veil of an over powerful magnet and the track separates the wheat from the chaff.

All three share the same running gear, in-line motor, magnet, floating motor pod and metal bearings etc. so it would be interesting to see how they differ in terms of performance.

The Aston was a non-runner to start with, one of the metal contacts from the motor was sticking up rather than making contact with the strips on the chassis. Easily fixed but it shouldn't have happened.

I shall start with the Aston. I must admit my first impression was not too good, to be honest a pretty dull livery.  The battleship grey colour scheme does little for the Aston, the last time I saw this scheme was on a kit of HMS Warspite I built when I was a nipper and the Aston’s bright red wheels certainly didn’t help matters.  But as we all know there is far more to slot cars than the mere colour of the paintwork.  Upon closer inspection it is nicely finished and the tampo printing is excellent.  Interior wise the detail isn’t up to Scalextric standards, but personally for me that is not too much of an issue. Also worth noting is the fact that all three cars have flexible aerials and mirrors.

Time to see how the Aston performs.  The grey paintwork manages to camouflage the car once it is placed on the track, but the bright wheels and brighter xenon lights enabled me to locate it.  Fortunately, Taxi had added a couple of resistors to the light set up, so hopefully the bulbs would not blow. The resistors are 120ohm, 1/4 watt. RichG raised concerns that a single 1/4 watt resistor might burn out, so I used two. Seems to work OK and they only cost pennies, but why can't SCX do this in the first place?

On the first few runs the motor seemed a little tight and mid range punch was rather lacking.  Time for a pit stop and with the addition of a little lubricant and some light sanding of the tyres the Aston began to hit its stride.  For an SCX car the motor is pretty quiet, though the car started out sounding very rough and got quieter and smoother as it did more laps. I found the performance quite deceptive, this may be due to the colour, but it was more than capable of keeping up with its test rivals.  On the twisty bits there is plenty of feedback from the chassis and the guide remained firmly planted in the slot, this allowed the tail to slide out nicely round the sharp hair pin bends.

As the tyres warmed the Aston’s performance improved further and I felt more confident about pushing this big car harder, soon the intense look of concentration on my face was replaced by a smile.  

On the smaller Scalextric Sport track the SCX cars ran well. They don't have monster magnets, but the magnet mount is adjustable and it's easy to tweak the level of 'downforce' required. Too much magnet will slow the cars down a bit, but it's quite easy to get a nice balance between grip and speed.  

On the wood routed track it ran very well and that’s always a positive for a box standard car, would I buy this car, well yes I would and in fact I already have one, but I prefer my Aston’s to be green!!  Dare you be different?!

The second car is the Corvette C6R #70.  I must admit the pictures I had seen do not do it justice, this is a good looking car and sitting on the track, the Corvette looks like it means business.  This is my first opportunity to see the C6R close up and I am very impressed and I am certainly looking forward to taking the car through its paces.  The blue metallic paintwork really shows off the lines and like the Aston, the tampo finish is excellent. 

Dimension wise the Corvette is virtually identical to the Aston.  Therefore, with a similar wheelbase, track, length as well as the same running gear I am expecting, as in reality, racing to be pretty close between the two.

The xenon lights are bright and crisp, but sadly within a couple of laps the SCX Achilles heel had struck and the bulbs had given up the ghost, never mind, it was expected.

The Corvette is a smooth performer and improved as the laps clocked up, as expected racing is close between the Aston and the Corvette and on the wooden track there is little to choose between the two and results are usually down to driver skill/error.  The Corvette likes to slide its tail out (remember magnets are redundant on this track) but these slides can be nicely controlled and the Corvette can be hustled through the twisty bits with a nice turn of speed.  On a big club circuit the top end may be a bit wanting, but on the average home track there is more than enough power. 

I really enjoyed running the Corvette and from the moment it first went on the track it just felt right, the more laps I did the more I enjoyed this car.

The final car of this GT trio is the Ferrari 360 GTC.  Again, this car shares the same set up as the previous two, however, the wheelbase is slightly shorter and the track is a bit narrower so I’m expecting the Ferrari to be a little twitchier.

Finish and presentation are spot on, this model looks as good on display as it does sat on the track, though the 360 is not the prettiest of Ferraris, it is by no means an ugly duckling and of course being red is always a bonus when it comes to Italian exotica.

Fortunately, Taxi had done his wizardry on the lights so no blow outs this time.  Once on the track, I noticed this car was much noisier than the other two. It may just be this particular one, but racing cars should be noisy in my opinion.  As anticipated it is also the most tail happy, I seemed to be going round the track sideways, Tiff Needell would be impressed.  Although drifting may look good it does not win races, so in to the pits for a little tweaking and after a touch of oil and some attention to the tyres things soon began to improve. After a few more laps the car was noticeably quicker and a little quieter.

We also had a couple of Ninco 360 GTCs to compare with the SCX versions. The Ninco cars are definitely more powerful, very fast but harder to handle if you're not used to them. The SCX cars, although less powerful, are much easier to drive quickly.

When running against the Aston and the Corvette there is little to choose in performance and I certainly had excellent fun trying out all three.  In my opinion SCX cars have come a long way in the past few years and in comparison to other makes which often retail at a few pounds more, SCX offer pretty good value.  If you like GT cars (or just like cars) then these would grace any collection.