Tomy AFX Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe
by Rich McMahon
22 December 2002
The
long awaited Shelby Cobra Coupe HO AFX slot car by Tomy is now available. The
Cobra Daytona coupes were made by Shelby in the mid-sixties in an attempt to
beat Ferrari to the World Championship for Grand Touring sports cars. The
Shelby team came very close in to winning it all in 1964 and became world
champions in 1965. The Cobra Coupes were produced to improve the top speed of
the Cobras on very fast tracks such as Le Mans, Daytona and Rheims.
The AFX version looks fantastic! The shape and details looks exactly like the
photos of this car as raced in the sixties. The body has excellent detail
molded into it, with all the scoops, panel lines, lights, exhaust header, gas
cap and wiper details finely highlighted with paint. Even the red marker lamp
used during night racing is painted on the right side of the car. It is located
in the middle of the #9 on the door.
The body is a little bit larger than the normal AFX car; it's closer in size to
a Tyco/ Mattel car. The body snap fits onto the chassis in the fashion that AFX
has been using since their inception over thirty years ago. Small tabs on the
chassis fit into two ribs on each side of the body. The body is made up of
three pieces, the main body, a small front grill and a tailpiece. These parts
fit together so well it looks like a one-piece body! The windows are molded into
the body and are painted a semi-gloss dark gray. Some people do not like this,
preferring a separate piece for glass, but it is executed very well on this car.
The SRT chassis looks just like the original Tomy Turbo chassis but don't let
that fool you. It is much, much better! This car runs fantastic right out of
the box. It is smooth and fast, even with the stock tires. Running on an
80-foot Tyco track this car was immediately a lot of fun. The very impressive
performance is only part of the story, the car just felt smooth.
The car had VERY good top speed and acceleration. As with most current HO cars there was a lot of magna-traction but not too much. The car seemed quite forgiving on entering corners. Many HO cars with strong magnets are not very forgiving and are difficult to drive since they give no warning of their cornering limit; they just go flying off across the room.
The tires did pick up a lot of dirt rather quickly but this could have just been
the poor maintenance of the track I was running on. I always use slip-on
silicone tires but this car didn't really need them. The wheels are the
typical Tomy wheels from the turbo chassis, they are black so it's not
noticeable. Some small Halibrand mag wheels would make the appearance perfect.
My original intention was to use this body on an original AFX Magna-Traction
chassis but this car runs so good I'll see if I can convince some others to race
these cars box stock.
The #5 I purchased is the correct Viking blue color of the Shelby team cars of
1964. Three other versions are available. A white, a red and another blue car
have been produced.
Rich
Rich's work has been featured in Toy Cars & Models Magazine many times. We appreciate his submission, and look forward to more of his articles in the future.
