15th-Jun-22, 04:29 PM
A game of two halves.
Scalextric C3782 - BMW M3 E30 BTCC 1991 Donington Steve Soper.
Scalextric C3739 - BMW M3 E30 BTCC 1988 Brands Hatch Roland Ratzenberger.
These M3s have been out for a few years now but various liveries are still available so a review may be of interest.
I was a fan of the super tourer era of the BTCC, went to many of the rounds and the rivalry between Cleland and Soper was legendary but I wouldn't normally have bought these two cars. Thirty plus years ago saloons were a lot narrower than the current crop so any slot version close to scale dimensions is likely to be a real tippy handful round the twisty bits. Couldn't resist at the silly prices in TopSlots n Trains recent sell off though and got two for the price of one. I like having matched pairs of cars for my home races so thought I would give them a try. Was this a good idea? Read on.
Top half
Lovely, lovely bodies! They look right and the tampo printing is just about spot on as you can see with the side by side comparison with the real thing. The BMW Finance and BTCC fonts on the Soper car could both have done with a touch of bold but nothing major to quibble about.
The real Ratzenberger car does look a slightly different shape but I think that is a wide angle lens shot which tends to distort things a bit.
Top marks also for the rear wings, they are made of more bendy plastic than the rest of the body so should be less prone to breakage.
Unfortunately Scalextric blotted their copy book by fitting incorrect drivers' heads. They have lifted one from their rally cars so we have a microphone attached which was never there in real life. Why they keep doing this is beyond me, they have plenty of correct ones they could have used.
A dropped point for that gives us 9 out of 10 for the bodies then.
Bottom half
The chassis is the standard Scalextric inline one so I lubricated the relevant parts, changed the tyres for urethanes and set both of them off round the track for an hour at 4 volts for some running in. Incidentally everything worked first time with no quality control issues so full marks on that score. I liked the correct wheels on each version as well.
However, it was at this point that I began to suspect something was amiss as the Ratzenberger car was lapping over a second slower than the Soper one at exactly the same voltage. The gears seemed just a bit notchy so I gave it the toothpaste treatment which smoothed them out but didn't radically improve the speed.
I know that motors can vary a bit but this discrepancy was way wider than normal so it was time to put the bodies back on and give the cars a proper run. Ratzenberger first and it confirmed my suspicions, the proverbial rice pudding skin was in no danger with this motor and lap times around 6.5 seconds was near the bottom end of performance on my track. On the plus side though it handled reasonably well within the limitations of its narrow track and was nowhere near as tippy as I expected. Slowish cars don't bother me so long as I have another of similar speed for racing purposes.
Soper car up next to see if I had anything like a matched pair and this is where things started to fall apart. The motor was obviously a lot more powerful but, lo and behold, welcome to our old friend the Ninco hop! The thing bounced down the track under full power like a demented pogo stick and resisted all attempts to set a representative time.
A full strip down soon revealed the culprit - the rear of the chassis round the axles was about as rigid as a paper napkin so any normal motor would twist it under acceleration and a good deal of gluing and bracing would need adding to firm it up. The weak motor in the other car meant that it never accelerated hard enough to cause problems.
So, after a very promising first half, team Scalextric fell apart in the second and receives the dreaded nil points for the chassis although it would probably be perfectly OK for magnet racing. All of which leaves me with a dilemma - is it worth replacing both chassis with a 3DP version or should I just find a slower motor in the spares box for the Soper one?
Scalextric C3782 - BMW M3 E30 BTCC 1991 Donington Steve Soper.
Scalextric C3739 - BMW M3 E30 BTCC 1988 Brands Hatch Roland Ratzenberger.
These M3s have been out for a few years now but various liveries are still available so a review may be of interest.
I was a fan of the super tourer era of the BTCC, went to many of the rounds and the rivalry between Cleland and Soper was legendary but I wouldn't normally have bought these two cars. Thirty plus years ago saloons were a lot narrower than the current crop so any slot version close to scale dimensions is likely to be a real tippy handful round the twisty bits. Couldn't resist at the silly prices in TopSlots n Trains recent sell off though and got two for the price of one. I like having matched pairs of cars for my home races so thought I would give them a try. Was this a good idea? Read on.
Top half
Lovely, lovely bodies! They look right and the tampo printing is just about spot on as you can see with the side by side comparison with the real thing. The BMW Finance and BTCC fonts on the Soper car could both have done with a touch of bold but nothing major to quibble about.
The real Ratzenberger car does look a slightly different shape but I think that is a wide angle lens shot which tends to distort things a bit.
Top marks also for the rear wings, they are made of more bendy plastic than the rest of the body so should be less prone to breakage.
Unfortunately Scalextric blotted their copy book by fitting incorrect drivers' heads. They have lifted one from their rally cars so we have a microphone attached which was never there in real life. Why they keep doing this is beyond me, they have plenty of correct ones they could have used.
A dropped point for that gives us 9 out of 10 for the bodies then.
Bottom half
The chassis is the standard Scalextric inline one so I lubricated the relevant parts, changed the tyres for urethanes and set both of them off round the track for an hour at 4 volts for some running in. Incidentally everything worked first time with no quality control issues so full marks on that score. I liked the correct wheels on each version as well.
However, it was at this point that I began to suspect something was amiss as the Ratzenberger car was lapping over a second slower than the Soper one at exactly the same voltage. The gears seemed just a bit notchy so I gave it the toothpaste treatment which smoothed them out but didn't radically improve the speed.
I know that motors can vary a bit but this discrepancy was way wider than normal so it was time to put the bodies back on and give the cars a proper run. Ratzenberger first and it confirmed my suspicions, the proverbial rice pudding skin was in no danger with this motor and lap times around 6.5 seconds was near the bottom end of performance on my track. On the plus side though it handled reasonably well within the limitations of its narrow track and was nowhere near as tippy as I expected. Slowish cars don't bother me so long as I have another of similar speed for racing purposes.
Soper car up next to see if I had anything like a matched pair and this is where things started to fall apart. The motor was obviously a lot more powerful but, lo and behold, welcome to our old friend the Ninco hop! The thing bounced down the track under full power like a demented pogo stick and resisted all attempts to set a representative time.
A full strip down soon revealed the culprit - the rear of the chassis round the axles was about as rigid as a paper napkin so any normal motor would twist it under acceleration and a good deal of gluing and bracing would need adding to firm it up. The weak motor in the other car meant that it never accelerated hard enough to cause problems.
So, after a very promising first half, team Scalextric fell apart in the second and receives the dreaded nil points for the chassis although it would probably be perfectly OK for magnet racing. All of which leaves me with a dilemma - is it worth replacing both chassis with a 3DP version or should I just find a slower motor in the spares box for the Soper one?