Carrera Classics - Cheetah & Cobra

[lotuscortina]

Hello,have ordered the white cobra ,looking forward to recieving it,paul's mod's look very good and may consider
doing the same.might remove the front overider's and lamp's on mine though.
Regard's Nige

[dreinecke]

Thanks to Carrera showing how great they are in my other thread, I'm going to repay them and pick all 4 cars up. They definitely deserve SCOTY of the year.

[Fast Co.]

Just received the two Cheetahs and the white 289 Cobra, and yes, these are sweet. I haven't run them yet 'cause my track is undergoing some landscape work. Funny, I've been waiting for years (almost a decade) for the MRRC Cheetahs to arrive and imo Carrera plays a trump card. It will be interesting to see how the two compare on track but I've got to say the Carrera is the better looking car - and at almost half the price!

[Florida_Slotter]

[HomeRacingWorld]

This is great feedback guys. Just good reading for anyone, new or veteran.

I just had a box come in...WOW is all I will say for now :)

[Fast Co.]

I had the red Bill Thomas Cheetah and the white Cobra 289 hardtop on my routed mdf track yesterday and both cars are fast. Straight out of the box the Cheetah is a bit twitchy but controllable. There's some chatter and hop in the turns. I think the front wheels and tires need some truing and maybe the nose could be planted a bit better. The Cobra is a little rocket on my 20'+ front straight. Both cars have better braking and acceleration than what I have come to expect from Carrera - maybe because they are smaller and lighter in weight.

Our gang is working on regulations for a '60s sports car class that would include these cars as well as others from Ninco, MRRC, Monogram, Scaley and SCX and make them competitive with one another so until the regs are finalized I will hold off on any modifications other than basic tuning.

Here's a photo I shot of the red Bill Thomas Cheetah atop the Corskscrew at the Monterey Historics at Laguna Seca in 1998:



And here's a pic of the Carrera model descending the Corkscrew at Laguna Trace:



Steve

[FootScoot]

Just got the red Cobra 289 at my LHS. This is one neat looking car. Harry you know I won't leave it as is. I just need to figure out what to do with it. :lol:

[HomeRacingWorld]

Great shots Steve, that is very cool. Thanks for posting those.

I would expect nothing less from you. I look forward in see what "The Mini Model Master" comes up with :)

[SuperSlab]

I am hard pressed to think of better slot value for money than my recently acquired Carrera Cheetah! This derives from both the tremendous price (30-odd dollars) and what has turned out to be a great little slot car.

I got my red #8 a couple weeks ago. On the track I run on (Luf's Targa for those that know it), urethanes are a must and we pretty much exclusively use Luf's own "home brewed" tyres. Initially I thought I would get him to make me up a set of tyres so I took him the original tyres to use for making moulds.

BTW: in initially disassembling the car, I was struck by how many screws they use in the car: a total of 15!!! No wonder their cars are heavy: the screws they supply weigh more than the complete body of some other cars! Have they screwed up on this one?

The following Friday I took the car to the track but Luf had not had the time to do up the new tyres. Being the impatient type, I just temporarily put some F1 size tyres on the wheels: given the high rib on the Carrera wheels this resulted in a highly "crowned" look to the tyres with a ridiculous 2-3mm contact strip down the middle only! While this was obviously far from perfect and caused some handling and "bouncing" issues, it was still surprisingly stable in spite of this. Based on that experience I decided that, rather have Luf make some unique tyres that would not be in great demand, I would rather just grind down the rib on the wheel and use stretched F1 tyres, suitably glued and trued.

BTW: at that time I also ran Luf's MRRC car and I must tell you I prefer the Carrera: just smoother and more solid (duh! Its a Carrera: what was I thinking!) and even with the oddball tyres I could still turn a faster lap with my Carrera than with his MRRC. At this stage the Carrera was doing around a 9.3 - 9.4 second lap: not bad given the Heath Robinson nature of the preparation of the Carrera...

For the final preparation I decided to remove the reversing switch and attendant wires and circuit board, replace the guide with a B-Nova fitting, get the wheels and tyres sorted out, lower the body a smidgen and do general blueprinting. I also left out the rear body screw and ground down the "cups" on the body mountings on the chassis and opened up the screw holes for some body movement. Once I started the work I decided to forgo the lowering: it looked fine as-is and lowering would have presented some headaches. And by the way: one word of warning: if you turn down the rib on the wheels be careful: it is a two part wheel that reverts to its constituent parts when you turn the rib down a touch too far. Don't ask me how I know.... The problem is easliy remedied with some superglue but it is less fuss and bother if avoided in the first place...

So I ran the newly prepped Cheetah last night for the first time with the work as described above. What a lovely, lovely little car! It is an absolute treat: smooth, quiet, corners like it is on rails but not unexpectedly tips over when pushed beyond its (rather impressive!) cornering limits. It ultimately turned a best lap of 8.603 seconds. A whole >0.7 second improvement with minimal work: just shows you what is possible with just decent preparation. For perspective: in looking down my list this lap time is similar to that achieved by well running Scaley TransAms, a Fly BMW M1 and a tweaked Revell Monogram Lola T70. Pretty impressive for the unusual dimensions and lack of performance credentials for this little car I thought!

Verdict: Of the best 30-odd dollars one can spend on a slot car IMHO.

[Bub]

Are these new Cheetahs in black #14 and orange #8 the same as others I've seen in silver, lime etc ? Hard to tell what are the latest releases...
In any event they are a bit hard to find :)

[Bub]

Oops, I was thinking 1/24, sorry about that!

[Ember]

Cobra for me courtesy of the Fairy Slot Father (a friend on distant shores).


Lovely looking car. Unfortunately for me, I'm going to have to do some work on the guide, even with the replacement red "Scaley" guide in place, for it to be happy on my little track. I've also got to look at replacement tyres, because the Carrera ones are like plastic on the painted Scaley track. Quite looking forward to spending some quality time with this little car.

[HomeRacingWorld]

B-Nova + Paul Gage=Happy Cobra :)

[Ember]

BRM guide blade is apparently a straight swap. Simpler and cheaper than the B-Nova option if it works out to be the case. Paul Gage tyres are a possibility though. Been wanting to test some to see how they compare with local MJKs and my special supply of Fabios.

[HomeRacingWorld]

Well, I am thinking that any tire would change things for you. So your local brand would be great I am sure.

Swapping the blade is ok, but just trimming the existing one is even cheaper and easier. Use a sanding barrel in your Dremel and contour it to fit. Have done many that way.