by
Bruce Kraemer (Da Vols)
(Reproduced with Permission of the Author)
There are times when I just have to have a car right away - the Revell-Monogram Uniroyal Fun Cup Beetle is such a one for me from the first time it was introduced at the European slot car shows earlier this year. I happened to see it was released when perusing some of the shops across the pond...a quick check of shops here all showed an arrival of November so for the few extra dollars I have the pleasure of being the first on the block to take it for a spin.
I'll let the pictures tell most of the words...for my not-so-picky eyes it is nicely detailed with good paint and tampo printing. The interior is a tray-type which is fine with me as a full interior would've meant a front motor'd setup and I'm not that fond of that.
Nothing exciting under the body - the usual R-M motor geared 9:27 with the same play in the axles all around in the nylon bushings. The wheels and tires seem to be quite round and true as well. I did notice that there is a very slight gap between the body and chassis nearly all around that with just a little sanding would eliminate any binding for those that like their screws loose.
As you can see there's not much support for the all plastic rear wing...but that may not be too much of a problem as you'll read.
So how does it run, leaving as it came including its rather small magnet (but the rear tires sanded & trued) it was just okay. Does have good acceleration and braking, but not much fun in the turns on my mostly texture painted Artin layout with the magnet.
Artin has the least attraction of all plastic tracks to magnets and the one on the Beetle can be said to have too little and too much in the same breath. The car likes to drift in the turns, and with the weak downforce it starts off nicely, but once the magnet is no longer over the rails the drift becomes abrupt and off the car goes. Now, because it is sliding the off is not catastrophic . . . it simply tilts over - no barrel-rolling or the like, just plops itself on its side.
Enough with the magnet . . . a thin blade screwdriver pops it out quickly. Without it is much more fun to drive - it'll drift nicely and quite under control through the turns and, again, blow the turn it just plops over . . . so the minimal support for the rear wing may not be a problem as first glanced or feared.
I did try several variations of loose screws, but didn't see any gain so have left it just lightly tightened together.
So was it worth paying a sack full of Krystal cheeseburgers to get it here today . . . most definitely yes. For me it'll be raced against it's "white" version (which I'll wait for) so how it compares to other cars doesn't matter to me . . . all I know is that it is quite aptly named: FUN