Just got my 1st 2 examples, the blue/white Dodge Charger cop car, and the white over green VW Samba bus. I have a red Challenger, silver Camaro and a black/white Charger on their way. Here are my thoughts:

Charger:

First off, Ive never been a fan of what ChryCo has put out there as the Charger this time around. Yeah, my insane hatred of sedans is likely the culprit. But that being said, it makes one badass looking cop cruiser. I passed on the R6 versions of the car for just that reason, and it was worth the wait. AW does a good job of translating this car into the slot world. Yeah, the cop deco is a bit generic, but with the blue car and white doors, grille guard and multi color lite bar get the idea across very well even if the actual decos are to a minimum. The detailing on the head and tail lites is a nice touch too. This will make a nice car for 'The Man' to chase my red Challenger which is on its way right now. I was gonna just go for this one, but the EvilBay seller who sold me the camaro offered additional XTs at $12 shipped. So I had to add the black white version too, cant afford not to at that price.

Ive been hearing how the chassis from R7 are smooth and fast, moreso than previous releases. The guts from my Charger lived right up to these claims being a quick one. But, my biggest complaint with AW remains at the occasional lumpy tire. In this case, none of the 4 tires were as true as Id like to see. I was thinking the cop charger is yet another AW car that would benefit from the F&F type wheels, especially in all black on this one. The 5-spokes always look great but seem a but too 'muscle car' for a police cruiser.

Samba:

The other R7 car I scored was the VW Samba in white over dark green. The color combo looks real good and its about how you'd expect a '65 bus to be painted. Im still hoping AW will do a white over red VW bus since that's the must-have color combo, at least in my book. The dimensions and proportions are VERY similar to the VW buses made by Bad Dog which is based on the Matchbox casting. Unfortunately it doesnt have any real center windshield pillar just like the MB which isnt accurate for this bodystyle and is my only real complaint for this mold. Otherwise its a real nice body. The raised VW emblem, simulated ragtop and green pinstripe following over the lines of the white/green divide in the paint are nice touches. Its got plenty of detail to satisfy a guy who casually appreciates the T1 VW buses. Since I always remove the neo magnets on my Ultra G's the handling is hard to ignore on this since it handles just like a VW bus would: top heavy and tippy. I noticed that this has a headlite lens which points to a Flamethrower R2 in the future since there are plenty of other lens-equipped cars to have a full 6 car release at this point.

The chassis on this one ran strong but it has about the worst gear mesh Ive ever seen on an XT. Seems that the hole for the rearmost top gear is set just a LITTLE too far back, since the idler and rear gear mesh only by the tips of the teeth. Its just a bad plate and while it runs strong the gears wont last long.

Overall, while AW's cars arent perfect (but whose are, really?), they still represent a strong bang for the buck value and offer enough bodystyles that if you cant find several you like, let alone one then you just dont like cars!

Thanks for your evaluation, very helpful! Shame about the gear mesh!

Those lumpy tires can be traced to a little excess plastic on the rims, or the may be untrue. Hand spin the rim without the tire and you can see the imperfection.

Generally where Ive seen the lumpiness is a little excess rubber on the insides of the tires. AW is using some kind of compression technique to mold the rubber it seems like. But Ive seen some rims that were out of round too, its less a problem of excess plastic but they dont quite have the axle hole in there straight.

I picked up a VW bus (Yellow & White) and a Camaro (silver). I don't like the look of the Challenger (grille is all wrong). One of the cars ran great out of the box and the other had the same terrible gear mesh. I replaced the idler gear with an original AFX gear and it runs great now. The motors are strong...great arms and magnets. I think the scale of the bus is a little off. It is kind of large compared to other cars but overall a nice job.

Ive been hearing the scale issue with the bus. VW buses are pretty good size so I wouldnt say its that far off at all.

I got my Tor-Red Challenger today and I gotta say Im fairly dissapointed with the sculpt on this body.

The complaints Ive been hearing have centered on the front clip, but looking closely at the headlites/grille all it needs is some flat black. The real thing has black behind the headlites and around the grille and that would pretty much make it look right.

What Ive got a problem with is the side profile of the car. It sits too high on the chassis and the body itself is too tall. Overall it looks too square and chunky and I couldnt quite figure out why it didnt look right. But then I laid my finger along the bottom of the rocker panel, blocking about 1/8" of the lower part of the car out of view and if thats how it were, and lowered down about 1/16" or so it then looks right. Looking at the front clip, the lower valance is an add-on piece and Id say from the front clip back thats the exact amount of bodywork that this car didnt need. From the side, if that piece were gone then the front clip from the fenders forward looks dead on like it should. And if you notice, there are cut lines right up above the fenders. Seems that if these were where the tires actually sat in the fenders it would help a LOT.

This is a real shame, since Im a huge fan of Mopars in general and especially the new challenger. I was really looking forward to this one. ON the good side, the hood stripes look good and the color pretty much matches the 1:1 cars in the same shade. And this Challenger is yet another mold that points to another flamethrower release since it too has the headlite crystal. The chassis runs strong and it handles great--once I removed the neo dot it slides around like a champ. Like the other 2 R7 cars, AW did put a little too much mayo in the gears, even more than normal.

And a side note on the VW bus, I just now noticed its missing the center windshield pillar. Its not broken off, the sculpt just didnt ever have it. Even if the glass had a painted on white stripe, that wouldve been better than nothing at all, since the 2-piece windshield is part of the whole style of these vans. Strangely, AW did paint black framework around where the separate panes would be tho...

And got my black charger cop car and silver camaro today. Outside of the black as opposed to blue paint on the cop car, nothing much different from the first one but the chassis is WAY smooth running and fast on this one.

The AW seems to have done a better job translating the camaro to the XT chassis then they did with the challenger. Its still a little chunky, but thats to be expected when cramming it onto such a short wheelbase. I thought it was a little odd that this one didnt have the lite bar for a possible flamethrower version, since the Challenger did. It would seem that would be another way to pair these up. I noticed that the rear fenders are a little skewed on mine, the drivers side rear fender radiuses perfectly with the left rear wheel, but the right side seems that the opening was cut a little ahead of the centerline of the right rear wheel. It doesnt rub, but any more and it would. Overall though, AW captured the 5th gen camaro pretty well it looks like.