The Jagermeister Files... Fly BMW M1 DRT

Next on the Jagermeister Files, one of the great "mean machines", the BMW M1!

This is a model brought by Fly. At the first look, it is another great looking reproduction that this supplier has already got us used to. This machine was driven by Kurt Konig in the 1982 DRT Championship under the Gr.4 rules ("Deutsche Rennsport Trophae").

The usual orange looks from the sponsor fits the great M1 nicely:

This time I found a picture from the real car, and even featuring the driver (who even signed the photo!):

From what is possible to compare, it seems that the front round air inlets seem small on the Fly model. Also, the rear wing's side supports seem to be out of proportion when compared to the photo. The top of the wheel arches seem rounder on the real car, opposed to the flat cut look on the model. The sponsor logos seem to be all in place, in good justice to the real car. Overall, a very good reproduction by Fly.

Although I never track-tested this model, I did some races with the "Fly Racing" version and it is a great car to race. Although this regular version lacks motor pod and all the remaining evolutions, the bodywork and chassis should make for a competent racer, specially since this car has a sidewinder configuration.

New aquisitions - Jagermeister Porsche 935 K3 by Fly

Well, after some time away from any blogish activities, time to catch up with the writing... and to mark this occasion, I decided to show my most recent aquisition for the Jagermeister/Porsche ranks of my colection: the limited edition Fly Porsche 935 K3!This is also my very first item purchased in eBay. I registered my username on the very same day the auction ended! Frenetic last 3 hours, I must say. Even when I asked other eBay users to buy me some items, I always opted for the "Buy it now" guise, so I didn't knew quite much about bidding.

Gladly, all ended well, and so this pretty looking "mean machine" landed on my hands:

I can assure you there is no Jagermeister bottle inside :)

Tah-dah! I told you, no bottle...

This is the beast that the great John Fitzpatrick raced at the Spa round of the 1980 DRM, finishing 2nd, according to "Racing Sports Cars Archive" (see here). That was the year I was born, and at that time (1st June 1980), I was yet to be 2 months old! Here's the photo taken from the Archives, that also decorates the box from this car:
I'm not sure if it is a recurrence in all Jagermeister models from Fly, but the color on the model seems too saturated to match the real orange color. I think the color from the box does more justice to the real Jagermeister logo.

A quick look at the car details show that the model represents quite well the 935 K3, except for the metal-looking piece just under the main front air intake (seems like duct tape) that Fly missed... since this is a special and limited edition, I think they could have inserted it on their model.

As I mentioned above, I had to quickly register for eBay and grab this car. So , I kind of lost my head a bit with this car... well, I guess that it wasn't just me, even the poor driver lost his head too! Just check:

Fortunately, the helmet is not lost, it just dropped to the passenger's side... so if you are reading this, don't worry, Mr. Fitzpatrick! I'll get the head fixed as soon as I open this one... :)


Well, one more special boxed edition Jagermeister model to add to the collection... this is the 4th Porsche entering the shelve, to join its "cousins" 917/20, 934 and 956 KH. I'll leave you with some more pictures... see you soon!

The Jagermeister Files... Fly BMW M3 E30 DTM

Today I'll start another new section on this blog. This will also be the first topic about my collection of slot cars that belong to a unique theme.

Back in late 2007 I purchased two models that would be the "founding fathers" of my collection of Jagermeister decorated models. They were the Slot.It Porsche 956 KH and the Revell-Monogram BMW 320 Gr.5.

In this topic, I'll comment a bit on the only model that appears twice in my collection: the BMW E30 M3 that contested the DTM... but at the hands of two different drivers. Both of them are brought to us by Fly, a brand that has dedicated some attention towards Jagermeister decorated cars. No wonder it's the slot car brand that is most represented in my collection. These are the cars that I will talk about today:

Being two models that look really alike, I'm glad to see that Fly did not take the easy way around this, the "copy-paste" strategy. Although they share much in common, as one could expect since the models come from the same mould, there are subtle differences between them. I guess that Fly wanted a better looking approach to the 1992 model, which belongs to the "Bikers in Cars" series.

