Audi R8 "Crocodile" as raced at Adelaide in the American Le Mans Series race on 31st December 2000.

by Mark Gussin

I've now seen the real car twice, at the 2000/2001 Racing Car Show and at July 2001's Goodwood Festival of Speed. It is a wonderful paint scheme and certainly a challenge for modellers. Never imagining it would be possible to do justice to, I resigned myself to it being one of those slot cars I'd love to do..........but!!!! But hang on! At that time SCX were going to bring it out an Audi R8 later in the year! Loads of pictures were taken at the Festival of Speed so that maybe I could piece together the artwork. Maybe!

Then, wandering around the numerous stands at Goodwood I came across a beautiful, 1:24th scale Audi R8 in Crocodile colours by Le Mans miniatures which was sold in kit form. Result!

Months passed and then in September 2001 the SCX car was released. It is superb. The only "scale" compromise being the little bump over where the axle gear is. As is very popular at the moment, the real car is very low in this region to improve airflow over the spoiler. A slot car could never have a sidewinder or anglewinder configeration without distorting this area significantly. The side ducts and swooped up rear tail were correct. All this made it the perfect start for the crocodile treatment!

Firstly all of the attachments like the rear spoiler, head and tail light lenses, interior etc were carefully separated from the bodyshell. The bodyshell was lightly sanded and painted gloss white. Then the decal production and application started.

The 1:24th decals were scanned and reduced then printed on an Alps printer. Don't forget that when you've finished this project you can also build the kit as a display model or even use the decals on Carrera's 1/24 and paint the kit stock!

Applying the decals took absolutely ages and plenty of Micro Sol decal softening solution. But with care and patience the result was superb. The little bits of exposed, but shouldn't be, bodywork were painted-in using acrylic paints. The whole lot was then painted in four coats of acrylic laquer as used on 1:1 cars. If the last two coats are smoothed down slightly with car paint rubbing compound (T-cut here in the UK) the final effect is stunning and produces an extremely tough exterior for slot racing.

Putting the newly decorated bodyshell with existing interior onto the SCX chassis illustrated just how good this car looked. Especially once to head and tail lights were added. But we hadn't finished there!

I had decided to enter this car in the 2001 Marconi Proxy Race because I wanted to see and show just how little a good quality entry could cost.

So the finishing off of the car was important. I painting the chassis' side-pans blue as per the real car, detailing the driver and made up and applied decals for the Audi logo, driver names, helmet markings etc. I also added an aerial!

Next step was the chassis.

The changes to the chassis were minimal. A different motor was glued in, Slot.it rear axle, gearing and bearings were added and a completely new front guide arrangement installed. On top of this a lot of magnets were added!

The Cheetah motor was glued in place; when you do this make sure all openings on the side to be glued are covered up (I use sellotape). Otherwise the glue could get in to the motor. Some minor modifications were needed to the plastic chassis to get the motor back towards the rear axle as far as possible but this was easily done with the soldering iron (plastic chassis) and tidied up with the scalpel.

A Slot.it rear axle was cut to length and along with Slot.it gearing and bearings replaced the existing set up. Remember to glue the bearings in position.

The guide was replaced because I wanted a deeper one mounted on a brass guide flag. The hole for the guide (see pictures) was cut out then the flag glued in place. Which was all very easy.

The rear tyres only were replaced with silicone clones. These were glued and then trued onto the standard SCX wheels which in turn were glued to the Slot.it rear axle.

Finally the magnets were added. A slot.it wide one was added behind the guide shoe and Carrera magnets were fitted on either side of the motor.

I found "tuning" the car very difficult. The magnets certainly work but how the car is set up when magnets, gearing and mechanical adhesion come into play I just cannot be sure of. In the end I set up a little Carrera track and tested the car until it seemed right. It does appear to perform pretty well though!.

Motor type: Little Ripper Cheetah

Chassis: Modified standard Audi A8 SCX chassis with different guide arrangement, Slot.it rear wheel bearings and front magnet. Standard Audi A8 SCX plus Carrera rear magnets.

Body: SCX Audi R8.

Wheels and Tyres: Front wheels and tyres are standard SCX Audi R8. Rear axle is Slot.it with standard SCX Audi R8 wheels and silicone tyres.

Gears: Slot.it gears 10:36 ratio

Guide: Parma