| Feb. 9 2004 Review |
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 Vanquish MG Mirage Fords #7 12h Sebring 1972 & #5 1000kms Spa 1973 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:  ‘Shocked and amazed’ only partially describes the feeling that fell over me as I first caught a glimpse of the Vanquish MG Mirage-Fords inside of the box sent by the gracious Eagle Distributing. I knew one of these cars was on the way to me yet when both showed up I almost thought I was seeing things. After rubbing the awe from my eyes I immediately tore these things open and eagerly went about checking them out.  Just like the previous Vanquish releases the Mirage-Fords came free from their base in the unique Vanquish MG fashion. Just a firm pulling down on the case bottom pin unlocks the cars from their mounts and by simply moving each car backwards they ‘pop’ free with minimal effort.  Putting them both on the track at the same time felt fantastic. Talk about perfectly matched running mates. Not only would you expect these too to run identically but at first glance they almost look identical as well.  What are the differences? Well for starters they are wearing different numbers. The number seven car was the car run in the twelve hours of Sebring in 1972 and the number five ran in the Spa one thousand kilometers race back in 1973.The body of both cars are duplicates to be certain although there are some subtle differences between them other than their numbers.  Beginning with the number 7 car we can see our driver wearing his white with red and silver striped helmet and splendid pastel blue racing suit. He is snugly positioned inside of his cockpit by red simulated safety belts and silver accented buckle details. Directly behind the driver we can catch a glimpse at the famous Vanquish engine detail and a few other nice details that stand out are the roll bar, body panel vents and fuel filler cap detail.  On the five car almost everything is identical except for the large orange snorkel intake now covering the intake flutes previously found on the seven car and the driver figure is also decorated differently. Sporting a new racing helmet with the ‘Union Jack’ on the forehead and having changed from the numbers seven’s red racing belts for new blue racing belts the number 5 driver has a unique ride all of his own.  The rear end of the two cars are identical as well although as we saw with the driver shots of the two cars it’s the large orange air intake that stands out to differentiate the two of them. In the front however the younger five car did manage to pick up some nice orange paintwork in between it’s non-functioning headlamps and a few extra Gulf sponsorship logos found a place just forward of each rear wheel. Love those Gulf colors!  The tires and wheels on both cars are identical and they are the exact same wheels Vanquish used on their 1969 McLaren M8Bs. These tires do provide some really nice grip but are molded with a center rib of rubber on all four tires that might seem a little tricky to remove by those unfamiliar with the Vanquish MG working differential. Other than that these two cars are beautiful. I found only one paint issue that really stood out in the form of an oddly placed spot of orange on the light blue nose of the number 7 car. All in all these two cars are gorgeous models from the continued Vanquish Can Am series. Performance:  Taking the body off requires the removal of six (6) equal length screws. These six screws might seem a little like overkill to some model car racers but with the unique Vanquish chassis being set up the way it is something had to be done to hold it all together.  With the body now free you end up with three different sections to keep track of. Both the interior trays and engine detail sections are just held in by the tension of the outer body to the inner chassis. Some of you might choose to secure these in place with glue but I don’t see a need as once its all back together the end result is a very snug racecar.  And don’t go thinking that just because Vanquish added the orange snorkel to the number five car that they skipped all of that engine detail underneath. No way! It’s all there in all of its glory.  Focusing again on the chassis you can see how it separates into two sections once all of the screws are removed. The front is held tight with the front and middle screws and the back of the sub-frame actually clips in to the lower chassis pan.  Pulling the magnet out of one of these Vanquish MG cars is as easy as flipping the sub frame over and poking the magnet with the tip of your screwdriver. It’s not glued in to the car and like the interior it is held snugly in place once the car is all screwed back together. In the case of these two Mirage cars though one of them didn’t get its magnet back. Time for some testing!  A quick lube of the differential, some tire truing and some extra grease added to the pinion and it was time to pit our two cars against each other. The ‘lucky’ number seven Mirage was the first to hit the track as it was the one I kept the magnet from. Off it went with smooth acceleration. Lap times were pretty consistent and the fastest non-magnet lap I could manage was 3.838 seconds. The differential seemed to work as intended on the sharpest 1/60 curves and it was really hard to get the car to power through the inner turns. It felt balanced, powering nicely down the straights and braking briskly for the turns. Now it was time for the magnet runs. The number five Mirage drove on to the outer lane and went about its work with the same smooth and balanced feel. Even with the magnet the differential managed to hold the car back a bit through the toughest turns but with the added grip of the magnet I felt a little easier taking it deeper in to the entrance of each turn. Fastest magnet lap turned out to be 3.586 and with only three tenths of a second separating both cars I was very impressed with the results. Neither time was what I would call blisteringly quick but with as close as its times were, running both with and without magnets, I was still pleased with the overall results and was a little shocked at how close the two fastest times were. The Final Verdict:  It’s really becoming hard to find fault with any of the new slot cars being released now a days and the Vanquish MG cars are no exception. Some might not care for the functionality of the Vanquish differential but I now have four of them that have yet to fail. Others might not like the larger size of these models as the Vanquish cars have been well documented to be closer to 1/28 scale than 1/32 scale. That aside these cars both look great and run well, especially when run together with others of their kind, and with the number of Vanquish releases available it won’t be hard to find something else from them that looks just as nice and runs almost identically. If you haven’t tried them yet you owe it to yourself to pick some of these up. 
Video will take about a minute to download on a 56k modem. Click Here To Download Vanquish MG Mirage Fords Video Special thanks go to Eagle Distributing for providing me the chance to get a better look at these latest Vanquish MG Mirage Ford releases! 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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