Carrera Muscle Car Showdown

We received a batch of muscle cars from Carrera to test out. I decided to see how they stack up on plastic and wood tracks, so I enlisted the help of my buddy Reckless Racer to put these cars through their paces. First, we ran them on his 75' Sport track. Later, the cars were raced on a 135' Ogilvie wood track with copper braid. We were interested to see how the cars ran with and without magnatraction.
The fastest on Sport tracke was the Fast and Furious Mustang. This car lapped our Sport test track in 7.35s. This Mustang features a new chassis which is different from the yellow Mustang in this test. It would be a good challenger against a Scalextric Mustang or Camaro. It lapped the Ogilvie wood track in 10.4s, or fourth fastest. The Mustang also features working headlights and taillights. The headlights are of the blueish "xenon" LED variety. There's some spill through the bodywork of this car, but the lights are certainly bright enough to drive the car in the dark with.

The second fastest-car on Sport was this black Dodge Charger with pimpin' spinner wheels. I have to admit that this car kinda grew on me. The red stripe across the rear flank of the car is a nice touch. This Charger lapped the Sport test track in 7.43s and was second-fastest on the Ogilvie at 9.9s. The long wheelbase made for a controllable car on the wood track.

Third fastest on the Sport track was the old-school Dodge Charger street car. I love the look of the wheels on this car as they're not too shiny. The yellow Charger lapped our mag track in 7.63s and was a respectable third on the Ogilvie track, lapping it in 10.0s.



Fourth fastest car on the mag track was the Plymouth Superbird, lapping it at 7.65 seconds. On the Ogilvie, this car was slowest with a lap time of 10.5 s. The top-heavy nature of the Carrera muscle cars made them difficult to push too hard in the curves. The rear wing is easily detachable on this model so it's not likely to get damaged if the car is raced.

Fifth fastest on the Sport track, but quickest around the Ogilvie was this Shelby Mustang. It lapped the mag track in 7.82s, almost half a second slower than the Fast and Furious Mustang. On the wood track it was half a second clear of the field lapping at 9.4s.

Slowest on the Sport, and second slowest on the Ogilvie, the pimpin' Pontiac GTO brought up the rear. The Goat managed 8.08s on the mag track and 10.4s on the wood. The metallic red paint on this car was beautiful and really set off the chrome.

All of these cars were very smooth runners right out of the box. They're geared for better braking than previous Carrera muscle car releases, and are certainly stuck down enough for those who like to race magnet cars. The stock motor had enough grunt to really get these cars motoring down the long straights of our test tracks. It was a lot of fun trading paint with Reckless Racer in order to establish our test times. The longer wheelbase cars could be made to step out on the Sport track when pushed hard.

If you're more likely to run these cars on a wood track then these are not a bad choice. All of the cars featured a very smooth drivetrain with concentric wheels, and grippy enough stock tires. I'm sure that with a bit of lead placement the tippy nature of these cars can be tamed for non-magnet racers. While the cars are heavy and certainly drive that way, it's what you'd expect from these classic examples of American iron.

Got Bling? (Carrera Old vs. New part deux)

One thing I was amazed by was, when you'd drive the cars fast around the track, the spinners would still spin like crazy when you'd come to a quick stop.

All the cars feature Carrera's doubled up brushes. And a good guide that doesn't wobble.

All the cars have the E200 motor, it's hard to read the printing on the motor unless you pop it out of the chassis, since the printing is on the bottom of the can. Also the motor is a really tight snap fit, a nice snug "hold" on the motor, I love it, no slop here at all.

The Chargers and the Plymouth has rear motors (inline of course) but the GTO has a front motor. Despite this difference I didn't notice much difference in handling on my wood track. We'll see what Dr. Vanski thinks when he gets to do some fast laps on a plastic track.

Nice tampo printing on the rear of the black Custom Charger. Not much in the way of tampo printing on these cars, but what there is looks great. The depth of the paint is obvious, it's not just a thin coat of paint. This is something that I'm, frankly, really impressed with. So many company's use a fairly thin coat of paint for very large (or small for that matter) areas of printing, not these cars
Now more wheels than you'll want to see I'm sure...



The Mustang's are interesting. The yellow Mustang (which I'm assuming is the older design) has a completely different chassis from the new green Fast & Furious Mustang. They both have different chassis, different positions for the reversing switch, and since the green Mustang is the only one with lights, very different "guts".

Of all the cars the green Mustang is the only one with lights. The lights that Carrera uses are very bright and nice maybe a bit on the "cool" side as far as color temperature goes, but I much prefer them to any other company's lights.

And no they don't shine down on the track, or through the plastic BTW. Very nice. While I was looking over the cars, I realized they all had different license plates. Sure, of course real cars would, but I wasn't expecting that Carrera would bother to make each have their own identity.








Tons of details to take in here I know.

So I took the cars for a serious spin on my wood track...now hold on, hold on. I know they're meant to be at home on plastic track with the magnets holding them firmly down. But they worked quite well on my track. The tires, despite feeling quite hard, stuck surprisingly well. Laps were respectable, especially given that these are street cars and not "racing" cars.
On another, but related topic, the cars had great "track feel". They are all quite heavy cars (which probably made them stick well), and all have a nice smooth personality. They all have freely spinning axles, all have no mechanical issues that I can find. And when you pick them up they feel good, meaning that they are nice and solid feeling. Some cars have a light, thin, un-solid (for lack of a better description) feel to them. Not these cars.

All of these cars would be great cars to let kids bang around. In fact my wife Karen and 16-month-old son Tyler drove these cars around the track when I was at work today (sure technically Ty was sitting on her lap...). She loved the green Mustang (sorry Van) and she was impressed with how well the cars all drove. She's driven some of my other cars but has never been "taken" with any of them, but these cars...she liked 'em! Not bad, the wifey seal of approval!

So what's the verdict? You just can't go wrong here. You have nice models of popular cars, at a reasonable price...what's not to like?

DaveK

Old School vs. New School?

Whether you like your muscle cars with or without spinners and chrome wheels, Carrera's newest releases have something for you. If you'll forgive the editorial here... Tuner's or in this case Carrera calls them "Custom" cars are appearing to be heading our way from most manufacturers. To appeal to a wide market most companies are going to release these cars, if the hobby is to grow there needs to be a more modern interpretation of the hotrod available for those that want to buy it. Now they may not appeal to everyone, and that's fine, there are more than enough traditional cars for sale, but these tuners are here to stay. And I'm happy that slot car companies are squarely aiming at a younger market than in the past.


This GTO has fantastic paint, custom spinners, and very low profile tires...a little cruisin' anyone?

I love the huge wing on the rear of this car, and the Plymouth tampo printing really is a great touch on this classic muscle car.

I'm pleased to report that all these cars free from the kind of defects that can drive away a first-time customer. No runs or flaws of any kind in the paint on any of the half-dozen cars sent to me by Carrera USA. In the coming days I'll take these cars out for a spin on the Carrera track at Bud's HO. But, I have to tell you, I'm not expecting any surprises here. Also these cars, or most of them anyway (we'll see which don't seem to fit into the box) will be forwarded to another member of the SCN editorial staff for review...

This initial review has been provided to Slot Car Illustrated as well as Home Racing World. It is the intention of SCN to provide boards with non-biased content for their use. Thanks to Carrera USA for providing the cars for review, without their help this review (the first new review on SCN) would not have been possible.

DaveK