The 1988 model was driven by Mario Ketterer, which managed 2 points during the same season. The 1992 model was driven by Wayne Gardner, which contested both the Hockenheim (this model) and Nurburgring rounds of that season.

The basic differences between the models, when identical parts are concerned, is the different color scheme. The roll cages are painted in blue for the 1988 car, whereas the 1992 models features an all-orange look. Side rear-view mirrors are identical, but painted in black for the 1988 model, and orange again for the 1992 car. The placement of some Jagermeister logos is different, specially on the doors. Even the ones that are placed on the hood and roof seem to have subtle differences. The 1992 model's windscreen and rear window present the green stripe similar to the same green banner from the Jagermeister bottles. This is just the single detail that misses on the 1988 car.

So, what exactly is structurally different between these models?

Although a quite easy route, Fly featured each car with distinct wheels (I can't find photos of the real cars to confirm they are correct), as can be seen here:


Next stop: the rear wings. The 1988 model features a simple wing design, which seems to have been evolved to the looks on the rear wing on the1992 version:


Fly seems to have payed more attention to the detail of Wayne's helmet than on the looks of Ketterer:

So, here ends the first showing of my Jagermeister models. The BMW M3 E30 is one of my all-time BMW favorites indeed, that also contributed for the acquisition of this model "in double" - I wasn't that impressed about the 1992 M3 being part of the "Bikers in Cars" series, but it always sits well next to the other orange Jagermeister "cousins".

Until next time, for more Jagermeister Files...

More Slot Car Madness: A Fly Ferrari 512S Codalunga with HRS2 chassis...

Next on "Slot Car Madness", I present one of my longest running projects so far that is yet to be concluded. I'm really fond of Classic Cars, really. Specially the Le Mans legends, even the ones that failed to win. The Ferrari 512S "Codalunga" is one of my favorites: the looks on this car mix both the oddity and the need for speed. Plus, it's a Ferrari, a true prancing horse, no doubt.

A few months ago, when I visited a private club's track in Braga, I was almost knocked out from my feet when I saw for the first time a slot track with permanent scale lighting... I imagined the kind of races you could get there, specially since the track was built on the living room of an unused apartment: you can run "night races" even if the sun is at high noon!

So, the idea that popped into my head was re-enacting the great night racing from the Le Mans 24 Hours, but in old-fashion 60's or 70's cars! Every time I see the Steve McQueen's "Le Mans", the thing that strikes me on the night scenes, is that you can't see anything else apart from the headlights that seem to move on nowhere! I really admire those guys that had to do the full 5km Hunadieres straight without seeing anything that was a couple of inches away from their own noses...

Luckily for slot car enthusiasts, many slot car brands have dedicated some of their efforts to bring us those kind of legends. I saw the Fly's Ferrari 512S Codalunga "#5 1970 Test Car" on sale with reduced price, so I decided to grab it. I knew some of the flaws of this car, so I decided for something not too common with classic slot cars: fitting it a HRS2 chassis.

As you can see, the project is still far from finished, but the chassis is already assembled. What took most of my dedicated time on this car was the fitting of the lights kit. I purchased some very affordable kits from Amoslot (www.amoslot.de), these are very simple to build if you have some basic notions on electronic components and soldering skills (they are sold with very easy to follow instructions, by the way).

Fitting some lights to this car proved more difficult than initially imagined. The huge headlights from the 512S are big enough to house a 5mm LED. The light kits come with 3mm LED, but I replaced with the bigger ones. Another of the striking features from the 512S are the small lights at the center, and I decided to light'em up too with some small LEDs (I don't know the type, it's the ones used on cell phones). As for the rear section, I was not willing to spoil the small rear lights, so I placed the red LED a bit to the inside, with some rubber insulation from electric cabling to limit the spreading of the light.

Here are the views from the front and rear:

And this is the messy look from the wiring under the body, with the detail on the front section:

Although I don't show on the photos, I can assure you that the lights are functional. I still have to decide a couple things on the mechanical side, so that I can solder the system onto the motor and it the track with this red beast...

