This rather tasty picture of the first two liveries for the McLaren Elva appeared recently on the Thunderslot website. That certainly got me drooling in anticipation of the cars' imminent release.

On the left is the black and silver painted McLaren M1A-Oldsmobile that made its debut in September 1964 at the Canadian Grand Prix at Mosport. Bruce McLaren drove the car in the same colour scheme (but with the #2 on the front and sides) at Riverside in the L.A. Times Grand Prix. He reverted to the #47 at Laguna Seca for the Monterey Grand Prix in October.

It was after Monterey that the car was repainted red and silver for the December 1964 Nassau Speed Week. I have only ever seen pictures and movie footage of the red M1A sporting the #5 at Nassau. In Eoin Young's biography of Bruce McLaren, it is mentioned the colour was chosen simply because they had a surplus supply of red paint at the workshop...

The start of 1965 saw the announcement that Elva Cars Ltd would build customer versions on the M1A at the Trojan factory in Rye, East Sussex. Twenty four Elva-McLaren Mk1s would be built, allowing McLaren to concentrate on racing and building prototypes - an arrangement that worked rather well. The factory paint scheme stayed red for 1965 and 1966, but from the start of 1965 the red was highlighted with white, rather than silver. Because of that, I am scratching my head a little about the the red #2 car in the picture. It certainly looks like the 1964 Riverside car, but is the wrong colour. And none of those 1964 cars raced with uncovered headlights - although that would become a common look for Elva Mk1s racing in Europe. I don't remember seeing a red #2 customer car that looked so much like the 1964 Riverside car, even down to the STP decals. And that does look like Bruce driving, doesn't it?

I know Giovanni has a love of the 1960s sports prototypes, so I'll be interested to hear more about the story of the red #2 car. It does look fabulous, even if it is not historically accurate. I'm also looking forward to seeing what customer Elva-McLaren Mk1 liveries follow. I have been tempted to buy the kit and build John Coombs' white Elva-McLaren Mk1 that Graham Hill raced at Silverstone and Brands Hatch in 1965... but I suspect that might be on the future release list at Thunderslot HQ in Erbusco.

The body is certainly wider than scale, but no more than the very nice George Turner model. To me, the Thunderslots are a near-perfect marriage of eye candy and racing pedigree.

   

The Thunderslot McLaren Elva has a familiar layout under the beautiful body. There's the Thunderslot MACH21 motor, giving 21,500 rpm at 12volts and 175 g/cm of torque. The motor is mounted in a slightly angled sidewinder orientation in a triangular pod. Both the pinion and spur gear are nylon, giving a very smooth mesh. The standard ratio is 11:32, with alternatives available as tuning parts. Rear wheels are aluminium air hubs, fronts are lightweight plastic. Plus there is the unique swooping Thunderslot guide.

The two cars will retail in the UK at £87.95 each - MRE and Pendles have them on pre-order for around £79. Having missed their scheduled December 2019 release date, they are expected very soon.

Old hands probably know this already but here is a tip for the less experienced.

Most manufacturers use self tapping screws to fix the body to the chassis, repeated undoing and replacing them can eventually destroy the thread in the plastic because they try to cut a new one each time. Use the following method to avoid damage when reassembling your cars:
Insert screw and turn slowly anticlockwise until you hear and/or feel a click. It is now lined up with the start point of the original thread and can be tightened safely.

It is also a good idea to replace the stock screws with ones like these LINK or longer ones like these LINK. They have a thread-less shoulder at the top which helps achieve good body rock.

New cars for 2020 from Slot.it and Policar have just been unveiled

Let's have a look at the brochures, starting with Slot.it...

   

CA48a - Maserati GT4 No.99 - NEW MODEL
CA43a - Maserati MC GT3 No.74 - NEW MODEL
CA43b - Maserati MC GT3 No.38 - NEW MODEL
CA47b - Nissan Skyline GT-R No.12 - NEW MODEL
CA47a - Nissan Skyline GT-R No.23 - NEW MODEL
CA47c - Nissan Skyline GT-R No.25 - NEW MODEL

   

CW23 - Calibra V6 DTM/ITC (1995-1996) No.7 - New Livery
CA40b - Alfa Romeo 155 V6 TI DTM/ITC No.27 - New Livery
CA44b - Mercedes 190E DTM No.12 - New Livery
CA44c - Mercedes 190E DTM No.6 - New Livery
CA45b - Alfa Romeo155 V6 TI DTM/ITC No.18 - New Livery

   

CA46a - Chaparral 2F No.15 24h Daytona 1967 - NEW MODEL
CW24 - Porsche 956C LH No.3 24h Le Mans Winner 1983 - New Livery
CA03m - Porsche 962C LH - No.18 Le Mans 1988 - New Livery
CA28h - Nissan R89C No.24 Le Mans 1989 - New Livery
CA42a - Jaguar XJR10 No.60 IMSA - NEW MODEL
CA41c - Toyota 86C No.38 Le Mans 1989e - New Livery

