Cars came about 1/2 an hour ago. Upon first inspection, the Corvette is easily the best-looking car of the set.
http://image24.webshots.com/665/9/80/84/2478980840031825438ophdaP_ph.jpg
It hides the chassis very nicely, looks very good (BTW the blue windows look cool on all the cars). I look at the silver Corvette and instantly start thinking of a Back To The Future remake.

The Vipers are nice, but the bodies have that warped, tailpipes-between-the-legs look (ala Chevelle and Charger stockers), which may translate into an excellent handling body. The blue Viper has smoked windows. They also sit nice and low on the chassis. http://image60.webshots.com/660/6/5/29/2333605290031825438uvcEis_ph.jpg

The Nomads are a little souped-up in the rear, but anyone who wanted a Sunburst Nomad, and not pay over $100 for one will like these. My orange/yellow one has blue windows, and the red/white Nomad has smoked windows. And best of all, these AW Nomads ( http://image55.webshots.com/55/1/41/84/2479141840031825438oQGHfG_ph.jpg ) have subtle differences from the vintage SB Nomads ( http://image24.webshots.com/665/2/31/54/2520231540031825438rSiAlR_ph.jpg ): the side stripes are more curvy than the AFX counterparts, and the stripe that touches the flare (silver trim) is thinner.
Overall, they're cool.

The Chargers hide the chassis like the Corvettes and Vipers, but it looks compacted, and from first glance looks like a Mustang. http://image50.webshots.com/650/3/59/69/2338359690031825438RjhNpi_ph.jpg Very Zipzap-esque.

The Firebirds' are unchanged from earlier versions, http://image24.webshots.com/665/3/38/95/2340338950031825438MInVrF_ph.jpg - a little high on the chassis. The red ones come without the phoenix on the hood. http://image60.webshots.com/760/3/9/71/2002309710031825438bQcIwo_ph.jpg A different look.

The Jeep have the 4x4 stance, but needs a little more material to hide the chassis......its only downside. The black jeep is the Golden Eagle variation. Looks good.
http://image55.webshots.com/55/9/24/6/2661924060031825438ndSUgK_ph.jpg
http://image50.webshots.com/650/4/66/70/2586466700031825438nhVaiK_ph.jpg

Overall, the set is pretty good. I have 1/2 blue windows - 1/2 smoked windows. Again, the Corvettes are the class of this set.

P.S. Having problems uploading to HT photos, so here's a link to look at the cars:
http://community.webshots.com/user/dlw950lam

Look in the Afx Cars album

Pictures please :) - Those links don't work?

Get this message from your links.
The website declined to show this webpage


rr

I have a preorder on its way. I jumped the gun early since I want the Jeeps for sure, possibly one of the nomads, and probably the blue viper and yellow vette. The rest I can hawk on the 'bay and recoup a fair price.

I think the Jeeps should sit high on the chassis, personally. Its a 4x4, and it should have the right stance. They just need to work out some tall/wide tires all the way around right from AW, although Ive been doing it myself.

The charger is gonna look like a zip zap, nothing you can do about that when you consider the long proportions of the actual car, and the relatively short wheelbase of the XT chassis. Look at the Monaco cop cars from the dukes release, same thing going on. I think considering what they have to work with, AW did a good job.

Yeah, Roadrnr...........Something going on with Java. Try the link at the bottom of the first post above and look at the last pages of the 'Afx Cars' album.

What in the world is that thing on the back of that vette. Looks like a surf board.

I just got my set and I'm mostly impressed. I like the stance of the Vipers especially but all the bodies are tucked pretty low. The red Viper with the windshield sticker looks especially mean. I like the details on the Jeeps and Corvettes. The Nomads are very sharp looking -- nice paint jobs.

There were some minor disappointments. A couple of the cars had some small paint scuffs on the side. One of the Chargers' rear tires slightly rubs the fender.

I didn't run any of them yet. It was a beautiful night for softball and some post game ice cream. Maybe tomorrow night I'll get these on the track.

Too bad they don't sell just the bodies.We just throw the rest away
and put them on G3s.

What about the iwheels & the FirstLap's. Does anyone collect those or am I one of the few that usually buys those. I've always liked the iwheels/white lightnings and to date I have most of them except the dukes set which I was now considering trying to start to collect. I wasn't much of a fan for those particular cars.

Thoughts?

Cheers,
Xence

Too bad they don't sell just the bodies.We just throw the rest away
and put them on G3s.

PM Sent

Tjettim, AW is also making the R6 cars on free-wheeling chassis. Check out Wheelzk and Motor City Toyz.

