Saturday September 13, 2008

Have you ever purchased a slot car with the intention of changing it? Many veterans in our hobby do this all the time and the creations they come up with is highly motivating to say the least. When I first learned of the new Scalextric Mercedes 300 SLR Coupe, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. Tune and detail this model for our classic road racing series.

The first version of the Mercedes was an outstanding little model. Our own Eric Cropper gives you a great inside look at the this car in his original review here. Aside from the obvious body changes, this car is identical. Until now it really has not had a running mate which I wish Scalextric would think about a little more. Releasing a great car is one thing, but most of us would like at least two for even running.

Our model out of the box is very attractive, at least for my eyes. I truly love the overall lines of these older Mercedes and this one is no exception. Nothing is perfect but I think Scalextric made a great effort in bringing us this model in 1/32.

The paint and clear coat on my model was flawless. I did notice some flash molding on the driver side wheel well but that was easily sanded away. I also liked the driver figure. Instead of his arms being straight like many driver figures, he has his hands cranking on the wheel! I suppose I am easily amused but I still think it is a nice touch. The passenger seat has a hole in it, most likely for a future release. Perhaps the Sir Stirling Moss entry?

The wheels on these models are really well done. The detail should satisfy most of you. And they are very round and true and only needed minimal sanding to clean things up.

If you have the first version of this model and enjoy it, then adding this car is almost mandatory. Just as it is it would allow you 2 lane racing about as even as it gets. As Eric pointed out, these cars are lighted front and rear. For some, no real issue. For me? I love it. The lights look great and add so much to the fun of driving these models.

The Makeover

I knew pretty much what I wanted to accomplish with this model. Transform it from a street version into a historic racer. There was no intention of trying to re-produce an actual car, just a fantasy scheme that would look and play the part. This model would also be tuned to match our other classics.

After removing the screws that mount the body to the chassis we expose the inner chassis. The interior is held in place by 2 small screws, removing them and the interior tray exposes our motor and drive shaft assemblies.

NOTE: There is nothing wrong with the original Scalextric motor. This is simply a change I personally wanted to make.

Why the motor swap? Well I wanted the model to run with the rest of my other classics from NINCO, Monogram etc. I decide to use the BWA 050 motor. This is a milder motor since other classics have this motor in it, we should have a good match.

In using this motor I would need to sleeve the motor shaft in order for the spring to fit. I first measured and cut the original motor shaft to the proper length. Using BWA Part# BWTUB15-2 1.5mm ID, x 2mm OD It's $1.50 for a 2 inch piece which will easily do 6-8 motors. I used the small cutting wheel in my Dremel and then cleaned the flash with a round file. It slips over the shaft snugly. Once I mounted the spring shaft to it and adjusted it, I added one drop of Super glue to make sure it stays put.

This is no snap in mount. Basically I had to remove the rear tabs flush with the body and the motor would be hot glued in place. This has worked in many other conversions and it worked here as well. This is pretty much as easy as it gets for me.

You will have to trim some of the interior away in the front as it hits the motor. A sanding barrel in your Dremel will clean this up nicely. It is not an area that is seen so no harm, no foul to the interior.

Once the chassis was tested it was time for some quick detailing. The first items were the exhaust and wheels. I used thinned Testors black to make "wash" and coated the pipes and wheels. I felt the wheels looked a little better with a "raced" appearance.

Finally some decals. I use Rob's decals for all my meatballs and these would look just fine. Since the body is split on each side and there is not much flat room to work with, I just added 2 decals plus a couple small contingencies. One on the front hood and one offset on the trunk. Bingo, it looks like a historic racer already...or at least to my eyes it does.

Testing this car was a lot of fun. I brought it out to the oval first to let the motor open up a little more and see how it compares to some of the other classics. I posted an average of 4.1 seconds which is not bad, but a little slower than other NC-1/Artin equipped models.

However, these other cars had K&D tires. I used the same tires for the NINCO classics Part# KD13241NIN and they fit perfectly. Now back to the track and low and behold we had a winner. Easily dipping into the 3.9 range. This is virtually identical with the other models.

Onto the MidMo 3 lane road course and the results were the same. Great handling along with very even racing.

Mission Accomplished!

Final Verdict

Scalextric has produced one great little classic here. The only thing that was stopping it from being more popular on it's own is more to run with it. But with a little effort and creativity, you can tune and detail this car to run with other brands of classics and broaden your current line up. I think any of you who enjoy classic racing should grab at least one of these. They are well worth your time, effort, and hobby dollars.

Something To Think About: As I was working on this car, it occurred to me just how lucky we have it in our hobby today. Looking back just 10 years ago, we had very little to work with compared to variety we have now. Trying to mix brands of models to get them to run evenly was not always as easy as this conversion was. You buy a car today and want it to run in a certain class with others? No problem. Heck, if I can do it...truly anyone can!

- 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 CincySlots.Com For Providing Us With This Model!