So far I managed to convince some other enthusiast to build their own HRS-Classics, so that we can have enough ones for that special night race - the track only has 4 lanes, so we don't need many cars!

To finish another report on odd things in my world of slot cars, I present you the next project in line... not hard to guess what I will do from this:

Fly BMW 320i - "Liqui Moly" decoration (by me...)

To open a new feature on this blog, where I put some photos of free paint schemes, I decided to show you one of my very first paintings - my Fly BMW 320i. Why not starting by the very first one? Well, for some reasons:

- Firstly, it's nothing that great and I am quite embarrassed to show,
- Secondly, this is one of my oldest paint jobs that now resides on the shelves, having earned a more that welcome retirement from racing. So why not bringing it out of its retirement for a quick photo session?

I painted this car for the "Liqui Moly Championship" that took place late in 2008 and early this year. It was one of the most participated series, specially due to its unusual format. To start with, we had the sponsorship from Liqui Moly, which contributed with some nice gifts for every participant, plus merchandising prizes for the top 3 drivers. The low cost involved in racing these cars was also a key factor: for less than 20 €, one could buy the plain white bodywork and chassis from Fly: (the only cars that were allowed were the touring versions of the BMW 320i and Alfa Romeo 156). This series took place in two separate tracks, with an unofficial exhibition race at a local Tuning Show - this too helped raising local drivers wish to take part in the series.

Mechanically-wise, the power unit should be the Ninco NC-5 motor with fixed gear ratio of 9:27, plus mandatory Ninco rear tires (any reference). This made for some close racing, with lots of duels taking place at once, discussing every small fraction of inch while braking, exploring curve speeds to the limit... I think you can get the picture.

Another strange thing about this series, was that some racers took more time painting their cars than actually preparing them to race! That's what you get by choosing models that are sold plain white! So that you can get the idea, here's a sample of the colorful "paddock" at the end of the 1st official race:

Mine is the 2nd from the left on the middle row...

As you can see, every car shows Liqui Moly stickers, as part of the requirements from the sponsor (which we gladly agree...). Here I present the looks on the car, taken specially from its retirement at my shelves for some photos:

As you can see, the car has an asymmetric paint scheme, being white and red at the front and right side, whereas the rear and left side are white and blue. This creates a strange effect: you actually have the feeling that the car changes color while taking on the track, according to the angle it turns to the viewer's eye...

This car ended up 5th in the Liqui Moly Championship. It did a couple extra races on the Touring Series and ended up on a 6 Hours Endurance race for Touring Cars. One of my most raced models and the one that raced on more tracks: a total 5 different tracks! Now, a quiet retired model, standing alongside many other good-looking models at my shelve...


So, to conclude this post, some more pictures of this car's past:

The full driver's grid for the first race - the unofficial exhibition race held at a Tuning Show event turned out a hit among the drivers, with a record number of starters - 15...

The car standing in 2nd place at the starting grid for the 2nd heat of 4 in total at the exhibition race - it would end up winning this heat and finishing 8th overall from 15 drivers

The starting grid for the last race - the 6 Hours Touring Car Endurance. It started last, and finished last...

The Slot Car Madness Ongoing projects...

Well, I do write a bit about posting some slot car madness in this blog... but so far, where is it?

Time to show you one of my ongoing projects in that section. You know that old saying, "the bigger, the better"? Well, here's something big:


The great Fly / GB Track Mercedes truck! This one is not actually mine. Another "aficionado" owned this one and another of its "cousins". This model in particular was in quite bad shape: one of the front screw holes that lock the chassis into the body is broken, the bodywork comes in several pieces... plus it's in stock configuration.

So far, work has been carried out repairing the bodywork, but the screw hole is still a problem to solve. Chassis has been trimmed in some sections, to make way for some "small enough" foam tires - the bottom not sits really low on track. Power for these kind of beasts should be plenty: so now I've fitted the Spirit SxXx motor!

So far, track tests prove this car is a headache to set... but as more progress come in, I'll show you the final outcome. Until then, "stay tuned"...