Xence, the First Laps go on sale at the AW site the 16th. Probably the same goes for the IWheels.

Too bad they don't sell just the bodies.We just throw the rest away
and put them on G3s.

I hope by 'throw away' you mean sell them, trade them, part them out, or at least give them to other slotters.

If theyre hitting the trash, then Ill be happy to give you my mailing address and cash for postage once you get a small box full of XT chassis.

Too bad they don't sell just the bodies.We just throw the rest away
and put them on G3s.

They do now :thumbsup:

I looked at pictures of themon ebey. The Vettes are the only ones I like. The Nomads look pretty good, but I dom't like the paint scheme. I think the Vipers look odd. The sides look too tall. They all look a bit clunky. I hope I like them better when I see them in person. Then again, if I don't, I'll save some money.

What in the world is that thing on the back of that vette. Looks like a surf board.

Looks big enough to be functional. nd

I looked at pictures of themon ebey. The Vettes are the only ones I like. The Nomads look pretty good, but I dom't like the paint scheme. I think the Vipers look odd. The sides look too tall. They all look a bit clunky. I hope I like them better when I see them in person. Then again, if I don't, I'll save some money.

Mine came in today and the vipers look good in person. The only odd thing about them is, these use the shortwheelbase front axle position while the vette and charger are long. Seriously, give them a chance.

Thing is, AW needs to get its act together in the wheel and tire dept. Ever since they reformulated them right around the 1st or 2nd release (after they used up the PM chassis) the tires have been getting more and more out of round. Say what you want about the JL X-Tractions but those tires were 99% in round back then. One of my jeeps even had a wobly front rim. Those are getting ditched in favor of the wide ones all around but thats besides the point. The material they make their tires from is real good stuff, sticky with good traction but not near the dust magnet factor of straight silicone.

I think about half the out of round problems could be cured by a better trim job to the flash on the insides of the tires. Its usually a 'rubber wart' in there thats the culprit but by the time we get the cars, the tires are already stretched into a lumpy shape.

The latest cars from Mattel have been the same way.
Only Tomy seems seems to make a decent HO car now.
The 'made in USA' specialty cars from BSRT,Wizzard,
and Slottech are actualy a better value in the long run.

The car I opened had out-of-round front rims, so I replaced them with NOS Afx front rims. The rear rims seem ok, but there are tree-nubs on them so I'll be sanding those off, which usually smoothes things out back there. Never had any problems with the tires. You novices out there who need help tuning you cars can search the Tune-up Tips section for tips on helping your cars run better.

BTW, the AW site does have the IWheels and First Laps listed for R6 (I ordered a set of 1st Laps), so get your order in.

Right there with ya dlw. Ordered my IWheels this morning. Once, I think it was you, said that today the 16th was the day I waited like a kid at christmas to order my set. $89/set with shipping in the US, I believe out of country was $5 more or so, don't remember exactly.

Cheers,
Xence

The latest cars from Mattel have been the same way.
Only Tomy seems seems to make a decent HO car now.
The 'made in USA' specialty cars from BSRT,Wizzard,
and Slottech are actualy a better value in the long run.

Mattel's tires have been lumpy for quite a while also. For about 6 years now. I think the material is similar to what AW is using. But from the looks of a few of the tires on the first flamethrower release, it looks like this material is compressed into the mold from softened beads or something like that, as opposed to cast in the mold from a liquid form. That could be the problemo.

I unpacked my R6s. Sigh... The bodies look very great and sit well on the chassis which is cool, but I'm finding as others have found that the tires are junk, especially the fronts. Fortunately I have a big stash of o-rings that work well. I also noticed the wheels are full chrome again, not the brushed and shaded look that they went to a few releases ago. Actually, some of mine are missing a little chrome in the cavity that should be black. Sigh... They also have prominent nubs from the molding process. Sigh... I also had to ream the front hub that's supposed to freewheel to get its independence restored. Sigh.... I also had to grind down a solder blob on one of the arm poles. Sigh.... Still too much free play in the axles. Sigh... I think this really hurts performance in the front because it causes the front tire to occasionally rub the body. The extra traction magnet does not seem to provide a whole lot of extra downforce, at least on Tomy track. That's okay I guess. I've only put one on the track so far and I was able to significantly improve its performance with some tuning, including new front tires. Sigh... With the original tires the car would pop out of the slot under acceleration because of the wobbly front tires.

Sigh...............

Update 1:

Unwrapped the silver Charger SRT. By the way, the wire-free packaging is a HUGE improvement.

