| Jan. 12 2004 Review |
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 Click Here To Buy This Car Now SCX Vintage Stingray Dragster By Shawn Smith Click here to have Genie read this review out loud to you in Microsoft Agent AUDIO! [Click here to chat about this item on our Forum] Appearance: 
Get a look at the flamed packaging enclosing the all new, but still vintage, SCX Corvette Stingray Dragster. The box is huge! It makes for a great presentation though for this ‘limited edition’ SCX Vintage release and in case you aren’t familiar with these releases; this is something SCX has decided to do once a year to help tie the old with the new. They have recreated a car that they made beginning in the 70’s and ended production on in the 80’s. What once was old is new again! Flipping open the top shows off a very cool yet very unusual slot car. The SCX Vintage Stingray Dragster is certainly the only car like it that I’ve seen in a long time and it instantly begs to be compared to other types of collectables. Even my four year old son added, ‘Wow daddy, it looks like a Hot Wheels!' Included with the SCX Vintage Stingray is the added bonus of a small booklet that discusses the history of the Corvette. It highlights the different years and model types of the Corvette and even offers spec information about the car. The book also has a page that covers SCX manufacturing information of the Stingray Dragster and advises what years it was mad and the colors it was made in. This same booklet also has a certification page that contains a number that matches a number that is stamped on the bottom of the chassis. Last known information was that the total product run on this car would be around 4000 pieces so if this is a must have for any of you be sure to order one soon.  The majority of the SCX Vintage Dragster is painted in a nice metallic blue. Accenting the car is white on roof, back and the front and the front is additionally decorated with a stylish flame paint job that adds to the period look.  Just looking at the front of the SCX Vintage Dragster you might be inclined to think its just another version of the popular Corvette model although by looking back over that roof-line you can’t help but raise an eyebrow about that large mass of chrome at the rear.  What a monster motor this dragster is packing! Talk about a large displacement. With all that weight over the rear axle you’d think this car should stand right up on its back wheels. Luckily in the slot car version the plastic motor detail doesn’t account for the scaled down weight of the 1:1’s true motor and while it isn’t the most detailed motor it looks pretty cool sitting back there.  The interior of the Vintage Dragster is once again pretty ‘vintage’ in its own right. Don’t expect any serious level of detail as it just isn’t there. You do get the drivers arms, upper torso and helmet but that’s it! Plain and simple and just like it was back when the car was produced in the 70’s and 80’s.  While the looks of the SCX Vintage Dragster might not be for everyone it does offer a look at what things were like some 20 to 30 years ago. The car represents a very different era in model car racing and it’s reflected in the cars exterior design and overall look. I like it because of its uniqueness and it’s a uniqueness that doesn’t stop with the outside of the SCX Dragster.  Performance:  So how much more ‘vintage’ can the SCX Vintage Dragster get? You can probably see it from the picture above but to get a closer look you’ll need to get the body off. To do that you’ll need to do two things. First, remove the one and only screw from the bottom of the chassis. Next, carefully take a small, flat tip, screwdriver and pry the body upward from the grove in the rear of the chassis pan. As a point of reference, the tab you’re prying is the black rectangle in the rear bumper near the license plate location.  Now with the body off we can get a look at this strange little engine. No, it might not look to strange to those of you who were lucky enough to see these models on the first time around but for some of us this type of motor is practically unseen. Were you ever curious to see what happens inside one of your motors? Here’s a chance!  The vintage motor delivers power through a 9-tooth brass pinion gear and 27-tooth crown and has a fairly free time doing so without the reduced drag of any traction magnets. That’s right! No magnets in this beast! Brass bushings are used to hold our axle in their chassis mounts and mine were found to be very snug.  What isn’t snug is the front axle. Notice on the picture above the amount of movement allowed by the front axle. The left half shows the front wheel pushed all the way towards the left and the right side of the picture shows just the opposite. That’s a considerable amount of movement for a front axle and I chose to limit this amount of movement on mine after running it a few laps.  To limit this I first removed a front wheel and went about finding some plastic tubing that I had left over from a previous slot car project. Ideally I would have probably preferred to cut the axle down a bit however for the sake of time in this review I merely chose to shim the front. Due to the size of those rear tires I also think the added width of the front wheels helps maintain some overall stability.  Quickly looking at the guide we find even more ‘vintage flavor’. The notched guide is screwed in to the chassis from the bottom and into a brass mounting post seated in the inside of the chassis. Just like the outside it looks a little odd but much like the outside it does its job with vintage effectiveness.  The wires used in the SCX Vintage Dragster are a very stiff wire and I found that they could get in the way of the front wheels depending on where they are placed. The wire connections to the motor limit the range of wire placement so you might need to be creative if you find that they get impede performance. The Final Verdict:  In order to be as fair to the SCX Vintage Stingray Dragster that I could, I decided to do some comparisons with another new dragster release with all of its magnets removed. Both cars have exceptionally large tires and figured this would work best for side-by-side evaluations. What did I find? NO BRAKES!! While the get up and go isn’t the best in the world it’s the stopping department that you’ll need to be careful of. Let off of the throttle and expect the SCX Dragster to coast several more track sections before stopping. This becomes important when judging where to start letting off for the turns. Trust me… let off early!  Once I got the hang of the lack of braking, the magnet free lap times evened out around the 4.9 mark. Fastest time was a 4.73 lap and that’s not bad but I’m sad to say it got beat by the competitor’s 4.5 quickest time. Both cars suffered on my track with the oversized tires and they both took some control to corner without tipping them over on to their tops. In the end the SCX Vintage Stingray Dragster turned out to be a very fun car that could be slid through the corners with some patience and with care. Sanding the tires helped the sliding task but the overall tire size seemed one of its biggest downfalls. It’s no rocket on the track but it doesn’t appear it was meant to be. It is though a good collectable slot car with vintage appeal and vintage components that if nothing else makes it the most unusual car I now have in my collection. What a fun test! 
Video will take about a minute to download on a 56k modem. Click Here To Download SCX Vintage Corvette Stingray Dragster Video Shawn Smith SJSlots@hotmail.com |
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