[woodcote]

Generic F1 cars for club racing are nothing new - Nonno Slot, All SlotCar etc. have been there before. However, Policar’s beautiful looking and beautifully handling 70s F1 cars offered something very special and were taken up by many clubs. Andi Rowland - who was behind the development of the Policar F1 system - has made available 3D printed chassis to convert 70s F1 models from Fly, Scalextric, SRC etc to the Policar drivetrain. All utterly fabulous…

Then Policar announced their modern ‘Monoposto’ generic F1 car - using the same drivetrain with FF motor and slim gearbox. As with most of Slot.it’s projects, there was a couple of years’ gap between the announcement and the product being available to the public. Then - out of the blue - NSR release their generic Formula 86/89 car a year ago.

The NSR Formula car is a single-seater version of their usual format - pretty much the same as the All SlotCar platform - with a motor pod carrying a big beefy long-can motor and standard inline gearing.

I was a bit disappointed - the excitement of the Policar Monoposto for modern F1 club racing was blown out of the water by a mini-Mosler. They would not compete fairly on track - clubs would need to choose one or the other. It looked like NSR would be the club racer and the Policar a home racer - although I always thought the Policar model would make a great digital F1 racer, especially with that magnetic nose.

So now we have competition in that long-can mini-Mosler F1 class with Scaleauto coming along with their own version of the All SlotCar format. No longer a single make class. NSR has competition. That might be disappointing for NSR, but surely good news for the hobby?