The Charger runs great right out of the box. It had one bad front tire, so I salvaged the one good tire from the Viper and put it on the Charger. I like the look of the Charger but it's begging to be done up as a cop car.

Next I'll tune the Charger like I did the Viper and see how it does. Yeah, the front end is not working right (no indy) and it's not even close to fitting through a tech block in the rear, but it runs smooth and fast and the shoes are actually flat. Things are looking up.

I find this news to be quite dissapointing.

The yellow 'vette I bought is quick as heck but yeah, the front end hops up when I mash the gas and it goes boing, boing, boing down my 16' frontstretch.

But I'm encouraged at the fact that it is bloody quick straight out of the package.

(PS -- Did everyone else get jobbed out of the extra guide pin or was my car just missing it?)

I find this news to be quite dissapointing.

There's a lot of good to be had too.

I finished prepping the silver Charger SRT: reamed out the front wheel that wasn't free, put some o-rings on the front, scuffed the rear tires, set the rear track to a legal width, cleaned off all the butter and applied a lighter oil, cleaned the comm, adjusted the shoes, and wa-la, it's one of the smoothest magnatraction style cars I've ever driven. This is one sweet ride. Other than the boogered up front tires, this puppy came out of the package ready to rumble.

'Doba, its not you that got shanked out of the spare pin. I bought the whole case on pre-order from Wheelz, and none of them have it.

Most of mine were screamers out of the box too--those that I kept, anyway, rest are on the 'bay--but the yellow vette was a bit sluggish by comparison. Ran more like the old JL XTs I guess. I find that freeing these of those neo dots makes them a LOT faster. Those just put too much drag on the motor, sure they handle better but that could be just as much the horsepower loss as the downforce.

The third car out of the case was the red 57 Nomad. It's front end was working fine right out of the box. I was tempted just to leave it alone because it was pretty near as good as the silver Charger right from the start. I tuned it anyway and it's another great runner. The arms and gear mesh on these last two have been superb. I have not tried popping the neo out only because they run fine with it in. They still wiggle and waggle around quite a bit.

The fourth car out of the case was the silver 'Vette. Another strong runner. So far 3 out of 4 cars I've put on the track have been excellent runners.

Things are looking good.

Sounds like it will be free wheelers for me. I think its a great idea of AW to offer just bodies like this as that is their strong suit. Besides, I have more than enough chassis. Dave.

I just swapped the wheels on my yellow 'vette for 4 NOS satin finish AFX wheels. I kept the AW rear tires (they are OK) and put a set of NOS American Line AFX fronts on the car (the ones with 'Goodyear' raised into the sidewall). Now the car is probably my fastest Xtrac -- it just really hauls now that the front end is settled and the rears are hooking up good. :woohoo:

The Corvette I opened also had the front independant rims bound up on the front axle, just didn't mention it because I figured most knew about gentle reaming to free it up. Aside from that and its bad rims, it is fast.

For the neo-dots, Swamper Gene came up with a 'trick'............. Put the neo-dot to the traction magnet of a Tyco 440X2 (stock magnets). If the neo-dot is repelled, flip it over.....you'll get better downforce.

Also, my pickup shoes were pointing the wrong way out of the box. Which proves to me how the folks in China are just jamming them into position on the chassis.

P.S. I do miss the extra guide pins, as they do come in handy.

Yeah, so far the only irksome issue is the front tires on some of the cars are unusable. I've been o-ringing all of mine because even if they are acceptably round I don't like soft front tires. Even the original narrow AFX "Goodyear" fronts had a thin raised outer edge so Aurora understood that front tires on a slot car need to have as little grip as possible.

The QC on the gearplate, including how the pinion is placed on the arm shaft, the mesh between the topside gears, and gearplate fit into the lower chassis is excellent. I have not yet encountered any concave commutator plates so most of the arms are very lively. Looks like the extra guide pin was a casualty of the new packaging. Oh well, I have hundreds of spares to last me a long time and there's always the steel pin option.

We held an IROC race at my track this past Friday featuring these new AW mag chassis with the traction mag. No mods, just alittle tuning. The road coarse is kinda techinical, so we lapped 15 - 17 laps on a three minute heat. At the end of the race, the resulting lap counts were 58, 57, 56, 55, and 52. Two of the cars ran really well, the ones on the inside lanes. The outside lanes were kinda tough. I guess the 24v didnt help. Sorry, no broken fenders.

Rich

[QUOTE=AfxToo;2454301]Update 1:

I like the look of the Charger but it's begging to be done up as a cop car.

