Ninco Renault Megane Trophy 'CESAM' Review by Shawn Smith

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March 23 2006 Review

NINCO Renault Megane Trophy 'CESAM' Review
By Shawn Smith

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Fans of NINCO have to believe that 2005 was one of the best years for NINCO products and releases. With the release of new items such as the Honda NSX Super GT, Toyota Supra Super GT, Pro-Driver GT and Rally kits, the 'street inspired' Tuning Series, track accesories such as the Snow Sliding Curve and many others its no doubt the year was a good one. Well 2006 looks to be just as promising with NINCO bringing to market new track products, in both the traditional and digital offerings, as well as through all new slot car releases like the growingly popular Megane Trophy cars. Most might not gotten the chance to get their hands on the first two editions of the car, although I know several retailers from which you can get them, and arriving now is the third version ready to take to your track. Thanks to MRC – Model Rectifier Corp one of these bad boys has arrived in the garage so without further delay its time to take a look.

Appearance:

How exactly can I describe the 'Cesam' Megane's color? Maybe a bright neon yellow with just a hint of neon green. No matter what color it is it's certainly eye-catching and makes for an easy car to see on the track. Trimmed with an abundance of black graphics and parts the 'Cesam' Megane is a great looking model.

What a powerful looking stance! Those fender flares look huge sticking out from the sides of the car however tied in with the entire ground-effects package the Megane Trophy racer looks strong even when sitting still. Notable details on the nose of the Megane include a chromed Renault badge between the black grill and separately applied headlight covers, simulated latch notches molded in to the hood line and solid filled grill openings in the bottom of the car's nose.

Checking out the back we get the same notched latch locations on the hatch line, giant roof mounted rear wing, separately applied red tail light details, exhaust details molded in to the chassis pan and a curved-flat rear window.

Livery wise I happen to like this release the best of the three released so far. The gloss black painted hood, door trim and rear hatch flows very well with the black mirrors, spoiler and mostly black racing decorations.

Additional attention grabbing effects include large open vents on the back of both the front and rear fender flares, the large vented openings under each of the Megane's doors and a handfull of smaller, more colorful, graphics.

Interior wise the shallow pan interior is the home of a silver painted roll-cage, red fire bottle, detailed guages behind the steering wheel and our blue racing suit equipped driver figure.

Performance::

Flipping the car on its roof we find four screws, two on either side of the guide and two additional near the rear bumper. Also from this view we're presented with NINCO's angle-winder set up which has proven to be very popular in other NINCO releases such as the BMW M3 , Honda NSX , and the Toyota Supra.

Body now out of the way the basic chassis set-up is typical NINCO as is the shallow tray-style interior. Notice in the image above how the interior is actually adapted to assure proper clearance for the angle-winder motor placement.

Motor for the Megane is the NINCO NC-5 that is rated at 20,000 PRMs at 14.8 volts. Purely based on personal preference I have really grown fond of this motor for the amount of torque and speed it creates. Matched with the angle-winder gearing and lighter magnetic downforce the rear tires are constantly fighting for traction under heavy throttle.

Up front a solid axle snaps in to the 'floating' chassis mounts that allow for some up and down travel. Side to side axle movement, something that is often abundant in many NINCO cars, is tolerable in our Megane test car.

As with most NINCO products downforce is provided by a single cylindrical button magnet pressed in to a round pocket in front of the motor and close to the center of the chassis. This set up provides for decent downforce yet still requires 'driving' of the car.

Tires on the NINCO Megane are grippy slicks with the front tires being more narrow and having a thinner side profile. The twelve-spoke rims of our test car provided to be very true and were free from flashing.

The guide on the NINCO Megane, like on so many other NINCO cars, is sprung and fitted with easy to set up copper braids.

Before putting the body back on take notice of the small notch molded on to the chassis. At first I didn't pay attention to these and once I put my body back on it took me a while to figure out why it didn't look right.

The tabs are there to help lock in place thin sections of the body between the wheels and once you push these body sections in place it creates a 'vented' look behind the front wheels.

Everything back together its off to the track to check out the lap times. Sharing the same NC-5 motor, magnet set-up and angle-winder gearing that comes standard in the majority of NINCO's NSX, Supra, and BMW M3 line up it should be no shock to find that the Megane runs similarly to those cars as well. Fastest lap for the 'Cesam' Megane proved to be a 5.895 on my 60-foot home track. Fastest time I've recorded for an NC-5 NSX is a 5.869 and for the NINCO Supra the best NC-5 time clicked off at a 5.838.

Originally percieving the Megane to have a shorter wheelbase and smaller overall size than the NSX and Supra I thought the Megane would have an advantage on the track in the downforce department. Of course I was a little shocked to see the similarity in the lap times, with the Megane unable to best either the NSX or Supra, so I started trying to figure out what might be keeping the Megane from blowing its cousins away. Much to my surprise, once I began to compare all of the cars, I found that the Megane wasn't as small as it looked. Believe it or not but the NINCO Megane is not shorter than the NSX and is only marginally shorter than the Supra. The Megane's wheelbase is also longer than the NSX and Supra and when placed side by side on the track the Megane is taller than both the NSX and Supra. So... learning all of that its really hard to fault the Megane for not being able to beat the NSX or Supra on the track. With the difference in fastest lap being only a few hundredths different at sixty feet I'm actually quite pleased that the Megane keeps it that close.

The Final Verdict:

It's been taken apart, photographed, placed back together, photographed some more and run for a couple hundred test laps and the final verdict is starting to get as predictable as the sun rising on the NINCO manufacturing plant in Spain. It's really hard to not like a car that looks great, runs well and needs minimal to no work to get it to run right out of the box. The finish is top notch, the performance is pleasing and even though I realize that some racers yearn for more magnetic downforce from their NINCO cars they have to give you SOMETHING to tinker with don't they? The 'Cesam' Megane Trophy car is certainly one that deserves to find a good home and if you're one that likes a fast, high torque, tire spinning experience then you deserve to own one. Contact your favorite retailer soon before they are all gone!

Thanks go to the folks at MRC – Model Rectifier Corp for providing the new NINCO Renault Megane 'CESAM' 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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