Cars Bought By Members In 2012, its hora zero in New Zealand what has the shopowner for you in 2012, Show what you really wanted to buy Options

[Dopamine]

I thought I'd try one of Spirit's early cars so paid £17 for this Spirit Courage C65. Now I've seen it I realise £17 was about £16 too much. This is one of the worst new slot cars I've bought in a long time and pretty much the only thing going for it is its looks; it's a nice colour and the paint finish is good, but that's where the good news stops.

It has supposedly "calibrated" components, but the rear axle on mine is locked solid because the bushings are too tight. The chassis is twisted so the car sits on three wheels, not four. The chassis is sprung, which is a nice idea if it works, but this one doesn't as the front axle mounting posts foul the inside of the body. The screws fixing the body to the chassis have been overtightened in the factory and the rear one has stripped its thread. The driver figure and cockpit moulding are loose and don't fit the body properly, the tyre decals are flaking off. To finish it all off, the guide fouls the red towing eye so won't turn properly.

I've spent a couple of hours trying to solve the problems and it's still mediocre at best. No wonder these things are being sold off cheaply everywhere - looks nice but needs a lot of work to get it running well.

Spirit 0601206 - Courage C65 Mazda. American Le Mans Series 2005

[Keeto]

Funky livery this one!









Scalextric Mercedes SLR McLaren 722 GT C3294 "LinFox"

[Dopamine]

If funky means love-it-or-hate-it, I agree. Those colours give me a headache...

Mind you, if Scalextric produced its big brother I'd definitely buy one. A tiny bit of chrome detailing is all it needs. Funky!

[Keeto]

Dopamine, it seems to me Scalextric has the colours wrong on this Merc as the "lorry-truck-big brother" red colour, IS red. The pre release pictures of the car, also showed it quite red. The cars "red", is in fact more orange than anything else....I know cause it took me forever to get the photo's right....

[stoooo]

I know cause it took me forever to get the photo's right....

This reminds me of a Star Trek story, where the green girl kept coming back pink after the films were developed for the pilot episode. They had to shoot the scene something like four times because the lab guy didn't know she was *supposed* to be green

[loosesalute]

Nice little old Airfix Lotus. Really good condition.
Cheers,
Kev.

[loosesalute]

Got these yesterday,
Cheers,
Kev.

Scaley MG.



Scaley Mini.



Scaley Mk1 Escort.



Pink-Kar 2cv.

[Wraith]

These arrived today :-)

All used but pretty much perfect condition bar two cars and all destined for the track!

Carrera BMW




Ninco NSX's

This one is missing the small blade at the font of the car, if anyone knows where I could buy a spare please let me know.


Spirit Reynard (missing mirror and repaired spoiler so again if anyone knows where you can get spares,


Spirit Lola





Very happy as some of the cars only cost me £4.99 and the were all a bargain

[SlotCarDad]

Yes Colin, you did get a bargain with some of those Lolas, glad they've gone to a good home and thanks for the positive feedback,

Dave

[Steve A]

I've spent a couple of hours trying to solve the problems and it's still mediocre at best. No wonder these things are being sold off cheaply everywhere - looks nice but needs a lot of work to get it running well.

Dopamine, don't give up on your Spirit Courage, son Tom and I race these cars with NC5 motor to comply with Viking club rules. All we have done is swap the wheels and freed up the body a little, these cars are the class of the field, quicker than the popular Ninco Accura. Yes Spirit cars did have some quality control issues but as the Courage and Peugeot 405 silhouettes have shown when they are good they can be very good,
Steve A

[Dopamine]

Thanks Steve. I haven't given up as I know they should go well. It's just frustrating to buy cars that out of the box are unusable and I do wonder what damage it does to the brand when manufacturers send out such poor products.

The one thing I can't work out is how to get the sprung chassis to move freely at the front. The mounting posts for the front axle foul the body at anything more than about 0.5mm compression of the chassis spring. Moving the posts so they're wider apart is possible but requires surgery, and the body is too thin to allow me to grind away a significant amount of plastic. Do you run them with springs, or do you lock them down solid?

[Steve A]

WRT the Spirit Courage, I to found that clearance within the body would appear to restrict any suspension effect. However just running the body a little loose does seem to work on the track even if when in your hands it seems too tight to work. I guess the amount of suspension movement required on a slot car is very small indeed. Not of the order we see on for example a Ninco rally car.
Best improvement we found was to replace the wheels, they were reasonably true but strange design, with gaps in the rim 180 degrees aparrt. As for your problem with chassis alignment, we were lucky an haven't suffered this. It has been covered elsewhere on the forum. Flat steel plate, magnets and boiling water if I remember correctly.
As for damage to Spirit's reputation, as far as I know they are no longer trading, no new liveries or models and they are being dumped on the market from number of outlets. Big loss in my opinion, the Renault 5 and Peugeot 205 were awesome, Courages have served us wel and the 405 Sillouttes legend. Ok some mingers, the Lola was one of the worst cars I have ever bought and the super looking BMW 635 has received very mixed reviews. Still maybe I should buy one before they all disappear.
RIP Spirit

[loosesalute]

Nice little Jouef Ferrari 250 GTO.
This is an early model from 1964. In boxed/unused condition. Rare because the upper body is painted as opposed to the usual coloured plastic. UK Champion Playcraft version.
Cheers,
Kev.

[Weber91]

I finally got something new... it's been several months. Got them from nichobbies (nichobbies.com) in St.Augustine Florida (Nick ships internationally).

Slot.it SICA17B


Slot.it SICA19B


NSR1092

[Benjamin]

This is what is Scaley do best. Worth the wait (5 months overdue).