Taxi !!! (an update...)

In a previous entry on the "Slot car madness" section I presented you my project of turning a Revell's Mercedes 300 SE from the Argentinian Rally into a Portuguese taxi!

A long time has passed and progress on this project has been slow so far. So, here's a short update on how things went so far, something light to resume publishing on this blog...

The original bodywork paint was stripped with ethyl alcohol... I thought it would be an easy task, only to be wrong! The paintwork from Revell is very resistant to the alcohol I used, had a tough time stripping it and could only manage to sand paper it in several bursts, after long alcohol baths (2 or 3 days, sometimes...). Details like the race numbers and letters were quite easy to remove, at least.

I then applied grey primer from Tamiya and already painted the black sections. Here's the looks on it by now:

As you can see I covered the roof section before applying the black paint, otherwise I would have a tough time painting it green over glossy black. The plate in the rooftop was applied as a model, it's not final yet... will need some extra trimming and side lights, in order to look like this:

The choice of green will be tough... it's really a unusual tone, but guess that with some nice Emerald green from Citadel paint and some mixing of white, I may get this. Taxi badges have been ordered to a decal specialist (Pedro), and will surely bring up the looks on the final model. Then I will have to make a "civilian looking" interior for the model... and I also wish to set the driver with the arm over the sidewindow!

I really need to push on this one... it's a "non-racing" project, so it looses a bit on priority.

Stay tuned for more...

Slot Car Madness - The Revell Mercedes... Taxi!

After some absent time (my writing is being directed to somewhere else...), time to present you another ongoing project on Slot Car Madness. This is not a true Slot Car Madness project in itself, it's more of a "painting madness" project.

I recently purchased a Revell Mercedes 300 SE, rally version, a model I was looking for some time. Not that I want to race it... it's an idea that poped into my head soon as I saw this model on the shops.

This is a nice looking "car-bomber". The robust and powerful looks show exactly what this car was: a Mercedes. Revell did a nice work with this model, it's full of nice details. But I won't bet on the track capacities of this huge trucker... I'll show you why:

The tires are so narrow! If they are up to scale, I wonder how did these guys manage to race this 2-ton car with such a small patch of rubber underneath. One good thing that Revell did: place the motor right before the rear axle, instead of their usual choice for cars of this size (ahead).

Some more nice looking details:

Shame that the idea I told you about requires that I strip this car's paintwork. I kinda like this one, but the other choice was the grey Monte Carlo winner model - and there's no way I'm going to change the paintwork on a Monte Carlo winner !!!

This is what I want this car to look like afterwards:

Well, wish me luck... see you next time!

F1 Slot Car Madness - My SCX Arrows F1

F1 is still the motorsport category that I pay more attention, despite the ever-growing lack of interest that this series has suffered from the mid 90's forth. For me, we're talking about the fastest ever circuit-going pieces of machinery that one can lay eyes on... how about bringing them to slot cars as the fastest pieces of machinery too? Complicated? Maybe...


SCX has a regular line of F1 models. I found a 2002 Arrows F1 with discount, so I grabbed it. Why this Arrows? Well, since the team has ceased F1 activity in years, it's a way of driving a kind of "neutral" F1 team (neutral to me - neither disliked or favorite). This model features the wide F1 chassis type from SCX, which was in accordance to that year set of rules.

My first impressions from the car were not that positive. It was fun to drive in Ninco tracks, but for the longer Carrera, this car was painfully underpowered - the 15.000 rpm standard SCX F1 motor simply is out of place on a F1 model! It had to go! But this originated another problem: I browsed the SCX motor choices and the best was the Pro Turbo, but the electric contacts won't fit here - so, if one has to change them, why not changing everything, starting from the blade guide? This way, the options were in larger number...

So, starting from setting the blade guide, my choice was the Scaleauto "Universal Club Racing". I had to cut the end of the metal linings that used to contact with the standard guide, but I left some metal bits behind that point, so that the chassis wouldn't lose rigidity. Here's how it ended up:

Now, it's time to fit a motor. Looking at the options, RX-type motors performances were not very appealing to me, so I decided to fit short-can Mabuchi type motors, with the RX-fit accessories from Slot.It. I had a spare 25.000 rpm motor (yellow can) from the same producer, so I decided that it was a big enough "revver" for a F1 (well, some day I will upgrade it to the 29.000 rpm cousin - this is a F1, right?)

Fitting it was very easy, the Mabuchi-to-RX parts from Slot.It fit very well indeed. Now, it was the time to set the rear axle. I replaced all the parts for Slot.It material, as usual: hollow 54 mm axle, F1 rims and 24 teeth crown. The latest had to be trimmed on the back side, to fit under the bodywork - or the other option would be the 23 "sister". The motor axle is not long enough to reach the inside section of the crown, so I had to place a stopper for anglewinder cars. Here is the looks of the rear powertrain:

Grip is provided by the very trimmed Ninco F1 tires. So far they seem hard, but some more running (and oiling) will make them more able to withstand the grunt from this motor.

All this underside section fitted nicely to the bodywork, apart from the electric cables - there was simply no hole or space that allowed them to pass through the inside! The only option was cutting some plastic from the radiators and fitting them through the outside... This is how the chassis was trimmed:

Notice that not only the radiators were trimmed. The front triangular section suffered some cuts. Fitting this section to the chassis subframe and the bodywork, results in this:

And I admit, the visible wires make this a very odd-looking F1 - I used to joke about this: it's a special KERS system that needs wide section cabling! Here's another view:

I removed the front tires so that I could replace them with smaller diameter ones - but the fitting on the front rims is complicated, they use some strange dimensions, and most aftermarket front tires won't fit here. I am still looking for some that fit, but for the time being I run this car without tires - as it is so low, the rims already touch the track!

Taking it to the track, one can stop noticing some heads turning to see this orange rocket - while not the fastest thing around, it is amazing to see the incredible straight line speed one can extract from this motor! Acceleration is not that poor too, but cornering is still an issue to solve, as this car bottoms out quite a bit. I had to trim the underside of the chassis, since the screw hole for screwing this car to the display case was constantly hitting the track!

Even with that "plastic-on-plastic" noise from the front rims and the constant bumping on the track, it's a quite enjoyable ride if we consider it a F1 car - they never feel smooth to F1 drivers, do they?