The Jaguar XKE T-Jet by Bichler

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Feb. 19 2004 Review

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The Jaguar XKE T-Jet by Bichler

The Bichler T-Jets have landed on American soil. Taking a cue from The Beatles, Austrian-based Alexander Bichler has chosen to make his invasion with a spice of London calling, in the form of a dynamite resin cast Jaguar XKE. The sleek, elegant lines of Britain’s most celebrated marque are finally captured in accurate 1/64^th scale, and bring renewed life to the N.O.S. T-jet chassis.

Bichler Racing Austria (B.R.A. for short) has been building concourse-quality resin casts on T-jet chassis for over ten years. Thanks to Jon at Rad Trax, now American H.O. enthusiasts can get their hands on a solid lineup of vintage European models. With Rad Trax’ huge buying muscle, the Las Vegas, Nevada slot store is able to import the cars at prices identical to those available in Europe. This means that U.S. buyers are spared the nasty import duty and the overseas shipping costs, through economy of scale. Still, hand made resin cast cars are expensive, even when made in the good old U.S. of A. T-jets from Nu-Rora, M.E.V., Road Race Replicas, and other American resin casters cost up to three times as much as a typical Model Motoring or Johnny Lightning injection molded release. So are the Bichler cars worth the hefty price tag? This review will dig deeply under the surface of the latest H.O. builder to hit the American shores.

The Jaguar “E” type was first announced to the public in 1960. Borrowing styling cues from the racing-only D type, the new XKE was designed as a sports car for the masses. The XKE was an instant success, selling over 70,000 units in its first year of production alone! From 1961 to 1975, the low-slung rear-drive beauty remained virtually unchanged, and still makes a striking pose on the road. Available at first with a 3 liter, six cylinder engine, the elongated hood was eventually filled with a more potent 4.2 liter power plant, and by 1970, the XKE became the first mass produced 12 cylinder car on the market. For several years the E type Jaguar held the distinction of being the fastest production car in the world, able to reach speeds in excess of 150 miles per hour.

The original Aurora lineup of H.O. slot cars included a then-new Jaguar XKE. Unfortunately for buyers and vintage collectors, Aurora was so eager to release an E Type car that the photos and specs from the pre-release 1960 show car were used to construct the mold. As a result, the Aurora Jaguar XKE bears only a passing resemblance to the actual XKE that hit dealerships worldwide in 1961. The fenders and wheel wells on the Aurora are way too large. The whole car has a bloated appearance, and the hood line is nowhere near as svelte as the sexy 1:1 sports car. To be fair, Aurora’s Jaguar does look like the original concept car, but how many of us ever remember seeing one of those? The XKE in its sleeker production skin has become a cultural icon, and Aurora missed the boat.

Opening the Package

Sitting in its simple clear Plexiglas storage box, the Bichler XKE elicits an immediate double-take. God save the Queen, there’s a real looking Jaguar in there!

Finally someone got it right, and on the right chassis to boot. A recreation of a vintage beauty belongs on a T-Jet chassis; and the T-jet lineup was sadly lacking without a real Jaguar. Vintage collectors who like to landscape their home track will think they have died and gone to LeMonzaco when they pop the lid off the box. The packaging is understated, to say the least. Nothing else comes in the box besides a small gray felt pad.

A close look at the body reveals that the test car has been cast in an authentic shade of yellow. Casting the car in color eliminates the need for B.R.A. to paint anything other than the trim details, keeping the overall appearance neat and tidy. The front and rear bumpers are molded in, and are hand painted silver. The front grill is properly painted black with a silver center line, but here the hand detailing is not nearly as good. Small imperfections in the cast exaggerate and distort the brush strokes, marring what would otherwise be a convincing miniature production car. Making matters worse, the painter of the test car apparently spilled some of the black paint onto the front edge of the hood, and then repaired the spill by repainting over it in a shade of yellow that matches the resin. The whole paint blob has been polished, to be sure, and the paint is well matched to the body, but it is noticeable nonetheless. The rear license plate area is a simple blacked-out rectangle, with small brush strokes plainly in sight. But these are the only flaws in what is otherwise a well-executed finish. The whole car has been lightly clear coated, and then smoothly polished to an evenly-balanced luster. Even the most sure-handed of hobbyists would be hard pressed to prepare a bare resin cast body to this level of appearance. The front headlights are especially well thought out- tiny orbs of clear plastic are set into the smooth recesses molded into the hood, and then convincingly wrapped in silver chrome paint. They are light-years better than the painted-on lamps of the old Aurora, and add to the overall authentic vibe of the car.

