| August 6 2006 Review |
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 NINCO Mosler MT900R 'Kenmore' Review By Shawn Smith [Click here to chat about this item on our Forum] Appearance:  Before we really get going let me first advise that my camera found it tricky to capture the true color of thie car. Where most of my images will make the car appear red, white and blue the red on the roof and sides of the car is actually more of a flourescent red-ish orange that my camera had trouble capturing.  Initial impression of the paint job is very favorable. I personally love the color combination on this car and honestly like it even more so than the less striking almost all sivler 'Xavex' version mentioned earlier.  Paint alone isn't the only visual change between the two releases though. While many may consider these minor items such as the tow hooks, made of red plastic on the 'Xavex' car, have been made out of black plastic for this release. No, not dramatic difference yet the black details blend in more with the black molded chassis they are attached to than did the red details. Probably the biggest difference rests with the translucent yellow headlight covers, seen fitted on the 1:1 prototype in countless on-line images of the car.  Basic body features between the releases are unchanged, details such as the open louvers in the nose of the car are the same, however body features such as these tend to help point out potential modeling errors in areas such as the livery. Not discounting the potential for the livery to have changed it seems that every image of the 'Kenmore' livery I could find showed a much more narrow band of white traveling over the nose of the car, enough so that the first three bottom louvers are shown as having blue on them and as you can see in the image above both of the center louvers are well within the white painted area.  Moving back towards the rear of the car another interesting livery change came in the way of the large black rear wing. Here again I found far more images of the 'Kenmore' car wearing a white wing during competition however I found one image of the car from an event at Thruxton England where it appears a black rear wing was indeed used.  Here at the very back another potential livery difference can be found as, much like the abundance of images showing the Kenmore wing in white, I found a large number of images showing the bottom chassis air diffusers painted in the same neon red as seen on the top of the car.   Rims are yet another point of interest on this Kenmore car. NINCO's 18 by 10 BBS-style wheels replace the silver versions worn by the 'Xavex' car and while these do meet the requirement of gold wheels used on the prototype you could get picky and mention how the lip of each wheel should really be chromed. I know, I know... its no big deal right? Right! But I know as soon as I don't mention it someone else will and they would be correct.  Taking a look at the side of the 'Kenmore' Mosler everything here is pretty much in order. Before anyone questions whether or not the white painted area is supposed to be blending in with the 'k' and the 'e' of the 'Kenmore' name research images of this show the blending to be 100% correct in its modeling. Did seem a little odd as I first inspected the car however it is accurate.  Minor modeling issues aside the paint job and modeling does a pretty good job of looking the part although the paint job however isn't perfect. I know that its very hard for manufacturers to model a car with 100% accuracy, if it were easy all of them could do it.. and they don't. Even some of the best in the business occasionally have issues and when a company like NINCO has an issue it just makes it stand out all the more. Here in the images below you can see very slight examples of a lack of crispness where the blue ends and the white begins. In fairness not all models may have this, you'll never notice it at speed, and I think it only stood out to me because NINCO is typically at the very top in this area and normally excel at paint crispness and opaqueness.   Performance:  We won't spend the normal amount of time talking about the chassis features or the performance of this model. Quite simply the motor, magnet, gearing, handling and performance of the car mirrors that of the 'Xavex' Mosler reviewed only a few short months ago.  Lap times were also consistent with the previous release of the Mosler, withing a couple hundreths of a second, and that shouldn't be shocking considering there are no performance changes with this release. That's actually very good news to me as the 'Xavex' Mosler proved to be fast and good handling car and there is little I love more than a perfectly matched pair of cars. The Final Verdict:  So... two liveries of the Mosler MT900R under NINCO's belt and yet I'm still not satisfied. 'How's that' you say? 'But Shawn I read the 'Xavex' review and you said you liked it and in this review you also say you like the way this car runs right?' Right! I do like the NINCO Mosler and I do like the way they run on my test track. The reason I'm not satisfied is because my favorite of the planned NINCO Mosler liveries is still to come, a blue and orange 'Gulf' painted version (model #50428) and once that arrives all will be right in my slot world. Seriously... these are nice cars and if you're a fan of NINCO's lighter magnetic driving this car is one of their best. Special thanks to MRC – Model Rectifier Corp for providing the new NINCO Mosler MT900R 'Kenmore' for review. As always, feel free to contact me if you have any additional questions and I will be happy to answer anything that I can. Happy Slotting! Shawn Smith SJSlots@hotmail.com |
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