QUOTE]

Check Motor City Toyz' photo albums. He has a pic of a prototype of just that. Ill be on that like white on rice when its released.

Well now. That is a double edged sword.
Good for buyers, I have as many chassis now that I could need so I can save a few bucks.
Bad for sellers who have been able to move stock by breaking up the cars and selling the parts.....


Scott

Well now. That is a double edged sword.
Good for buyers, I have as many chassis now that I could need so I can save a few bucks.
Bad for sellers who have been able to move stock by breaking up the cars and selling the parts.....


Scott

I once sold an Original Starburst Nomad White/Red to a guy who
"Had to have it" for $250.
I have since gotten this same car in reproduction form with the "Free Wheeling Chassis" and have to say it looks every bit as good and even Brighter than the original.

I am not knocking the original or anyone who chooses to pay the price for them, I am just saying for me, I LOVE REPRO'S!!!

That said, I still have a Brown Nomad that I cherish, but if the price was right I would lose it.

They are ALL toys in the end to me and some of the ones that aren't for sale probably aren't worth squat to anyone but me, if that makes sense?
Anyway enjoying what I have and not what I don't.
Thanks,

Keith

I wish someone would repro some Tyco stuff. All the molds, pattens, rights to sell, market share, and Mattel hasn't done squat with it's hostile takeover of Tyco. Just a bunch of rolling eyeballs and figure eight movie tracks. It's a national disgrace.
Rich

go Tyco

I wish someone would repro some Tyco stuff. All the molds, pattens, rights to sell, market share, and Mattel hasn't done squat with it's hostile takeover of Tyco. Just a bunch of rolling eyeballs and figure eight movie tracks. It's a national disgrace.
Rich

go Tyco

same here!! i am a HUGE tyco fan!!! umm you should go and check hellonwheels8 (ebay) helen does alot of tyco repro's! good quality ! been buying from them for years!! give them a try!!

Wes

Helen and Bruce Gavins made some great stuff. I wish someone would put out FINISHED repos of Tyco bodies... Like Dash does... finished bodies with the option of buying unfinished kits.

Well Dan has said that Dash plans to repop some tyco stuff. He's re-working the HP-7 with a better pickup design and probably a few other tweeks. I havent had the chance to give his current stuff a try, since its mostly T-jet based which I dont touch unless its a gotta-have bodystyle like AW's dune buggies, amx's, or baja blazers. What he's made for AFX type chassis so far has been a re-do of what you can get from AW, and Ive got my 2 racing camaros and 1 55 chevy from them so I dont need more. But when his reinvented tyco stuff starts coming out, Ill be on that.

And VJ, youre right about both hellonwheels and bruce gavins. Both have (or HAD in the case of bruce) top notch quality for resin castings, very easy to work with.

What he's made for AFX type chassis so far has been a re-do of what you can get from AW, and Ive got my 2 racing camaros and 1 55 chevy

The Camaros we've done are T-Jet Camaros... The 55 Chevy is a style not available from AW.

The Camaros we've done are T-Jet Camaros... The 55 Chevy is a style not available from AW.

I thought some of those camaros were for the AFX and Xtraction? And I know some of your 55s were for T-jets too, but werent some of those for AFX and XT too?

Either way, Im not a huge fan of 50's cars to start with. Nomads are sweet, so Ive got a 57 and 55, and I thought AWs 55 looked pretty hot in that R1 release where the color was almos like AMCs big bad blue. It just came together real nice so it was a must have.

I thought some of those camaros were for the AFX and Xtraction?


No...

It looks like AutoWorld put their latest round bodies on a bit of a diet. The new version of the Viper is 3.85 grams, which is not too bad. The new Vette is 4.15 grams. The new Charger SRT8 is 4.52 grams compared to the F&F Charger at 5.71 grams. The Nomad is 4.53 grams and the Firebird is a bit of a tank at 4.90 grams. The Jeeps ... 5.84. But recall the F&F Mazda was seen as a halfway decent body and it weighed in at a massive 5.21 grams. Yeah, center of mass and front/rear bias matters too, but weight is weight.

Just for comparison, one of my all time favorite hard bodies is the Life-Like Porsche 911, which comes in at a mere 2.50 grams.

Just for comparison, one of my all time favorite hard bodies is the Life-Like Porsche 911, which comes in at a mere 2.50 grams.

Try out the LL/Rokar baja pickup. I know it doesnt look like a great racing body, but its low and light. It looks cooler with the brushguard and rollbar but you could scrap those to save a little also.