| September 13 2007 Review |
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 Scalextric Range Rover Review By Eric Cropper  This Rover isn’t the only thing new from Scalextric during their 50th Anniversary year. Look at the new stylish display case. The biggest positive to me is that the clear top flips up and it’s attached to the base. No more grabbing the clear top only to have the bottom fall out. However, the clear top can be completely removed from the base. The negatives are that the new and old cases do not stack together. Also, the screw that holds the car to the base is no longer a simple finger twist to remove it. (see below pic) The screw is flush mounted in its cavity on the bases’ bottom. You now have to use a screw driver or coin to remove the screw. Not a big thing, but it’s more awkward than the old styled screw.  Appearance:  The Range Rover has long been a symbol of financial excess in the suburban life and Scalextric pulled this one off with great details that are the trademarks of the Rover line.  The jewel of the front end is the grill. Scalextric’s ability to print the smallest of logos on their cars is mind blowing at times. The tiny oval badge on the right side of the grill…it says Range Rover!!! The headlights are spot on to the 1:1 vehicle.  The tail end is simple; however, has the same detail elements of the real deal. Check out the top of the tail lights simulated LED’s. The rear bumper has the backing up sensors across it to keep Biff and Buffy from backing over the neighbor’s dog. The Range Rover logo on the left and supercharged text on the right is perfect. The only thing I think is missing on the front and rear is a European license plate. After all, this Rover is a right hand driver.  The male driver is wearing pants (thank God), a white shirt and sporting a blue blazer. The interior of the Rover is fairly detailed. It is mostly black with some painted details on the dash. The front seats look like modified racing seats. The rear seat looks more realistic for this luxury ride. They even molded in the seat belt buckles in the rear. However, you won’t find a hint of a seat belt anywhere inside the Rover. What happened to safety?  The coolest interior detail is the rear cage. Keep the family pet and groceries where they belong…in the back and off the leather. The roof has a low profile antenna and a third brake light. You get a better view of the LED tail light too.  Another detail just as nice and noticeable as the front grill is the side air vents. This is another detail that says, Range Rover.  The 7 spoke flat silver rims look sturdy and have six recessed lug nuts for added detail. The below picture shows the tire tread molded into the tires. They look like they could handle being off the beaten path. However, I think a Rover this pretty wouldn’t even find something as mild as a gravel driveway under its feet.   Once I was blind, but now I can see. The front and rear lights are nice and bright. The rears are bright red. They are washed out in the picture below.  Size: The question is it really a 1/32 scale slot car. I’ll let you be the judge. The following pictures are of the Range Rover next to a Fly Racing Truck and a Carrera Corvette.     Car Stats: Motor: Mabuchi SP Sidewinder @ 18K RPM Gear Ratio: 11:36 Weight: 110 to 114 gm (the 110 is for the Police version without an interior and I’m speculating the 114 gm for the street version. I didn’t have a scale handy) Wheelbase: 27 X 10 mm for the front and rear Performance:  Above the yellow arrows point out the locations of the 4 body screws that mate the body to the chassis. The red arrow points out the screw to remove the plate for installing a digital chip. The car comes with the digital chip plug already installed. There are two magnet locations in the middle of the chassis too.  Above is the chassis when the shell is removed. NOTE Caution should be taken when removing the body from the chassis. The front head light LED’s are pushed into tubes on the backside of the head lights. (see below) This also caused an issue with getting them back into place when putting the Rover back together. Take your time to avoid damaging the circuit board.   The white plug above it the pre-installed plug for the installation of the chip for digital racing circuits.  Look at the gearing. How will this affect the Rover’s performance on the track?  How does Scaley get this tall SUV to stick to the track? They lower the magnet via a magnet pod that sits a lot lower than the rest of the chassis. Only the rear magnet position has the lowered magnet pod. The front magnet position is at the same height as the rest of the Rover’s chassis. Below, you will see how close the magnet pod is to the top of a Carrera R1 banked curve. Yes, I said a banked curve. Surprised?   Above is the guide pod. No springs here like on the Raid trucks. It would have been a nice added bonus. The guide blade is taller than Scaley’s normal guides. This is to help keep the guide in the slot and it does a good job of it. I also have a concern or complaint in this area. Is it just me or has Scaley’s braid quality gone down hill over the past year. As you can see above the braid isn’t braided very well and almost falls apart when you spread them out. They’re not woven as well as they use to be. The spares on the bottom of the case are the same way. I didn’t notice the braids causing any power issues while testing the Rover. However, I see these braids wearing out quicker than ones of the past. Track Time: I tested on both Carrera and Scalextric Sport road courses. First, I ran the 4 lane Monza Carrera track in lane 3 which runs 118 feet. This course, as you will see in the video, has a bridge and 2 banked curve sections. I wanted to test on this track to see if the Rover could handle the banked curves and if there were any issues on inclines with the guide. I’m glad to say there were no problems with either. I was able to drive the Rov into the banked turn hard and deep and the guide didn’t pop out once going up the incline of the bridge section. Next, came the 6 lane Cataluyna Scaley Sport track and I ran in lane 3 which is 117 feet in length. This track is completely flat, but has some seriously sharp turns throughout it. This is where the Rover came to life. Brand matching sometimes brings the best results. LOAD TIME MAY BE LONG FOR DIAL-UP SERVICE Click here to watch "ROVER-LAPS" The size and appearance of the Range Rover had me thinking all it was going to do was go slow and tumble and roll in the turns. Then I took it from the case and about threw it across the room. The extreme light weight combined with the lowered magnet pod works wonders. Don’t get me wrong, it will roll and tumble if pushed to hard into a turn. It rolls just like a real SUV. The rear starts first and then the rest follows. Two other guys said the same thing while they watched me run the Rover. The question of the gearing next came into question. Will it have decent acceleration? Will it slow down when the brakes are activated? Will it stop at all? I had a flashback to the Revell Tuners that had similar gearing and thus had zero brakes. It again surprised me. It had good pick up and top speed. However, the pick up in the rolling back and forth curve section of the Carrera track was a little on the slow side. The best surprise was in the braking department. The Rov had brakes. Great brakes in fact. I never thought I’d compare this SUV to Carrera’s Moby Dick Porsche. However, in the braking department they are very close. The lap times on the Carrera track ran around 12.6 and on the Sport track the fastest lap I turned was 12.1 seconds. That is pretty close between the different track systems. The Rover will run well on both systems, however, it just felt more at home on its home brand track. Judgement Day: I had my doubts when I first caught wind of the Range Rover release. Luckily, Scalextric did just about everything to send my doubts out the window. They created a beautiful representation of the real thing. They kept it light in weight and set the magnet close to the rails. It had good speed and incredible stopping power. It needs to be driven and is a good challenge to get around the track from a novice up to a pro. I know a lot of my slot brothers our there won’t give it a second look and think it’s not for them. I thought that myself. However, I changed my mind after a half hour of running the Rover yesterday. I give it thumbs up for looks, performance, and fun. After all fun is why we do this hobby of ours…right? Thanks again to www.CincySlots.com for the Scalextric Range Rover in this review. Make sure to stop by www.cincyslots.com for the latest and greatest from Scalextric and all other major brands of slot cars. Feel free to direct any questions or comments to me at the email address below. Eric Cropper AKA legionofone ecropper@hotmail.com |
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