Spirit Porsche 936

Review by Pace1970uk

Other than the pretty basic MRRC Porsche 936 of 20+ years ago, the 936 has been surprisingly absent from the world of 1/32 slots.  Fly have produced the 917 in dozens of versions and Slot-it have the bases covered with the 956 and 962, so it seemed logical that one of the manufacturers would produce the missing link in the family tree, the 936.  I am pleased to say Spirit have stood up to the plate and produced this legendary machine.

Spirit’s first version is based upon the 936 which ran at the Nurburgring race in 1976, and a quick look at my Porsche history book this is chassis number 936-001 which made its debut at that race.  Unfortunately, it retired with throttle problems and the race was eventually won by a privately run Porsche 908.  However, this was just a blip in an otherwise perfect year, the 936 went on to dominate the whole season eventually winning the World Sports Car and Group 5 crowns as well as the Le Mans 24 hour trophy.  Not bad for a car hastily assembled from the Porsche parts bin out of fear of the championship being cancelled!!

Back to the 1/32 version, the card inside the box states it has steel calibrated axles, sport guide, nylon crown, accurated bearings and a bronze pinion, impressive sounding stuff, but interestingly with all this technical spec Spirit fail to give any information about the output of the motor.

The car is a sinister looking beast, nicely finished in matt black and trimmed in Martini war paint, it certainly looks the business, however, in reality this colour scheme didn’t show up too well on the TV cameras and was abandoned after this race. The various sponsor logos are crisp and clear, even the Porsche badge is accurate.  The only let down is the rear lights which look quite cheap.

The body is held to the chassis by three small screws, upon removal a sidewinder motor and a small magnet is revealed.  Placing the chassis on the track it sits nice and low, however the magnet is not very strong and it seems that Spirit have avoided using the “monster magnets” as favoured by Scalextric and Fly et al, this gives an indication that this car may be aimed at the club racer market rather than the home user.  The driver figure is quite well detailed he has a stern stare and no feet.

Time to put the car back together and have some fun on the track.  Firstly, I sanded the tyres down a little in order to give them a little extra grip on my short Scalextric test track.  Though the tyres are quite soft and grippy, I wasn’t expecting super quick times due to the lack of magnet power, but first driving impressions were good with a best time of 5.6 seconds. As an indication I ran a few other cars in 10 lap sprint races which produced the following best times.

Scalextric Boxster                                    -            4.6 seconds

Scalextric 962 (with high grip tyres)            -            5.4 seconds

Fly 917                                                  -            5.6 seconds

Pro-Slot Toyota GT1                                -            6.2 seconds

Slot-it Sauber                                         -            5.4 seconds

Spirit 936                                               -            5.6 seconds

I was quite pleased with the results and the time showed the Spirit performed surprisingly well against some of its likely rivals.  I was able to push the tail out in controllable slides and having a lower centre of gravity helped to keep the car stable and reduce lap times.  I was impressed with the smoothness of the performance.  But to get the best out of this car a bigger track is required

Fortunately, I was invited to give the car a thoroughly good thrashing on Taxi's Forester’s Dream wood routed home track.  It was on this track where the car showed off its real performance. It certainly is smooth and there is plenty of grunt on tap.  The car has a good turn of speed down the long back straight and thanks to the grippy tyres and mid-mounted motor I could push the 936 hard through the corners.  Through the challenging cork-screw section, which can unsettle even the best of cars, the 936 was very stable and controllable, a little bit of power and the tail would push out nicely before blasting down the back of the pit area.  Through the tight hairpin bends the car would stay firmly in the slot and gave plenty of feedback before the tyres went beyond the limit of their grip. This car has that smile factor and is a joy to use.

For a car straight out of the box it is a very impressive performer, though I don’t have lap times available for this session, the 936 felt as quick as the Slot-it Group C’s and the Ninco GT cars and in a race against them it was certainly able to hold its own. 

At £35 rrp, it is not cheap and puts it in to direct competition with Slot-it.  But I feel this is a very impressive car, it performs well, looks good and if you are a fan of Porsche or World Sports Cars it would make a welcome addition to your collection, with a little bit of tweaking and some extra weight this could be a potent performer.