Measurement (mm)	Bichler	Jaguar	Scale Ratio (1:x)
wheelbase	37.5	2440	65.07
length	66	4450	67.42
width	26	1660	63.85
height	19.5	1220	62.56

Under the Hood

From the outside of the car, the NOS chassis looks good. There is light (but normal) oxidation of the copper electrical path. The hubs are stock chrome, with no trace of yellowing. No attempt has been made to recreate the actual wire-spoked Jaguar wheels; this part of the car is garden variety T-jet. Same with the stock skinny Aurora tires, which have slight yellow patches but are suitably pliant. As stock tires go, the ones on the test car are as soft and rubbery as one could hope for, but still it is somewhat disappointing that Bichler did not at least include a set of silicones on such an upscale product.

The pickup shoes have a small amount of carbon buildup- has this car been run before? Removing the body with a small flathead screwdriver, the answer is clear. The armature most definitely has been run; both the copper plate and the tops of the brushes have telltale break-in marks. Additionally, the idler gear has been pre-lubricated. The chassis is clean inside and out, and from the minimal amount of wear, the chances are most likely that the car has been track tested, but not subject to extended use. So much the better then. After snapping a picture of the disassembled car (the Hong Kong sticker still affixed to the side of the motor mount, like every good NOS chassis), it is a small matter to polish the brushes and the armature plate back to their original shine, using a pencil eraser.

The only modification to the stock chassis appears on the top side of the gear plate, where front half of the side flanges have been carved off. Presumably this is to accommodate the low-slung, long-nosed body. The interior glass is securely mounted, and well cut. The underside of the glass protrudes no more than two millimeters into the cabin, and as we shall see in the track testing phase, does not interfere at all with the running of the car. The front screw post is molded into the body, while the rear screw post is made of a smoothly-notched rectangle set into the rear bumper housing. The body mounts easily flush to the chassis, with secure fitting posts that allow the user to adjust the desired amount of float. Bichler build quality is first rate, and the test model is no exception.

On the Track

Reassembled, the car is ready for the track. I always test the car “as is”, even if for a short lap, before oiling it, just to see if the average buyer can take it out of the box and expect it to run. The Bichler runs, but not without emitting the familiar T-jet squeal of a system that needs a lube, fast. A quick dab of light oil on each chassis gap gets the car going, and soon the Jaguar is up to temperature and happily sliding around the Strat City test track. My first impression is that the car is somewhat loud, but this is no surprise, since I haven’t done much to it so far. The clackety-clack of the all brass gears chiming away, the XKE settles in for an initial lap time of 13.0 seconds on the 62 foot Tomy road course (operating at 20V DC, 2.5 amps). After lapping in the gears with a dab of white compound, the Bichler gets much quieter, and the lap times drop to 12.6 seconds, on the stock skinny tires. Still, I can hear the distinct groan of something binding under the hood. The Jag is hot lapping just fine, but the full T-jet power has yet to be maximized.

“Strange rubbing sound persisting,” I write in my notebook, after gently oiling the chassis a second time.

In box stock form, right down to the original tires, a Bauer Mercedes 300SL holds the production T-jet test track record at 11.4 seconds. As I run more and more laps with the Bichler, it is obvious that the XKE is not going to knock the Gullwing from its perch. In fact, the rubbing sound is getting louder, and the car is going slower. “More oil? Already? That can’t be,” I mutter to myself as I return the Jaguar to the pits. It promptly stalls, and soon it is obvious that I have over-oiled the car. After thoroughly cleaning out the interior with alcohol, wiping the brushes clean, and polishing the armature, it suddenly hits me… what if that sound was coming from the armature drive gear? Just because the idler gear was lubricated at the factory doesn’t mean the whole pancake assembly was oiled. A drop of oil under the gear does the trick, and as soon as I put the Jaguar back on the track, the strange rubbing sound disappears. Finally I can run the full battery of timing and skid pad tests.

