Ninco Toyota Supra - Yellow Hat

By Shawn Smith

Hot off the presses, literally, is the brand new Toyota Supra by Ninco of Spain. And when I say hot I mean that these babies aren’t even available in the U.S. yet and thanks to our friends at Model Rectifier Corporation we have one of only a few to have been flown in for us to review in advance of their public release. Get those checkbooks and credit cards handy boys and girls because these things are going to move fast... both on the track and off of store shelves.

Appearance:

What's not to love about a brand new slot car release? This is the first time, to my knowledge, for a Toyota Supra to be brought to market in an RTR car and I am very pleased that Ninco has chosen more of the JGTC-style cars after their success of the Ninco NSX. After getting to test the NSX I was both impressed and concerned as very few other Ninco cars could match its performance. Now with the release of this Supra Ninco has provided a natural competitor for the NSX.

Starting our review, we begin by checking out this all new body the Ninco Supra has, and there are a lot of things to like. Up front Ninco has modeled some projector-style headlamp buckets, a nice wide lower grill opening and some really 'chunky' fender flares all around. The car is literally covered with vents and louvers with openings on several locations of the hood, roof and fenders of the Supra.

Out back the added width of the widened fenders is even more dramatic and a giant rear spoiler towers over the trunk of the Supra. The gray uprights holding that wing up look nice also with their open areas creating an simulated ‘aluminum supports’ appeal.

Checking out the paint and graphics one thing to mention is that the body of the Supra is molded in it’s yellow base color and often that can be a tricky thing to do. Bodies that are molded in their base colors, instead of having a full coat of paint applied, are often considered to look very ‘toy-like’ by many enthusiasts. And while I’ve tried my best to show you the real look of the Ninco Supra through my pictures I can honestly tell you that the only real way to appreciate the yellow color is to see this car in person.

Looking at the graphics of the Ninco Supra its easy to comment that Ninco has done a really nice job with this car. Even so the new Supra is not without some imperfections as it does have some minor examples of bleed through, specific to the lower black sponsorship stripe near the bottom of the doors, and some areas where the tampos simply didn’t get applied effectively as you can see by the smudged www.jgtc.net graphic under the ‘5' on the number boards just behind each of the front wheels.

The rest of the Ninco Supra however is typical Ninco high quality. All other sponsor graphics are well recreated and are covered with Ninco’s famous high gloss-coat finish and like I found with the Ninco Sebring Corvette, the shine bouncing off the car often played tricks on my digital camera making some pictures difficult to take.

 Performance:

Here comes the good stuff. We can already determine that the drive-line of the new Supra is identical to that of the Ninco NSX by the obvious angle-winder motor placement and beveled angle-winder gear set up. To get a better look though you’ll need to remove just two screws, again the same with the NSX, to remove the body from the chassis.

Now with the body out of the way we see that the chassis pan is also almost identical with the Ninco NSX. The chassis contains the cris-cross bracing to help with rigidity and lots of open spaces to tune the Supra to your liking.

The bright red gears are yet another tell tale sign that the Supra was made to compete head on with the NSX as the gearing is once again identical to its rivals. Brass bushings help keep the axle firmly in place and a large red collar sits just inside of the drive-side bushing to help eliminate side to side slop of the axle.

Up at the front axle the design is basic Ninco and to its credit is relatively free of the typical Ninco sloppiness. Side to side axle movement is minimal on this Supra and that should make fans very happy. No need to reduce the axle width on this Supra as no matter which direction you try and slide the axle the tires stay nicely within the fenders.

Magnet set up is again identical to the Ninco NSX with the typical Ninco cylindrical magnet placed just slightly forward of the motor. In the NSX this set up proved surprising more stable than I expected however it seemed slightly less effective in this new Supra. Let me explain...

When it comes to making perfect running mates sometimes the slightest variances can make all of the difference. Testing first on my local 118-foot long plastic-track commercial raceway it was pretty obvious that this Supra required a tad bit more ‘driving’ than did the NSX. Where as the NSX had managed many laps in the upper 10-second range the Supra failed to fall in to 10's with a fastest lap of 11.21. This got me wondering though as I personally have experienced variations in lap times from week to week using the exact same car at the exact same voltage. Could there have been more dust in the air than on the night I ran the NSX? Could another racer have just dropped bushing oil and gear grease on the track right before I ran?

Taking the Supra back to my home tracks is where things fell back in to line. Both on my 30 foot Ninco test track and my other 60 foot test track the Supra seemed to regain some of the grip I felt it was missing during my first test. This prompted me to slap the NSX on the track for some back to back runs and much to my enjoyment the two were much closer. Both have tremendous punch out of their 20,000 rpm motors and angle winder gears and both benefit from the awesome braking these cars possess. 

The Final Verdict:

With the testing concluded the new Ninco Supra has a lot of things going for it. A couple of paint details aside the car is plenty fast for most home track owners and has a good balance between scale details and rugged durability. The new Ninco Supra also wins big points for being a new car that many have wanted for a very long time and I just happen to fall in to that group.

My sources tell me that Ninco is planning four different paint jobs of this new Supra in 2005 but if these end up as popular as the NSX before them you might want to do yourself a favor and order one through your favorite dealer soon. I’m willing to bet that these cars will be more popular than most would image so don’t be left out on picking up a new Ninco Supra!

Special thanks go to MRC – Model Rectifier Corp for providing the new Ninco Toyota Supra ‘Yellow Hat’ for review. As always, please feel free to email me with any comments or questions about this or any other review and I’ll be happy to answer any questions that I can. Happy slotting!

Shawn Smith