Ninco Lancia Stratos Rally

This was just before Ninco withdrew from the slot car market. Back then, cars like their Stratos and Ford Sierra received barely any promotional push, didn’t generate much buzz, and frankly, I doubt they were ever produced in large numbers. At the very least, I never saw them lined up on any commercial tracks, nor did I ever get the sense that everyone had one tucked away in their slot car pit box. They never became "must-haves" like some other models.

Here’s the Ninco model that kicked off the project.

That said, I’d say Ninco’s take on the Stratos is, IMHO, the definitive version in terms of proportions. As far as the body is concerned, there’s nothing I’d want to change. The chassis, though, had some room for improvement. Despite featuring suspension, it barely had any travel. The stock tires were also unnecessarily fat and square-edged, making the whole setup feel a bit clumsy.

Here’s the images of the real car.

I want to strike a good balance between the running performance as a slot car and capturing the feel of the real car’s suspension.

So, I made a few adjustments. I extended the suspension travel significantly, narrowed the track slightly, and shaved down the tires―reducing the width and rounding off the shoulders.

After assembling the modified chassis, I ran repeated test laps, fine-tuned the weight distribution, and finally installed LED lighting from Z-Machine.

Here is the results.

With that, my ideal Stratos was complete.