   

CA39d - Lola B12/87 No..27 Lime Rock 2012 - New Livery
CA06i - Sauber C6 No.61 Norisring 1987 - New Livery
CA28g - R91VP No.25 Fuji 500Km 1991 - New Livery
CA34c - Porsche 962 CK6 No.10 Le Mans 1989 - New Livery
CA09i - Porsche 956 KH - No.14 Kyalami 1000Km 1983 - New Livery
CA23f - Porsche 911 GT1 EVO98 - No.5 FIA GT Silverstone 1998 - New Livery

Not so successful experiment for sale:  
Scalextric Bentley GT3, lights removed, Scaleauto 30K S can motor, Slotingplus alloy rear wheels, glued and trued tyres, NSR gears, chassis weighted and Slot.it deep guide. Generally good bodily condition but one mirror missing. No box.
       

Insanely fast but virtually uncontrollable on a small track, guide will lift out of slot under hard acceleration despite weighted nose. Anybody want to try and tame it?

£25 + postage at cost

Looking forward to this one on Saturday. LINK

Bells and hankies and sticks - English  lunacy at its finest, haven't missed one in 20 years!

Policar CAR04d - March 701 #26 Jean-Pierre Jarier, Monza 1971

       

The latest Policar March 701 will be with UK retailers in the next few days. It is the fourth livery that Policar have produced on the 701 and the second using the revised chassis (ref: Policar PCS04t-a) that moves the guide position forward a few millimetres for improved handling.

       

The 701 was the first F1 car produced by March, designed by Robin Herd and Peter Wright for the 1970 season. The works March team campaigned three STP-sponsored cars for Chris Amon, Jo Siffert and Mario Andretti, Tyrrell developing two 701s for Jackie Stewart, Johnny Servoz-Gavin and François Cevert. Despite Stewart describing the 701 as "the most difficult F1 car I drove", both Amon and Stewart saw some  good results in the early part of the season, each picking up a win at the non-championship F1 races at Brands Hatch and Silverstone - and Stewart winning the Spanish Grand Prix at Jarama. In all, the 701s scored one Grand Prix win, four second places and three third places during the 1970 Grand Prix season. However, Stewart switched to the new Tyrrell 001 for the final three races.

       

At the end of 1970, the works cars were sold off and private teams campaigned 701s in the South African, Tasman and British F1 series. Only three races in the 1971 Formula One World Championship saw 701s entered, the last of which was Jean-Pierre Jarier's Grand Prix debut at Monza. Having impressed for the Shell Arnold team in Formula Two, he was given a chance in Hubert Hahne's 701 that had failed to qualify at the previous year's Germany Grand Prix. Jarier qualified in twenty-fourth and last place, three-tenths behind Rolf Stommelen's Surtees. Jarier finished the race, albeit eight laps behind winner Peter Gethin and was not classified. That was the final Grand Prix appearance for the 701, but the first of 135 Grand Prix starts for Jarier.

       

The Policar model of the March 701 does look fabulous from all angles. The unique Policar motor and gearbox assembly achieves smooth power delivery and exceptional performance from the 23,000 rpm slim can 'DFV' motor. A brass 9-tooth pinion drives through a double-sided 25/16-tooth plastic gear and a final metal 17-tooth gear on the axle. Axles with 16 and 18-tooth gears are also available as spare parts. Although the cars are fitted with plastic rear hubs, Policar aluminium F1 rear wheels can be used, with correct wheel inserts for the March also available.

Reports suggest that the revised chassis has improved the handling of the 701 significantly and it is now competitive with the Policar Lotus 72. These two will, of course, be joined by the long-awaited Ferrari 312B2 a little later in the year. RRP for the Jarier March 701 is £59.95 - although both MRE and Pendle Slot Racing have the car on pre-order for just under £54.

Released last November this is the the third body shape in Slot.It's Classic DTM series covering the period 1992-1996. I attended a couple of rounds at Donington back in the day so thought I would add one of them to my racing stable. The other models in the range are currently five Alfa Romeo 155s and a single Opel Calibra with more liveries scheduled for later this year.

I chose the new Mercedes for one simple reason - it has a sturdy, solidly mounted rear wing which is unlikely to break in normal use. The Alfa and Opel have centrally mounted flimsy wings which I would undoubtedly destroy in the first barrel rolling incident.

Information on the 1:1 car can be found HERE and HERE so I won't bother to repeat it and will move on to the 1/32 version.
       


