Sunday June 12, 2005

NINCO LOLA 'Havoline' Toyota
By Shawn J. Smith

The newest round of CART/Champcar releases from NINCO are finally here and thanks to Model Rectifier Corporation we were sent one right away for review. I know many of you have been waiting for these latest versions to arrive so without wasting any more time let's get down to work!

Appearance:



My first thoughts? 'What a gorgeous finish'! Covered in a shiny gloss black this Havoline LOLA Toyota looks dressed to kill and man what a shine! I have to say that this good looking black car was difficult to get decent pictures of so hopefully my attempts to get some decent shots paid off.



Thankfully some well applied yellow, red and white sponsorship logos are present to help break up all the darkness. All of the graphics are crisp, colorful and show no signs of fade or areas of poor coverage. Once again NINCO has provided a wonderfully decorated car that looks equally as good sitting on a shelf as it does sitting on the track.



However, just like 1:1 black cars, this LOLA Toyota is tough to keep clean as I found myself continuously wiping off my finger-prints in between pictures. Black also has a way of showing any imperfection so something like dust in the finish is really tough to hide. My test car did have a trace of dust trapped near the nose section of the car but I'm willing to bet if this car were any other color I probably wouldn't have noticed it.



Touching on the styling of the NINCO LOLA Toyota we are treated to a new font wing design with the ends of the aerodynamics titling down slightly towards the track surface. As with most open-wheel style cars there is always a chance for these thin wings to be broken off during racing however this car managed to keep all of its parts in place after some really hard testing. This wing design is also different from earlier NINCO versions of this car offering fans of the Champcar series a new variation to enjoy.



While there isn't much in the way of color on the back of our LOLA Toyota the car does have a rather large wing standing tall over the rear of the car. This wing, just like the front wings, also seems to be very durable as it too withstood some decent whacks during testing. I managed to back it in to a guardrail on more than one occasion but as you can see it withstood everything I threw at it. Thankfully the rear most section of the chassis swoops up from under the car to form a grill-like molded rear end that ended up taking most of the direct hits. It also helps that the rear wing sits pretty high on the body and of course it has those beefy rear wheels to help protect it as well.



One of my more favorite features of this car has to be the working front steering. While some will no doubt dismiss this as another novelty I commend NINCO for keeping a unique added bit of realism in this guide controlled steering. We'll cover it more in the performance section below but as it also creates a cool look, with the front wheels actually steering right and left through the turns, I figured it was work mentioning in the 'Appearance' part of the review.





Performance:

Three screws help hold the upper shell of the body to the back 75% of the chassis. When you remove these three screws just remember that the front steering assembly will not come free with the rest of the chassis and as the guide is part of the front steering mechanism the motor wires won't allow the body and chassis to get very far apart from one another until you pop the steering free from the nose section.





In the picture above you should be able to make out the matching posts molded in just in front of the forward screw post. The steering box of the LOLA Toyota snaps in place here and will need to be unsnapped from these same posts to be separated from the body.



Ah... the NC-5! 20,000 RPMs of NINCO goodness wrapped in the tell-tale pink wrapper. Obviously if you are already a NINCO fan you are well aware of the speed the NC-5 can create. If you are looking at NINCO for the first time be prepared to have one open wheeled car with both a lot of quick braking as well as a lot of 'get up and go'! Making this NINCO LOLA Toyota even more potent is the 9-tooth brass pinion and 24-tooth crown gear that adds even more 'zip' to an already fast car.





Brass bushings can be found holding the rear axle in place under the car's gearing/transmission cover. While I took this cover off for the photos you shouldn't really have to ever remove this except to oil the inside side of these bushing.



Finding ourselves back to the topic of the steering I'll give you a better look as to how this works. A series of pivoting tie-rods and steering linkage are connected directly to the guide of the car and as the guide turns so does the front wheels. While not common to the majority of most RTR cars currently made there is some debate as to whether or not this working steering provides any real performance advantage over a car with a fixed solid front axle.

Besides the steering this design also allows for the entire assembly to pivot inside of the mounting posts. You can literally twist the front suspension in the opposite direction of the body, or in the case of running this car in to a banked corner, the front steering assembly is able to freely pivot and keep both front wheels planted firmly on any uneven sections of track.





So... how does it run? As I've already mentioned the car has no lack of power and the gearing makes it very quick to both accelerate and brake. What probably pleased me the most was how smooth the car was and how much down-force it seemed to have even though the famous NINCO round magnet is mounted almost perfectly mid-chassis. The car can slide the back end out, which is a common sight for NINCO cars running this set-up, but I found this car to keep the tail in line much easier than the majority of other NINCO cars I've tested. Give thanks to the magnet, the large rear slicks or the combination of both but there is little doubt that it works for this car and it was proven in the lap times.

Posting a best 'out of the box' lap of 9.412 on 118-feet of twisty road course I was more than pleased with the performance of this car. This is by far the quickest NINCO RTR I've tested yet and it instantly became a hit. The times run by this LOLA Toyota raised more than a couple of eyebrows at my local track night and everyone seemed impressed with the car's quickness and speed.

The Final Verdict:



All I can say it I'll have to get my hands on more of these. The NINCO LOLA Toyota is easily a winner in the looks department and also finishes strong in the running department as well. Yes the NC-5 and gearing of this Havoline LOLA Toyota might be a bit too much for some but once you get used to the cars power and handling I think most will be pleased with how this car runs.

With a matching red 'Target' version of this car being released at the same time you can instantly have a perfect pair of running mates to do battle. If you haven't picked up one of these before I would highly recommend you grab one soon.

 Special thanks go to MRC – Model Rectifier Corporation for providing the new NINCO 'Havoline' LOLA Toyota for review. As always, please feel free to email me with any comments or questions about this or any other review and I’ll be happy to answer any questions that I can. Happy slotting!