The Bowler Nemesis is the latest car of the Ninco RAID collection. Other cars in the collection are the Volkswagen Touareg and the Mitsubishi Pajero.

The first thing that you notice when you take it out of the large case is the drop guide arm which gives about 20mm of movement. The arm has a spring near the start of it as well as a spring at the guide. Also the car appears to be at the correct scale at 50mm long, 55mm high and 65mm wide, weighing a mere 102 grams.

Looks

The paint is a flawless orange colour with some grey lines which provide good contrast as on the real car. The car also has all the logos from the real car as decals which are well applied and are clear and well seen. The front has a moulded grille as well as moulded headlights. At the rear are a set of tail lights which look nothing like on the real car. The tail lights are all one colour but on the real car they are red, amber and silver. Neither the head nor tail lights work but the car could really benefit from a set. There are also large black wing mirrors which have a bit of forward and back movement so they should survive the odd roll or crash. The wheels are large off-road tyres with gun metal 6 spoke wheel rims and silver brake disks. There are also black rubber mud flaps which could be removed if desired.

The interior is a shallow tray with a driver and co-driver, both of which have red racing overalls, white helmets and a white 4 point racing harness. The driver and co-driver are exactly the same figure. The co-driver is holding a booklet which is decaled with a track corner guide. Other things in the interior are a steering wheel, gear stick and handbrake, which are all black and there are also moulded vents at the front, as well as silver roll bars.

The Chassis

Three screws hold the chassis on (shown by arrows 1, 2 and 3). Arrow 4 shows the magnet pod which can be removed if desired.

After taking the body off the first thing seen is the Ninco NC7 Raider which runs at 19,300rpm, also seen is the workings of the 4wd system, a rubber band that runs from the rear axle to the front axle. The car could do with a tighter rubber band as the band slips when the front wheels get stuck. There are also the yellow suspension units, two for each axle which give about 4mm of movement. According to Ninco they are the hard springs but they feel quite soft. These can be changed to softer ones if desired. The front axle has about 3mm sideways movement but the rear has none.

Performance

On my Scalextric track this is quite a fast beast with a lot of power. Starting off there is no hopping of the rear which you would expect from a car this size. When it comes to cornering the tail slides out a bit with the magnet in. Without the magnet it has a tendency to roll, although if you are used to racing without magnets you could get it going round corners quite quickly without tipping. Since this is an off-road car I decided to test the off-road capabilities. However since I don't have a RAID track I decided to build a couple of rocks from polystyrene about 20mm high and the car easily got over these. With care you can get it going over obstacles 30mm high as long as they are equal heights otherwise it will roll. There was no rolling with the smaller rocks.

For people with SSD there is room for the saloon chip at the rear where the fuel tank and water tank go on the real car.

Summary

This is a great looking and performing car and I think it is a good starting car for people just getting into RAID and due to its performance a great competitor for the more experienced RAID race as I have been told that it has similar performance to the VW Touareg and the Mitsubishi Pajero, both of which are made by Ninco. This is the car that is making me consider buying RAID track and more RAID cars.

- December 2008