Nissan Skyline GTR

Review by taxi & BEEJAY7

I've been really surprised at how long it has taken the slotcar manufacturers to produce a range of JGTC cars. You'd have thought that the popularity of computer games like the Gran Turismo series, which feature a lot of these cars, would have prompted them into action much sooner. Or maybe plans have taken a long time to come to fruition?

Whatever the reasons, there is now a good (and growing) range of Super GT cars on the market, including at long last, the beast - the Nissan Skyline GTR

This new model from Scalextric appears to be the Impul-Calsonic car from 2003, although the 2001 and 2002 liveries are very similar and no indication of year is given on the car or box. 

But whatever the year, it's a superb-looking model. Paintwork and Tampo-printing are first class, absolutely solid and blemish-free. As we've come to expect from Scalextric, the level of detail is very good too. The bonnet vents (pictured below), 'masked' headlamps, side scoops ahead of the rear arches, recessed 'Skyline' badge at the rear and a smattering of photo-etched parts are all good examples of the attention to detail shown on this car. 

The interior is also well-detailed, even if it's nearly all black! It's a shame they didn't paint or highlight the interior in some way, not only have they produced a highly detailed dashboard, but also the floor section, gear lever and linkage, and partial roll cage.  Unusually for a Scalextric car there is no instrument detailing on the dash.

The rear half of the interior is a bit odd though - rear seats and a parcel shelf with speakers! The rear seats don't look right, the floor is raised to clear the motor so the seat bases end up almost level with the windows. Not usually race-car equipment, so expect some road cars sometime in the future. The driver is the usual Scalextric figure, not the Takara example, painted blue with a plain silver helmet.   

Scalextric continue their annoying habit of using too many screws to put the car together - two each front and rear and two to secure the interior to the chassis. These can be dispensed with as the the interior clips securely to the body.

If you had any hopes that the Skyline would be compatible with the plug-in digital modules, I'm afraid you're out of luck. The chassis is a standard Scalextric sidewinder, complete with lights. There is provision for a standard digital chip.

The good news is that Takara are said to be releasing their own version of the Skyline (apparently it's a different variant) so we'll have even more choice in the future.    

With the car running quiet and smooth, the next step was to true and clean the tyres and move the magnet to the alternative position towards the front of the car. 

I should have separated these steps because I couldn't tell the difference. The car still had bags of grip and seemed very composed. On the odd occasion that the tail stepped out of line the car sorted itself without drama.

Time for the ultimate test - no magnet! I didn't add any weight, I just wanted to see how it ran without its 'traction control'.

Again the car seems very composed. It has plenty of grip and is quite hard to unsettle. Even without the magnet the Skyline will accelerate and brake quite hard, and corner with surprising speed. It will slide when provoked, but I found it quite a forgiving car, even when pushed quite hard.

Part of the reason for this is the relatively long wheelbase. At 82.5mm it's longer than the Supras and NSXs, though slightly shorter than the Ninco Mosler. But the guide to rear axle measurement is almost identical to the Mosler, another car that I found stable and easy to drive.

That's the end of my contribution, I'll now hand you over to Alan...