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The Corvettes shouldn't be too far away - although not in time for Daytona...

       

The final pre-production sample was signed-off last summer - the delay seems to have been entirely down to manufacturing backlogs in China. I was lucky enough to take a close look at one of the samples for the Jadlam blog...

       

I enjoyed the night time appearance - and the detail...

       

I also gave the C8R sample a run-out on my test track - a typical living-room floor Scalextric Sport layout...

       

With the magnet fitted, the Corvette has a nice character - enjoyable to drive and not too stuck down. When pushed just beyond the limit of adhesion, the back steps out quite predictably. In terms of lap times, the C8R was bang on the Scalextric GT pace out of the box.

The Scalextric team also allowed me to test the car without magnets. As I couldn't work on the sample car, I simply replaced the rear tyres with NSR Supergrips, added 2.5g of tungsten putty just in front of the motor and loosened the body screws.

Without magnets, the Scalextric C8R was remarkable - in a very good way! The car was really planted and more predictable than with magnets - I felt I could push it into the corners and catch any oversteer. I also had my controller on a more punchy setting than I normally would for a non-mag Scalextric car. Against the clock, the performance was significantly better than any other non-mag Scalextric car I have tested on that track.

       

In a direct comparison with the new Aston Martin Vantage GT3 - a pretty rapid non-mag model - the C8R came out in front over a two minute run...

• Corvette C8R - 23 laps, best lap 4.96 seconds
  
• Vantage GT3 - 22 laps, best lap 5.23 seconds
  

With magnets, they both did 26 laps - and the Vantage was fractionally quicker with a 4.15 second best lap, against 4.23 for the C8R. The non-magnet time compares to 23 laps / 4.94 seconds for an out-of-the-box NSR Porsche 997 and 25 laps / 4:44 seconds for the Slot.it Maserati MC GT3 - albeit on a tight Scalextric Sport track, not exactly club track data...

For those of us who race Scalextric GT models at home or at clubs, the C8R is going to be one to watch.

There is one important issue for Scalextric racing groups - the rear track. The C8R is a very wide car in real life - and Scalextric have the rear wheels right out to the full 66mm. That might be too wide for some club rules. The original prototype had the wheels poking out slightly, although this seems to have been rectified - but any manufacturing tolerances might mean work needs to be done to bring the wheels at least flush with the bodywork.

For racers - including those considering a donor body for a 3D or homespun chassis - here's some data...

Length: 148mm
Wheelbase: 84.5mm
Rear axle width: 66mm
Height: 35mm
Weight: 90.5g (body = 32.5g)

Thanks to Jadlams for the images. You can read more here: https://blog.jadlamracingmodels.com/tag/corvette/