First order of business is to establish a baseline with the stock car. The Jaguar looks stylish at speed, as it should. When in motion, the small imperfections of the paint job disappear, and the fluid lines of the XKE trace a majestic, feline figure around the esses and down the straight. This car is gorgeous! The design quirk of the large cabin over the rear wheels gives the Jag a tail-happy balance, requiring a slightly different technique to drive than a standard cab-center format. The tradeoff is that the Jaguar has excellent initial road grip, even with the stock skinny tires. The fastest laps require a slower corner entry, and smooth application of power at a slightly earlier than usual apex. Thusly driven, the Jaguar roars away from the turns at a brisk clip, and lap times eventually stabilized at 12.4 seconds.

For comparison, I kept the same chassis and tires, and swapped out the body with three different long wheelbase production models- a Camaro Z28 and Snake Eyes (Cobra) by Johnny Lightning, and a vintage Cigar Box Aurora Ferrari Dino. The Bichler resin body, weighing in at 5.1 grams, is a full gram heavier than the injection molded plastic comparison cars. While the top finishers in T-jet class racing often choose specialty resin-cast bodies, it should be noted that race prepared resin bodies have a significant amount of side skirts and aero-tweaked bumpers that lower the center of gravity. The XKE is not advertised as a race body, and the added weight of the resin is sufficiently high up on the body, especially in the cabin area, as to actually raise the center of gravity. Thus it came as no surprise to find that the three aforementioned plastic bodies lapped quicker. On stock tires, the Bichler Jaguar, at 12.4 seconds, trailed behind the Cobra (12.3), the Z28 (12.2), and the well-balanced Dino (12.0). To be sure that the difference was due to the body and not to the driving, I performed well over 200 laps with each car, stopping every fifteen laps or so to dremel the shoes and clean the tires.

Every track layout is different, so your actual results may vary.

With silicone tires mounted front and rear, the Jaguar picked up the pace. As the skid pad results will show, the difference between the body styles all but disappeared once good tires were added to the mix. On the same set of funky yellow Super Tires, the Jaguar equaled the Z28 and the Cobra with a best lap of 10.5 seconds. Only the Dino managed to better this time, clocking in at 10.3. For comparison, on the same layout, a well-broken-in short wheelbase Model Motoring Mustang convertible had a best time of 11.0 seconds in silicone tires, and an admittedly more powerful Johnny Lightning Tuff Ones Mustang hard top managed to run a 9.5 second scorcher.

On the Skid Pad

As a method of analyzing the effect that different body styles can have on a car, the skid pad test can sometimes be of use. The Strat City test track skid pad is a 3 ¾” radius circle powered by an MRC 15 volt DC@ 2.5 amp train supply. The voltage is continuously variable in 1/100ths of full power. Electricity to the rails is gradually increased until the car deslots, whereupon the tires and pickup shoes are cleaned, and the process is repeated. The average of three trials is recorded. On stock tires, the Bichler Jag tended to break loose slightly earlier than the plastic cars, perhaps due to the pronounced rear cabin. The Z28 posted the best score (.59), followed by the Dino (.57), the Cobra (.56), and the XKE (.55). Very small differences, for sure, but they do shed light on why the track lap times were so varied. Once the cars were fitted with the silicone tires, however, the skid pad painted a different picture. Overall results were much closer to each other. The Cobra (.58) topped the charts, but the rest of the cars were nearly identical to each other- Z28 (.55), XKE (.55), and Dino (.54). Why do the silicone scores appear equal to the stock tires scores? This surprising result is simply explained by the fact that the silicone tires provide more grip when cornering AND when accelerating. The skinny T-jet tires caused the cars to slip and slide as they searched for traction on their ride around the circle, so they were not able to gain as much speed as the silicone tires could. At the same voltage, the silicone-shod cars performed more rotations around the skid pad, at a higher rate of speed. Hence the difference in the two tests.

Summary

The question still remains- is a Bichler resin cast import worth the price of admission? In the case of the Jaguar XKE, the answer is a resounding, yes. While not the fastest T-jet on the market, or the most flawlessly detailed, the Bichler Jaguar has managed to pull off what other slot makers have not- a fine recreation of the British sports car spirit. Whether running solo down the straight, or bunched in a pack of vintage sports cars, the beautiful B.R.A. will sing to your soul, in an attractive and cheery fashion. The first class build quality and body fit are second to none, and the 1/64th scale-accurate E-type remains the only Jag on the market with the genuine proportions a NOS T-jet chassis deserves. So let me introduce to you, the one and only Billy Shears…

---Clark "Strat" Howell

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