[slotloco]

Hah Hah, fooled ya


FLY BMW 320 classic into a DTM Racer
With Slot.it having released the Mercedes 190 DTM Classic recently, the biggest hole in the range of models represented by the brand, is the BMW 320
– and possibly the Ford Sierra.
Our club rules are more broad than my DTM Classic event rules, to enable scope for those in club who like building cars; rather than just tuning a
standard model.
I looked at Scalextric, Ninco and FLY models The Scalextric BMW and Sierra were just too narrow, no Ninco Sierra available in Europe at a decent price.
So a Fly BMW it would be. I didn’t have any models with actual DTM liveries, but I did have a Fly BMW 320 Duo-kit, which consists of one complete car,
and a spare body and windscreen glass.


Standard mechanical setup front motor, and deep tray interior in the blue car as pictured above. the spare body here actually has my lightweight interior
already fitted in this shot



So I went about looking for a lightweight pancake interior and a donor chassis from Slot.it by preference. I needed a small amount of guide lead
– the wheels on a BMW are near to the front of the car.
The body is actually 1mm narrower than the CA35 Alfa, 2mm narrower than the other Alfas. But it sits nearly 3mm lower, just 3.5mm higher than the Opel
body height, so the handling should be fairly decent with a bit of low ballast.



The interior is a lexan one from another model by Slot.it cut to fit, with a half driver figure from somewhere in the war chest – possibly MRRC.
Now I can use a regular inline podded chassis.
The Slot.it Alfa models had the correct wheel base, but too much guide lead. The Mercedes had a suitable short guide lead, but was too long in the
wheelbase. Surprisingly, the Opel porridge was “just right”. Only a bare 1mm too long in the wheelbase – do-able, and had the short guide lead I needed.

It also by chance had a single rear guide post which lined up perfectly. So I only have to replace the twin front mounts with a single centre mount.

So I took a complete Opel Calibra, and set the body aside. This was the cheapest way to get a complete rolling chassis.
The chassis needed quite a bit of trimming, as the BMW body is 1mm narrower than an Alfa CA35 chassis and about 4mm narrower than the Opel chassis
– and a bit shorter overall.



Standard chassis from a running Opel top of shot, and after trimming the donor chassis at bottom of shot.

More to follow.