First impressions of the model on removing it from the standard crystal case were favourable. It seemed scale accurate within the usual limitations and the decoration was mostly spot on, the odd logo may be missing but the sponsors often changed from race to race and the livery may well be correct for the specific one modelled so no glaring inaccuracies to report. Paintwork was excellent but I did think it a tad lighter than the real thing at first. However, it is a metallic finish which changes shade according to the light available and I was looking and photographing it under LED lighting. I took it outside and it immediately darkened to a very close match. If I were being really picky I would say that the chrome grille is way too shiny as is usually the case.

Quality control
So far, so good but when I powered it up there was no response so I dismantled it and found the most appalling bit of assembly of any Slot.It car I have ever bought!
       

To elaborate:
One lead wire unattached to braid which explains why the motor wouldn't turn over.

Front axle locked solid. I thought this was due to over tightening of adjustment screws but it turned out there weren't any fitted and it was due to surplus plastic from the moulding process jamming them up.

Rear track narrower than front due to to incorrectly aligned wheels which didn't remotely fill the arches.

To add insult to injury the 3 pointed star which should be on the bonnet was missing. It hadn't broken in transit but was never  fitted in the first place.

The first 3 were easily fixed and Pendle's are sourcing a spare bonnet emblem for me but this is really not good enough for a £50+ car and I hope It is not indicative of falling standards from Slot.It.

By the way, it does come with a bag of spare bits including replacement headlight mouldings in case you want to fit a lighting kit at a later date.

Performance
Having sorted out the faults and lightly oiled the relevant moving parts it was ready for an initial run. The only departure from absolute box standard was slight loosening of the screws for a little bit of body rock. Incidentally, top marks for just two body screws to adjust as opposed to the four or even six that some other manufacturers feel the need to use, I've never understood why they do that when two are perfectly adequate to hold any car together.

As you would expect the car is sold in plastic track specification with magnet and C1 tyres fitted, I wasn't expecting too much in the way of performance on my 50ft wooden track and so it proved. The tyres had some grip but struggled to hold on in the twisty bits and the inline motor set up did the usual thing of locking up under braking and lurching sideways. A lap time of 5.9 seconds was about all it could achieve which is not disastrous but nothing special. It would probably be just fine on plastic track.

I backed the braking off a bit which stopped it leaping sideways and then replaced the stock tyres with a pair of trued/oiled F22s. I don't normally glue tyres on for home use as it is a pig to replace them when they wear out.

Back on track and things were greatly improved, consistent laps in the 5.4 second region and near 5.3 if I really pushed it, with a single banzai lap of 5.248 closely followed by an enormous accident! By way of comparison a Scalextric car of similar size and weight prepped for wood struggles to get under 5.8 seconds. My Slot.It Lancia LC2 will lap at just under 5 seconds so, allowing for its wider track and lower centre of gravity, the performance difference is as you would expect.  A few 10ths here and there may not seem like much but, on a small track it is really significant so top marks to the Mercedes. There were no nasty handling deficiencies either and it would circulate perfectly unless you really overcooked it into the corners. It also stood up well to the inevitable accidents, the roof aerials are bendy plastic so remain attached and even the mirrors are still in place! No doubt performance for club use could be further improved with the expenditure of another £50 on the usual tune up parts but it is strictly for home use so I will happily leave it as is.

Summary
Leaving aside the poor quality control, which I trust is just an isolated incident, this is a really excellent car and well up to the usual Slot.It standards so I have pre-ordered the next livery to provide it with a running mate.

A few basic questions by a digital newbie...

I have bought a Scalextric Sports track, and am running their basic digital set up, so...

Analogue Scalextric DPR cars: just buy the SDD pod and fit to hatch in chassis...

Analogue Slot.it car: Buy the Slot.it SDD module and fit somehow to chassis...

Analogue Scaleauto car: Also buy the Slot.it SDD module and fit somehow to chassis?

Also, do I need to buy the remote LED that goes with the Slot.it SSD module to deal with lap counting and lane changing?

Also, can I run the analogue cars safely on the digital track ahead of fitting the SDD modules?

Thanks in anticipation!

BAR

Hello! I have some older SCX cars with the RX can motors. They are quite slow and I wonder if there is a way to speed them up? The standard cans RX41 and RX81 are only 16,000rpm whereas the likes of the turbo and 41B are 19000 rpm. Is there any treatment to enhance the 16000 rpm motors?

I would buy some speedier RX motors but I cannot find them anywhere.

As promised (Linky) here is the Martini Racing version of the re-imagined Lancia Rally. As mentioned, the Internet is full of "artist's impressions" of how a new release of a car would look but its very rare that any physical examples get created. This is one, albeit in 1:32.  (Designer Web Site Linky)
These cars run very well as well as looking good and so owning and driving them is a joy.

   

Test run: