Sloter Opel Corsa - Review

For my very first review article, I decided to pick the recent release from Sloter, the Opel Corsa (some countries name it Vauxhall instead of Opel).

What made me purchase not one, but two Corsas? Well, sometimes you see promotions in shops, and when you see some cars so cheap, you might lose you head about them. The versions I purchased were the "Super White" and "Team Palmer" versions.

Here's the looks on the Super White model, still in stock guise:

From a first look at the car, we can say that Sloter did a great job capturing the looks on the Corsa. And even if those wheel arches seem too wide for this scale, "experts" have confirmed me that the car is in scale. I wonder how the real car looks like!

This model features the tradicional short can Mabuchi type motor from other Sloter models, but what's interesting is the motor pod. Sloter brings us a versatile motor pod, allowing sidewinder configuration for short can motors, whereas for Boxer type motors, and inline configuration is also possible using an acessory provided with the model itself.

The "black stripe" Mabuchi motor, standard for Sloter models.
























A closer look at the motor pod configuration. Removing the motor and the plastic insert on the standard pod and replacing it with the provided accessory allows fitting a boxer motor in inline configuration.

I did try to fit a Boxer motor in the car. What happened? Well, Sloter did a good job for interior detail but unfortunately the dimensions were designed for a sidewinder fit, only. Here's the problem I faced:

The chassis I tried to fit into the yellow car (Team Palmer), featuring Slot.It parts and an inline Boxer configuration.














The ill-fitting of the interior to the chassis.

Well, stuborn as I am, I NEEDED to put the car in inline configuration, so the only option was replacing the interior. I chosen the NSR rally interior for the Renault Clio, it fitted very well after some croping. Here's how it ended up:

Fitting of the NSR light interior to the Team Palmer Corsa.





































The great looking interior of the Opel Corsa, with some great detail - a cell phone and a spare wheel are present. The dashboard really resembles the Corsa road car.

Now the chassis fitted to the body. It will be hard to find a competition that would allow this kind of modifications to the car. Still, I have doubts that this car will be competitive in stock guise. Not only for the standard and underperforming motor (for non-magnet events), but also for the quality glitches. Wheels came loose quite easily, so I wouldn't be surprised to see one of them coasting around the track if you take the car out of the box and into the track.

So, my final conclusions? Missing the track test, what I can say is that this is a pretty looking model from Sloter. Corsa fans shall not be disapointed by this car. Performance-wise, I guess it's a car needing work to be competitive. Stock configuration may be good for magnetic racing, keep an eye out for the weak fit of the wheels to the axles.


I hope you enjoyed this review. Hope there will be many more to come. Also, track tests will follow...