Monday April 17, 2006

NINCO PEUGEOT 307
2006 Limited Edition

With Summer slowly creeping our way, some might think that the "off-season" will officially start. However, the past few years have shown me that there really is no off-season as new releases still keep pouring in. NINCO is certainly part of this with several prior release models coming with new liveries and this latest Peugeot 307 is a prime example.

This model has been released in some very different paint schemes in the past including both the "snow" and "mud" effects but this time it is adorned with a Limited Edition livery complete of course with NINCO sponsoring the car.

As usual, NINCO has done an excellent job in the paint and detail departments. Our sample was nearly perfect as I could not find any runs, fades or dirt in either the paint or the clear-coat. Although it will not appeal to everyone, I felt they did a decent job on this livery and it is very visually appealing to me.

Details here should satisfy most with a full roll cage in the half-tray interior along with both driver and co-driver. The side mirrors on this car will most likely be the first victims in repeated hard crashes, but at least the roof antenna is made of more flexible rubber material. Overall body shape compared to prototype photos seems very accurate and overall most scale enthusiasts should appreciate the effort made here.

Wheels and tires are nothing new with the standard NINCO rubber along with 5 spoke wheels that were very round and true. Added brake rotor and Tampo markings on the wheels just add to the overall realism of the model.

Out of the box testing went very well as the car functioned as intended. The tires will need some sanding to get the car to smooth out some, but it does pass our test without needing any modifications aside from a quick brake adjustment. I had an average of 4.7 seconds on our road course and this told me that I might just have a great running mate for our recent Mitsubishi Lancer.

Underneath we see the familiar 20,000 RPM NC-5 Speeder motor in the inline configuration and only 2 screws mounting the body to the chassis. After we remove these screws we can see that it is equipped with 4 wheel drive and the blue (medium action) Pro-Shock suspension. The motor has a 9 tooth pinion attached which drives the 27 tooth crown gear. the gear mesh was a little on the loud side like most NINCO models are, but a good break-in period always seems to cure this issue.

I am not sure why this model was released with only single 4WD while the Mitsubishi has a dual system. It seems NINCO has a certain criteria they go by, but I think they should settle on a standard in order to keep the many Rally models they produce more equal out of the box. This model did show one issue when we removed the body and that was excess front axle free-play.

This side to side free-play would cause the belt on the 4WD system to rub the sides of the motor can. This would not be a very durable system as excess wear would likely cause the belt to break prematurely along with robbing some of the power due to friction. It has been awhile since I have seen a model from NINCO with this amount of free-play, but it is easily fixed. I simply removed the left front wheel and trimmed the axle until the wheel sit flush with the bushing. The cured the belt rubbing problem and it was back to the track for more testing.

After a quick tire sanding it was time to see what we could accomplish. I did improve my lap times but only to a 4.6 second average. I decided to test it against the Mitsubishi and here is where the real fun begins. These 2 models are a very close match with neither of them claiming dominance. I did see that this model had slightly better top speed when we tested them on our oval. If you have straights at 10 feet or longer, this model would be very hard to beat with the Mitsubishi. However, on our smaller road course, the head to head racing with these 2 slot cars is some extreme fun and this just upped the fun factor on both of them.

In closing, I can only say that NINCO has produced yet another fine Rally model. Excellent fit and finish along with decent out of the box racing should make this a fine addition to most anyone's current Rally collection.

- Harry

As always feel free to contact me about this article or just the hobby in general at harry@homeracingworld.com, or better yet drop into our Message Forum and share your thoughts with other enthusiasts!

Thanks Go To MRC For Providing Us With This Sample!