SCX
SCX have a curious approach to Nuremberg. Their current owners are reluctant to let anyone onto their stand. However, in true MRE style we manage to bring you the bits others reports may not reach.
The big promotion was for the new WOS system This is the Wireless Operated System, and is basically the SCX Digital system repackaged. By incorporating wireless the control consoles and controllers have been completely redesigned. We had a test drive and found many of the features of the previous digital system still in place, but actually more complex to use. The older intuitive console with coloured buttons has been replaced by a small simple unit and most of the functions have been moved onto the controllers. We found this quite hard to understand, a bit like navigating a multi-level phone menu (select option 1.....then select option 4....etc etc). The visual indicators for this are a row of LEDs on the top of the controller which change colours. During racing for example, the fuel load lights will morph from green to red and then flash to show you should make a pitstop. Sound good ? Not really, because most drivers use both hands on a digital controller to wo rk the lane change buttons and therefore the LEDs are covered over, plus who wants to be looking down into your hands while tring to race a slot car on a track ? The other big drawback was the lack of any lap counting or timing displays. The original SCX Digital system had nice towers you could position anywhere around the track as they took their signals from the common bus-bars under the track. We can't beleive that SCX would launch a new system without any kind of displays, but nobody could tell us if they were in a planning stage or simply been forgotten. We were also hoping the system had some backward compatibility with existing track and cars, but nobody could confirm this either, although the track looked the same and the cars had an updated guide with a plastic active pin instead of the previous more robust metal-covered spigot. We also noticed the new plastic pins failed regularly during demonstrations so this is potentially a 'wait and see' system that needs more work, al though 2 sets were on show.
On to cars, and the first four were represented only with pictures. The only new moulds in evidence were the Seat Leon and the Renault Sport RS01, but some way behind Ninco it's development (no samples, no pre-pro prototypes, no expected date for release). At least the cars look as though they will be nicely decorated.
The other 12 cars that SCX propose for this year did have actual models on display. A bit of a mixture, with some fairly old cars (Escort Cosworth, Mini Cooper) mixing it with some newer items (Audi & Mercedes DTM, Aston Martin). One car has not been on general realease before, the classis Fiat 1430 rally car previously only available in Spain.
So far not catalogue numbers or prices are available for any of the above cars. We will add them to the MRE website as soon as we can get some details.
The Limited Edition Vintage Austin Healey does really exist after being announced quite a long time ago, but SCX have severely limited their sales potential by making the car with Scalextric branding only. As a replica of the original cardboard box is included with the car this does limit the options as it was never actually marketed as SCX originally, but for a company desperate to gain a few more sales it seems a strange decisions to keep it restricted to Spain and not sell the car to the rest of the world. Like we said at the beginning, we have our doubts about the sales and marketing policies of SCX and they seem to limit sales instead of increasing them
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