AUTOArt recently released a trio of Mustang's, and in a break from their usual releases 2 of these are racers. The pair are liveried-up as the FR 500C Cammer 5.0 liter Grand Am Mustang's that ran in 2005.
The GrandAm cars lack the rear wing that the street car has. There's not much in the way of printing, obviously, on the street car except a small "GT" logo. The paint on the street car, just like the race cars, is superb.
All the Mustangs have nice chrome headlight bezels, it does take a bit of inspection to see but it's one of those things that really add to the experience of looking over these models.
Inside the cars we see the usual large can-drive motor held down tighly by a strap. The body is held on by 3 screws, 2 in back and one in the front. The wire loom for the lights is held in place on both sides of the interior and the circuit board is held down by small screws on the underside of the rear deck. And let me tell you, taking the interior out and putting the wires back in place isn't an easy task. Removing the wires isn't tough but getting them back "just so" takes patience. One the subject of the lights, they're as bright as you've come to expect from AUTOArt. The fronts seem to be a bit brighter than the rear lights. This maybe just the angle I viewed the rear lights from while the car was racing though.
The tampo printing isn't limited to the exterior of the car, on the window net there's a small Ford Racing logo, a nice detail that unless you're looking for it, you might miss it.
Further inspection of the interior shows lots of small wires painted on the floor and the driver has logos on his firesuit...very cool. And it's excellent to see the lack of the "Lady in pink" in the two race cars...she does make an appearance in the maroon street car.
The wheels don't have the center rib that most modern slot cars do. And there is a bit of flash on the wheels but that doesn't seem to affect the tires and performance. There is a bit more wobble to the wheels than I'd like to see but with some tire trueing much of that might clear up.
On the track, the wood track, the car handles well and accelerates quickly despite not having the benefit of magnets to hold it to the track. The tires do stick well enough to quickly get yourself into trouble because of the rather light braking effect of the motor...yes they don't have much in the way of brakes.
I did try to test this car on the Bay Bridge Carrera plastitrack, but because of the corkscrew at each end of the straights on my track the front of the car would lift off the track...so no tests so far on my own plastic track.
One thing that does continue to impress me is that the AUTOArt cars run well out of the box without having to do any real modifications. The gears on these and every other recent release for AUTOArt are smooth and mesh perfectly. The tires don't rub on the bodies and there's just nothing to keep either the casual racer or the hardcore slotter from buying these cars. The finish on these cars is perfect, and worthy of special note because so many car's have a finish that's not as good even though the cars cost twice the price. While I don't know for a fact that AUTOArt has made the recent changes due to suggestions from slotters, I do feel they continue to improve their products with each new release.
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