So you're all grown up now. You've got a full time job, maybe a wife, maybe even a kid... is a hot car is a thing of the past for you? Well with Carrera's Fast & Furious set you can relive all those nights racing light-to-light downtown.
The set is, of course, a movie tie-in product. I haven't seen the movie but that doesn't matter, this set has appeal that extends beyond a "quickly to DVD" movie. I decided to see if I could squeeze in a bit of racing one night after my son went to bed, so I grabbed the box and took the set up to the living room.......for a little night racing.
9:15 EST-Danbury, Connecticut (USA, in case there was any confusion with another Danbury)...the track box opens on my new Fast & Furious set from Carrera USA.9:16 EST-I scratch my head and figure I better find the directions to get this track together, race, and put away before I have to get some shut eye.
9:35 EST-getting the hang of the track clips, they hold the track together very, very tightly and snap in with a nice "positive" click.
10:04 EST-racing...one thing comes to mind immediately...I need to buy more track, lots more track. The Fast & Furious set comes with 17.39' of track. The cars fly around the track at a blinding pace and I wish I could turn the voltage down from the stock 14.8 volts.
10:15 EST...holy crap I'm dizzy... the cars whirl around at a blistering pace....man I need more track...
1:something....time to take the track apart and get some sleep.
Now if you'll take a look at the photos you'll see that I didn't pay attention to the warning on page 5 of the English version of the instructions which says," Note: Carpeting is not a suitable foundation on which to build the track because of static charging, formation of fluff and ready inflammability." Hmmm... I'll take my chances this evening.
The cars that come with the set are a green Mustang (reviewed a few months ago here on Slot Car News), and a flat grey/black Nissan 350 Z.
The Mustang:
The car has excellent lights, nice proportions, and is very smooth and fast on this set.
The Nissan 350Z:
Also it's bottle-fed! But since it's a very tiny bottle don't expect much boost out...
A small nitrous oxide bottle is front and center (or is it rear and center?) in the back window of the car, a really cool touch. The printing on this bottle, and the rest of the car BTW, is very, very nicely done.The wheels on this car are nicely molded and look good with the body.
As has been noted on a few threads in the slot car community, this car is large, very large. I don't pretend to be a Nissan expert and while I don't actually own a set of calipers, even a cursory look at this car can tell you that it's...um, large. Having said that, does this mean you can't have fun with this car, does this mean anything to the average racer, hell no. I like the shape of the car, I like the aggresive, powerful look of the car.
And I want to applaud Carrera for doing something very right with this car... the driver is entirely appropriate!
The guy looks like someone that would drive this car. Short sleeved shirt and two hands firmly gripping the steering wheel with a look of terror on his face, probably hoping to not lose his pink-slip in a light-to-light drag.Well, what can you say? The set is cool, and a great place to start for the young racer in your life...or maybe even YOU! These sets can be a great starting place to introduce a new generation to slotting, I hope the word gets out about these sets.
Thanks to Carrera USA without whom this and many other reviews would not be possible.
Dave K
Publisher, Slot Car News
