Saturday August 19, 2006

NEW ARTIN 1/43rd SCALE!

DEEGAN HEVY HITTERS

Artin is selling at Wal-Mart a series of cars and sets called “Deegan Hevy Hitters”. There are a total of 8 new cars and 2 new bikes as well as three different track sets. 

·      The name of the new cars and sets comes from Brian Deegan, an X-gamer and Motorcycle Free Stylist (See http://www.briandeegan.com for more info).  Brian has his own line of toys and clothing called “Hevy Hitters,” I guess Artin is trying to capitalize on this. These cars and set are (at least for now) exclusively sold at Wal-Mart. The picture below shows the two new Battery operated sets as well as the new AC powered set (bottom)

 

The Set

·      Let’s take a quick look at the set first, then we’ll take a detailed look at the new cars. Nothing new in terms of packaging, the traditional Artin cardboard box with graphics on top is still the way sets are packaged, one of the reason they are so cheap. Once you open the box, you see the traditional Artin packaging with plastic bags containing most of the parts, two controllers, a battery pack (batteries are not included), and an instruction leaflet.

·      Following the instructions is very easy and assembling the track should be done in less than 15 minutes even for first timers. The only thing to really watch here is that some 45-degree turns have a narrower slot than others. These must be used for the 180 vertical turn (at the top of the picture below) and are the explanation for the new pin shape on the cars (see more on this later).

·      The cars in this set are 4x4 trucks, which I would tend to believe, were made to look a bit like a Hummer. Whether or not Artin was successful is up to you!

·      Taking these cars on the track revealed a couple of issues. First the jump is very tough to negotiate, and my 6 year old got very frustrated with it. So I removed the half straight leading to the jump, lowered both sides of the jump and that solved it.

 

·      The other issue is a bit more difficult to solve as I think that the cars are too fast for the track and when driving it I could never be at full throttle, which is something that once again frustrated my little one. Note that this is with the 6V battery operated set.

 

The Cars

·      The new cars released by Artin under the Hevy Hitters brand are actually not all quite new. They are:

o    Two Nissan 350Z (same as 2 years ago)

o    Two Nissan Skyline

o    Two Mazda RX8

o    Two Mitsubishi Evo (same as 2 years ago)

o    Two “Hummer” trucks (found in the sets)

o    Two dirt bikes (found in the sets)

·      Whether or not they are new is almost irrelevant, as at $4 per car it is near impossible to go wrong. As can be seen, some cars (like the red Mazda RX8) have no window openings and just black paint while others (like the blue Nissan 350Z) have window openings in the body filled by a separate black plastic piece mounted inside the body.

·      The cars all come in two flavors: the “Anti-gravity Ground Effect” version and the “Race Car” version.

·      As can be seen in the pictures, the AGE version sports a blue plastic chassis while the Race Car version sports a more traditional black chassis. The blue chassis was found previously on some PowerPasser cars 2 years ago.

·      Both Chassis have two pin guides, one in the front, one in the back. This is designed to accommodate the drifter track pieces. But the shape of the pin is new (slimmer with a divot at the tip) and is designed to help the cars hold in the slots in the vertical turns of the new sets. The picture below shows the traditional Artin pin on the right, the PowerPasser pin in the middle, the new “Hevy Hitters” pin on the left. Note that all these cars seem to come PowerPasser ready as they all have the receptacle for the spring mounted pin installed inside.

·      Another key difference with the AGE cars is the new Rare Earth magnet, much stronger than the traditional Artin Magnet (right on the picture below). The Racecars have the traditional small magnet (middle), which is actually 2/3 of the larger magnet (left) found on most recent releases by Artin.

·      Opening the cars is still a snap; one screw in the front of the car and disengaging the chassis from the side tabs of the body does the trick. Looking inside, we find all the usual Artin stuff with two major differences. The blue AGE chassis has a second light (grain of wheat) towards the rear, but mostly the AGE car has a new/different motor. I was unable to find any data on this new motor despite the presence of some markings on them.

·      Taking the cars to the track is a bit of a mixed bag. The “Race Car” version (the black chassis with the traditional Artin 1/43 motor) is too fast for the new small set but still performs as usual on the 70 feet 1/43 Artin track at 7.5V. The “Antigravity Ground Effect” cars (the blue chassis with the new motor) feel dog slow on the big track but are perfect on the new small set as most of the track can then be taken at full throttle on the 6V battery pack.

 

·      However they look cool !!!

- Philippe 

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Thanks Go To SlotCarWorld & Artin North America For Sponsoring This Review!