New Car - The Elva

 Thunderslot McLaren ELVA Mk1 - Can Am #2 - Riverside 200 Miles - Bruce McLaren

I've gotten a lot of cars lately. Some very fast, very impressive cars. And then I got this. It's easy to blame a car right out of the box on all your troubles, but it doesn't really amount to much when you end up getting it tuned and running great. That feeling when you buy an 80 dollar slot car and put it on the track and it chatters, or squeaks, or otherwise sounds like it needs TLC before putting its dainty self back on the tarmac is a bit of a strange one. You want cars to run like lightning and blow you away so badly that you're sometimes left with that empty feeling [until you get under the hood and get it running right]. 

I took the Elva out of the box, did a standard lube/oil job, bearings, gears, checked all the screws, sanded the treading down a bit on the tires [they're sooo sticky], and away we went. Now ever since I've been doing this blog here, I've always posted about new cars and my first impressions when driving them. This will be no different. 

It has been very cold up in the attic, but that hasn't stopped me from running laps until I'm uncomfortable. It has an effect on the cars and track, especially when things are hovering around freezing, like they are now. I'm triple-layered up there in order to do this fantastic hobby. 

At first when I started running the Elva, I thought that maybe my throttle had stuck, or maybe the car had a secret magnet I didn't know about, but everything checked out. This car was just going lightning fast and sticking to the track. I wasn't sure what I was looking at, so I grabbed the Gulf 917 and ran it for a bit. It was fast, so I pushed it to see how fast. Then I put the Elva back on and there was just no comparison. I could feel the difference between the two cars' lap times without even taking them down. This car is insanely fast. 

Outside it's beautiful. Maybe not exactly to scale, but I forgave it in about one second after seeing it. The color is what I would call ketchup red. Red with a little bit of an orange hue to it. The details on the car are much better than I saw in pictures, especially for a race car. The more serious race cars always seem to skimp on the detail first. But this car looks great from every angle. No skimping.

A word of warning for anyone reading this: if you prefer to run with magnets, you'll need to order one when you buy the car. They come with NO MAGNETS. It comes with a few spots for magnets, but it doesn't come with any. Good on ya, Thunderslot. Save the magnets.

It has a 21k sidewinder motor slightly angled, aluminum rear wheels and a really interesting guide flag that has some of its bottom carved out and a very aggressive front angled blade. The chassis is very nicely designed and assembled, and everything is within easy reach. Bonus points for including all the necessary screws for setting up the ride height. Nice to buy a car and not have to buy something else right away. 

The pod is not of your average rectangular shape. It's different. First, it takes up a lot of floor area of the chassis compared to other brands. Seems to me the larger the pod, the more fine-adjustable it is. This one responds really well to 1/4 turn or 1/2 turn screw adjustments and various pod/body float setups. I've been tweaking the heck out of this thing since I got it and it's really responsive to what I'm doing. Every setup has something in common; unbelievable speed. It's checks all the boxes for what makes a great race car; lightweight, low profile, wide stance, responsive, and it simply NEVER comes off the track! It goes where other cars can't. You're driving it and thinking that any second now this car is going to bail and crash into a million pieces, but it doesn't even flinch. You haven't gotten any of your other cars up to speed like this, so it feels a little out of your comfort zone to continue pushing, but you do. And it keeps giving. 

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It's been a week since I wrote that last bit. Every time I got up to the attic I run that car. I gotta say, I can't find a single thing wrong about it. It is fantastic in every way. Such a smooth ride and so insanely fast. It's outrunning everything I have. It's not going to be my last Thunderslot car.