Vintage WRC Cars (4) MSC Competition

＜MG Metro 6R4＞
Both the real cars and the slot cars possessed astonishing specifications and obvious potential on paper, yet once you actually drove them, the reaction quickly became: “...So what exactly am I supposed to do with this?”

Since the real cars never truly achieved major competitive success, they already carried a sort of “undisputed champion of bench racing arguments” reputation to begin with.

As for MSC’s Metro itself, simply taking it out of the box and driving it normally was already a challenge.

At the time, we mainly raced non-magnet cars on commercial wood tracks, and on heavily twisted downhill combination corners ― something like Laguna Seca’s corkscrew sections ― the Metro would often suddenly spin in place or violently roll over even when the throttle was being handled carefully.

The motor felt considerably stronger than its label specifications suggested. Yet despite using an FK180 can, the power delivery felt unusually peaky.

Ordinarily that would be something to celebrate, but I began suspecting that much of the power was simply being wasted through the chassis itself due to insufficient rigidity.

Still, the car had a uniquely fascinating driving character unlike anything else, so I spent a great deal of time experimenting with tires and weight distribution in an attempt to tame it.

After roughly a year of trial and error, I ultimately replaced the motor with one from a FLY truck, and only then did the car finally develop reasonably manageable handling characteristics.

After that, the Metro sat untouched for nearly another decade.

Recently, however, I finally installed LED lighting, replaced the tires with a set of Paul Gage PGT urethanes, trued them, added Patto tire decals, and completed the renewal.