Slot.It News 11/14/2007

There has been little truly “new” from our friends in Italy in recent months. All indications are that there will be some excitement from Galileo Engineering very soon.

Alfa Romeo 33/3

Slot.It first showed prototypes of this 1/32 RTR at the 2007 Nuremburg toy show in February. It was originally intended that the Slot.It model be representative of the 1971 Alfas which were only run at the shorter races on the European calendar, due to the Alfa Romeo factory team still being very much in shock following the tragic loss of Lucien Bianchi during the 1969 LeMans trials.

The Slot.It Alfa 33/3 is intended to be a companion to their recently released Ferrari 312PB since they competed in many of the same events.

I noticed that the Slot.It website no longer shows the #5 1971 Targa Florio winner on the “coming soon” page for the Alfa 33/3; however this is not unusual as Slot.It have done this with other models in the past.

It is very possible that the delay in release of this model may be due to updating it from the 1971 version to the 1972 version. The differences between the 1971 and 1972 versions were small, and the 1972 33/3 might be more appealing to some collectors. I personally would prefer the 1971 Targa winner but as they say, “we will see".

There is no announced release date for the Alfa Romeo 33/3, but it would appear that it will be on dealers shelves in March 2008.

Ferrari 312PB “Targa”

In following with the Targa Florio theme shown with the Alfa Romeo 33/3, Slot.It also plans a unique Ferrari 312PB Targa Florio 1972 “Twin Kit". This kit will include a replica of Ferrari’s 1972 Targa Florio winning car and the team “spare". Slot.It have noted the details of the Targa version of the Ferrari 312PB including replicating the bulge on the right side of the car that housed a spare tire as seen on the actual Ferrari.

The winning drivers of what would be the penultimate Targa Florio were Arturo “Little Art” Merzario and Italian rally champion Sandro Munari. Ferrari choosing local hero Munari as the second driver in their lone entry was an inspired move as the Targa Florio is run very much like a road rally, being held on public roads that wind through several small towns. This unique kit is expected to retail for $120 and be available in late November.

With this set and the Alfa Romeo 33/3, we can stage our own re-creation of the Targa Florio as seen in “The Speed Merchants"!

Announced (and featured on the box of the previously released Watkins Glen Ferrari 312PB Kits) is Ferrari’s 1972 Monza Winner piloted by Jacky Ickx and Clay Regazzoni. Once again, no release date has been given, but the kit is expected to be available in the first quarter of 2008.

Sauber Mercedes C9 “AEG”

The so called “Circuit Board” livery of Slot.It’s Sauber Mercedes C9 has been anticipated for more than a year. Originally scheduled to be a model of the #62 1000km Spa-Francorchamps winning high down-force version of the C9 (similar to CA06c), current product photographs show the livery being applied to the #62 low down-force version as run at LeMans in 1988 (similar to CA06b).

The problem with bringing this product to dealers is likely twofold;

Slot.It are reported to be in the process of revising the C9’s chassis to allow use of the angle-winder pod. Supposedly this also will affect the body tooling (motor clearance). The re-tool of the chassis and body is apparently taking more time than originally anticipated.

The second problem is that the Sauber Mercedes C9 never actually ran in the 1988 LeMans 24 hours race in this livery. During qualifying the Sauber Mercedes team experienced a series of unexplained tire failures with their Michelin radials. It was felt for safety’s sake that the team should withdraw rather than face the possibility of a similar tragedy to what befell the Mercedes team in the 1955 LeMans 24 hours where no less than 80 persons lost their lives (the official death toll has never been published) in a horrific accident.

It is easy to understand why Sauber Mercedes might be reluctant to allow Slot.It to produce a replica of a racing car that was considered to be a “failure”, so we may not yet have heard the last word on this release.

I sincerely hope that the final production model will be painted in Ultra Dark Blue rather than the Black as shown in the illustration above! Modelers have been arguing about the color of this car since the Hasegawa 1/24 C9 plastic model kits came out in the early 90’s. I’ve seen this car in real life- trust me, it’s BLUE.

Sauber Mercedes C9 “Silver Arrows”

Not yet announced but hinted at, is the 1989 LeMans winning Sauber Mercedes C9 driven by Jochen Mass / Manuel Reuter / Stanley Dickens. This version is to be released in special packaging as part of the “LeMans Winners Series". This product is not even listed on the Slot.It website so it is a good bet that it will not be available until the second half of 2008.

Many people have purchased the “Presentation” version of the C9 and applied decals available from Pattos to create the LeMans winning #63 car. The apparent value of this release being the special presentation box and being a part of the “Winners” series.

Trivia: There are many subtle differences between the 1989 LeMans Winning Sauber C9 “63″ and its stable mates “61″ (pole winner, and second place overall) and “62″. Especially noticeable is the different nose intake and exhaust ducting. The not so subtle difference is that #63 had an amber gel attached to the outboard left headlamp that the other two cars did not have. The only logical reason for this is so that the signaling crews could spot this car as it flashed by their station. It is interesting to note that the #63 car had two German drivers and NONE of the other team cars had a German driver. Engine supplier Mercedes-Benz is a German company…coincidence?

Lancia LC2/84 LeMans 1984

Slot.It has also had the Bob Wollek / Alessandro Nannini version of their LC2/84 from LeMans 1984 in their catalog for some time as stock number CA08C. It makes no sense to me why this has not yet been released as all that is really needed is a change of car number from #5 to #4 and a change to the lettering of the driver’s names.

This could be a matter of the Lancia chassis and body tooling needing an update to be compatible with the latest motor pods, but I would question why both the C9 and the LC2 chassis would be in the tooling shop at the same time.

Ferrari F40-GTE

As mentioned in a previous blog entry, Slot.It have announced a Ferrari F40-GTE kit for production in early 2008. Slot.It have said that the F40 will be a kit due to licensing restrictions from Ferrari and Mattel (who have the exclusive worldwide toy license for Ferrari products.

The first livery was to be the 1994 LeMans “Jolly Club” entry with “Totip” sponsorship; however the Slot.It website shows a different livery that has already been announced by Fly as scheduled to be produced as a limited edition RTR.

Some dealers have this incorrectly listed on their pre-order forms as car no. “2″, where in reality the “2″ and “1″ that appear in the car’s graphics are there as part of the livery for the Italian National Lottery game “Totip".

Trivia: The “Jolly Club” racing team of Novara Italy is well known to have been formed after a dinner with handshakes among four friends. Did you also know that the Italian word “Jolly” equates to the English word “Joker"? The Joker was chosen as the team mascot because it is the most versatile card in the deck and one that could be used effectively to play a winning hand.

McLaren F1 GTR

The McLaren F1 GTR “longtail” that competed in the LeMans 24 Hours GT1 class in 1997 sporting the BMW Racing colors and driven by JJ Lehto (Jyrki Järvilehto) / Steve Soper / Nelson Piquet is suffering the same delays as the above-mentioned Slot.It releases; having been announced for over 6 months but with no definite shipping date.

The previously released “Goodwood” and “White” F1 GTR’s are not decorated for racing, but a number of creative solutions such as Milan Tomasek’s fine decal sheets as shown below have been pressed to get the Slot.It McLaren F1 GTR onto the track.

The “Davidoff” livery is particularly interesting as the sponsor is a premium cigar company- and unlikely to allow a license for their logo on an RTR car in the future.

As previously mentioned, MTR32 now accepts PayPal to make purchases easier.

In summary there are a number of exciting products in the pipeline from Slot.It but few definite release dates. If everything promised by Slot.It reaches retailers in the first part of 2008, it will be brutal on our collective wallets to say the least!

Written by Vincent Vega