Another year has passed and Scalextric have released their 2021 range already. Not bad when you consider the world has gone through a pandemic and the wheels of manufacturing still seem to be turning and keeping to schedule.
So what is in store for 2021 and what cars could we see at Slot Car Club? As per usual, we do not cover the whole range, but focus on the cars that will fit within our own race series at the club.
Firstly, BTCC is our main series that we are building year on year. We are lucky that there are some new BTCC cars to spend our pennies on.
Alongside the existing BMW E330i models of Andrew Jordan and Colin Turkington (2019), we are being treated to Colin’s 2020 Championship chasing car. The car looks great, although it is perhaps a shame that they did not use Tom Oliphants car instead, as it would have been the same livery, but would have given each driver from the team a 1/32 car. Obviously Colin is the star driver in the team so thats why we have another ‘Colin’ car.
Another great looking BTCC car is the Honda Civic of Jake Hill. We really like the livery on this car and think it will stand out on the track.
That is all for BTCC fans, but as we are still catching up from 2020 releases that is not a problem.
Another car which caught our eye is the Castrol liveried R-Motorsport Aston Martin GT3 Vantage. Although this car raced at Bathhurst rather than in the European GT3 series, we think this would still fit in perfectly with our GT3 cars and we predict this will be a popular car.
There are plenty more GT3 and GTE cars being released in 2021, including a new Corvette CR8, although we are not sure if we will have any more room for this class.
Scalextric have also decided to make Formula E cars after taking over the license from Carrera. In theory, Formula E cars are the perfect racer for Scalextric, offering full electric power and a sound similar to the real thing. Scalextric seem to be dipping their toes into the water with only two cars on initial release. They will probably see how sales progress before announcing another two for 2022, but it may put off buyers who want to have a 6 car digital field. They do look good race cars and very close to the real cars, but do look a little fragile, so may only be suitable for the most careful of race drivers.
Scalextric have also announced details of a number of historic Formula 1 cars, with two Lotus driven by Senna getting the most attention. We may be tempted by these and they will surely be highly collectable, as is anything that was driven by Ayrton Senna. The main issue with these is that there is no obvious stablemates to race against. There is hope that more F1 cars from the 1980’s will come out in future years, although it will be a bit of a gamble to see if that works out.
Overall, it is a good looking schedule for 2020 with 5-6 vehicles that could find their way into the club collection. Scalextric have a lot of work ahead of them if they are to deliver all of the cars & sets they promise in the coming year and it looks like we have some good times ahead.
Sadly there are no trucks for 2021 meaning that we are still unable to field a full 6 ‘truck’ field – unless we decide to customise one. When you see the prices the original trucks sell for online, it is a surprise that Scalextric do not issue more of these, as they certainly seem collectable.
2021 is looking like a good year in more ways than one and we are looking forward to getting the track running again and hopefully being able to share it with some of our friends.
