Sunday January 06, 2008
 Carrera BMW Z4 'Presentation' Review By Shawn Smith Appearance:  As is standard we'll start off getting a closer look at the appearance of the Carrera Z4 and for this review the model will be the mostly white 'Presentation' model. My initial reaction to this car was highly favorable mostly because of its uniqueness in shape, after all there aren't many BMW Z4's being made, and simply because I could tell at first glance that Carrera did a really good job on this car.  Details look a little lacking on the nose of the Carrera Z4 although those that are there are nicely done. The grille section has chrome accented trim, the body is molded with what I assume are rivets and separately applied turn lamp indicators and headlight covers round out the action up front.  On the hood the Carrera Z4 has small painted hood pin details, a painted BMW emblem and molded in hood vents to add a bit more interest to the finished product.  Moving to the side the window gets a sliding vent treatment and more molded rivets around the window trim. Notice the flat black paint around the window and even the tiny little raised bump meant to be the door lock has a tiny spot of silver paint to make it stand out. Side view mirrors are painted with the same red and blue striping as the main body of the car and they feel very study and hopefully will take a couple good hits.  Inside the Carrera Z4 the driver is secured tighly inside of his high side 'Recaro' racing bucket seat and he's wrapped in a whole lot of roll-cage as can be seen through the back window of the car.  The back of the Z4 easily has the most detail of the car wearing a variety of vents and louvers, the painted trim of the exhaust pipe outlets and of course the GIANT rear wing mounted high and far off the back of the Z4's hatch.  To its credit that tall and large rear wing stood up fine during my testing of the car although only time will tell home much longer it will last. Certainly looks a bit fragile sitting up there but the mounts do feel secure when checked by hand. Just try to avoid sending it back-end first to the retaining walls. Also, just as a side note, you can get peak of the painted brakes through the wheel in this shot.   As is the case with most Carrera cars the Z4 comes equipped with nice bright Xenon effect blue-ish front LEDs. Bleed through of the lights is pretty much non-existent as the Carrera body is thick enough and the LED's are tucked in nicely once the body is in place.  Same goes with the rear red LEDs. Not terribly bright but they do the trick and look good. One wish would be to see companies like Carrera going the extra mile of making their tail lights function as working brake lights when you get off the gas but for now we'll be glad they even install lights for those who like to race with them.  Tires get decorated with Michelin badging and the rims themselves are a 14-spoke design that allow a good view of the brake rotors that are modeled within.  Overall fit and finish is pretty high with just a few tiny flaws found in the painting process of the red and blue accent striped. Still... a good effort all around and if you haven't seen it the complimenting blue RedBull version looks really good as well. Performance:  Down and dirty time! Not much in the way of new stuff for those familiar with the Carrera brand however for those new to us there are a couple of things worth pointing out. Obviously the car has quite a few screw locations however to remove the body you only need to worry about the two on either side of the guide and the two the farthest back on the chassis. Four other screws are there to help keep the two magnet holders secured in place and one other screw is keeping in the Carrera motor pod which is the section with the more narrow magnet.  Something I have always liked about Carrera cars is their feature of a reversing switch that allows you to run your cars in an opposing direction around your track with the simple flip of a switch. The switch has gotten smaller over time however and big hands will need to use the tip of a screw-driver or other tool to make the direction change.  Body now removed and wow what a mess this might look like. Wires going to the front lights, wires to the guide, more wires to the rear lights, the motor and one spare plug I assume would normally be plugged in to an LED for those digital racers.      Friend or foe Carrera's new guide has been the topic of much conversation and as we pointed out in our Audi and Porsche LMP Review they are considerably bigger than the guides Carrera had been using. In this smaller wheelbase car the guide didn't seem to be the issue it was in the much longer LMP cars although I'm still not thrilled with the limited amount of travel they display.  In the image above you can see that the Corvette, fitted with the smaller guide of yesterday, has a lot more slide room permitted by the guide than does the BMW Z4 fitted with the new larger version. Less 'save' room in a slide is what you should expect and if the car gets too far out of line in a corner you will find it popping out of the slot quickly. The good news is the car does just that, it pops out of the slot and comes to a stop, and thankfully didn't show any traits of flipping or tumbling once the guide stops have been hit. Could be all that weight...  The Carrera Z4 is no light-weight fighter tipping the scales at a healthy 100 grams. That Corvette compared with above? It steps on the scale to weigh in at only 96 grams, which is still a healthy weight, so the BMW weighs more even though it is a smaller car than the Corvette. Shockingly... the BMW I picked up for review seemed to laugh at everything that should have made it slower. As I said before the guide didn't seem to bother it and neither did the weight. The same black Corvette 'was' my track record holder for a Carrera sedan-type racer but this BMW Z4 quickly crushed the Corvette's best lap and then I realized the Corvette's best lap on my track was run wearing Indy Grips silicone tires. Huh? A smaller but heavier stock Z4, wearing stock rubber, ran a lap time faster than I clearly expected it to. I thought it was en error, so I ran it again, yet to my surprise the timer wasn't telling a lie. Not being able to just accept the results I knew Eric had recently bought the matching RedBull version of the car so having him over for a race I made a point to ask him to run his car and it didn't take more than the front straight to see something wasn't right. Sometimes you get the bad egg of the bunch yet it seems with my white Z4 I might have gotten the superhero of the bunch. Eric's blue Z4 found itself a good foot behind my test version before the end of my test track's fourteen foot straight and not only did the white car prove it had better top speeds it also seemed to have more magnet in the turns. Before one full lap was done we both stood there with a puzzled look watching the white blur power around. Weird for a car to be that much better than a comparable model... Eric's RedBull Z4 ran only .4 slower than the Corvette with Indy's for those curious. Not much of a fair fight and not sure why the white car is so good... The Final Verdict:  Carrera has been doing a really good job recently of making great looking cars with appeal and in my opinion this is just another example. The style might not be everyone's taste but it suits me fine and it will have a happy home with me. From a performance standpoint I couldn't have been more pleased with my testing results although it's unusual speed advantage over a car that should run identical means that I can't really run mine against Eric's if wanting closely matched racing. That is the puzzling part and I'm not sure if I should bother with trying to slow it down. For now I'll take it as it came and run it when by driving solo. Thanks to www.cincyslots.com for providing the Carrera Z4 'Presentation' and please visit the CincySlots.com website via the banner below. Also please visit the HRW/SCG Message Board to talk further about this and all other models of slot cars. Happy Slotting! Shawn Smith - SJSlots sjslots@hotmail.com Thanks Go To CINCYSLOTS For Sponsoring This Review!
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