| Feb. 7 2004 Review |
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 Click Here To Buy This Car Now Monogram Corvette GS #65 Nassau 1963 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] The envisioned Grand Sport would be the ultimate Corvette, a lightweight, tremendously powerful factory built racer. Mounted with a 377cid small block with Weber side-draft carburetors it dyno tested at 550hp at 6400rpm and was designed to blow the hoods off Shelby's Cobras. If the Ferraris and Fort GT 40's were also left in the dust so much the better. *(1) The above excerpt helps provide a little bit of history to introduce the recently released Corvette Grand Sport from Monogram Model Car Company. The Corvette GS has become an American icon of motor sports performance and with it has come the anticipation of these as a 1/32 slot car. How well did Monogram capture the Spirit of this car? Let’s see. Appearance:  Monogram’s second release is finally here and I was very eager to get a better look at it. Thanks to Eagle Distributing I found the Corvette GS safely at my front door and immediately ripped the box apart to get a closer look.  Monogram’s packaging and base has not changed from their first release of the Daytona Cobra Coupe and that suits me fine. The Monogram plastic case is slightly larger than those from FLY and are slightly smaller than those made by Scalextric. They won’t stack with anything you have but as far as I’m concerned I could throw the case away… I don’t think it’s ever going back in it!  The body of the Monogram GS Corvette is about as perfect as you could ask for. It’s detailed well with dual side exhausts, separately applied items like wipers, door handles and vent louvers and nicely applied graphics that are both crisp and well clear coated.  Inspecting the rest of the paint on the Corvette GS I have found no signs of dust, runs or any other type of imperfection in the finish. The blue metallic paint looks very authentic and it should with as much practice at painting blue as Monogram has had. All three Daytona Coupes were different variations of blue and so are both of the newly offered Grand Sports.  The rear of the Grand Sport is highlighted by the twelve holes in the lower panel and the two outer most wholes on either side of the car are filled with separately applied red rear tail light pieces. The other standout features are the broad rear wheel fender flare followed then by the cooling ducts on the top of the rear fenders and below the rear window.  Inside there are even more eye catching details although the spaces are tight and you’ll really have to get close to see most of them. The dashboard contains numerous replicated and decorated gauges and several other detail extras like the rear view mirror, gear shifter, emergency brake handle and simulated wood steering wheel that add to the appearance.  Just as we saw with Monogram’s Daytona Coupes the driver figure in these cars are again tremendously well done. The driver’s suit, gloves, racing belts and latches are all nicely painted and so is the drivers face. He has the whites of his eyes, dark painted pupils and painted on eyebrows. Nice work!  Just as with the rest of the car the Monogram Grand Sports wheels and tires are again well detailed. The Goodyear blue-line tires look great and the rim molding and knock-off details look great! The rims even have valve-stem detail! What else can you say about such fine work? Performance:  Flipping the Monogram Grand Sport over to take it apart highlights Monogram’s use of a sliding magnet bracket and front motor in-line drive configuration. To remove the body from the chassis you only need to remove the four equal length screws highlighted above.  Now with the body off we can get a good look at the Grand Sports chassis. It looks like it has some nice flat tuning areas but with the limited clearances from the interior section a lot of this becomes difficult to use. 
In the back there is a minimal amount of room to tune around the axle and 26-tooth crown gear. While we’re here this is also a good time to point out that Monogram has decided to swap out the 10-tooth pinion gear they used in the Daytona Coupes with a new and smaller 9-tooth for the Grand Sports. This should please previous Monogram owners as the taller gearing used in the Daytona was a shortfall with some enthusiasts.  Up front we find the space limited again. You’ll have to be creative on the inside of this car if you want to tune it here with weight? Will you need to though?  To remove the magnet from the Grand Sport you only need to apply some light and even pressure to the magnet bucket from the inside of the chassis. For those who prefer their magnets though the magnet position is variable, as it was with the Daytona’s and where I moved it on this Grand Sport did make a difference. How much? Here are the times; running non magnet to begin the test and running with no modifications out of the box produced a best lap time on the 30 foot Carrera test track of 5.2 seconds. Truing the rear tires, which were crowned on the outer edges, improved on the lap times to show a 4.7 fastest lap. Non-magnet and with no weight tuning the Grand Sport felt twitchy but controllable. It slid nicely but applying too much throttle too quickly made the front seem extremely light. Popping the magnet back in certainly corrected the lightness problem and again improved lap times to a fastest 3.383 with the magnet in the farthest back position. Here is where the varying positioning paid off though. Sliding the magnet all the way forward actually improved the handling even more. The fastest lap of 3.383 fell even farther to a quickest 3.187. With the magnet all the way forward the chassis felt the most balanced. This could be helpful for those who will tune with weight. The Final Verdict:  This is a simple decision. The Monogram Corvette Grand Sport looks great and runs great. Gearing, even for an in-line, is smooth and quiet and the new gearing changes have improved the acceleration over the Daytona Cobra Coupes. Braking is still on the light side but it’s easy to get used to. With the stock magnet in the times shown by the Corvette GS were faster than both the FLY BMW 3.5 CSL and FLY Ferrari 365 GTB, both in line cars as well. Non-magnet racers will have their work cut out for them getting this car to feel more balanced but I doubt anyone will have a tough time learning to love this car. 
Video will take about a minute to download on a 56k modem. Click Here To Download Monogram Corvette Grand Sport #65 Video Special thanks go to Eagle Distributing for providing me the chance to get a better look at this latest Monogram Corvette Grand Sport #65 release! As always, feel free to contact me if you have any additional questions and I will be happy to answer anything that I can. Shawn Smith SJSlots@hotmail.com |
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