The Tampo Is Sharp And Opaque

The Tampo Is Sharp And Opaque

The oil crisis of the 70鈥檚 set the stage for a series of events taking place in Italy: Fiat had a newly formed rally team, and had recently acquired tuning specialist Abarth. Some of Fiat鈥檚 marketing gurus could see the halo effect the Stratos rally cars had for Lancia, and wanted Abarth to do something similar for Fiat with a performance model of their own. Abarth鈥檚 mandate was to find a rally car suitable to replace the outgoing 124 (also the subject of an SCX model) that had to be as fast as the Stratos. By 1976 the Stratos had won it鈥檚 third consecutive WRC championship. Ford was coming on strong with its own rally program. Abarth had been using the 131 as a test mule for the X1/9 program. The 131 was ideal for this role since it had a spacious engine bay, roomy interior, and rear wheel drive. This allowed engineers to explore a variety of motor and driveline options. For a time it looked like the X1/9 would be the car chosen to be Fiat鈥檚 rally standard bearer. It looked the part as a sporty mid-engined car reminiscent of the Stratos.

Unfortunately this was not the image that company brass wanted to portray in the midst of an oil crisis. The wanted a car the buying public could relate to. Since the 131 had been used to test various drivetrain components for the rally program and its passenger roots were clearly visible it was chosen as Fiat鈥檚 new rally combatant. In 1975 Bertone was tasked to produce 400 special models for homologation of the 131 in the WRC. Abarth took 50 cars from this allotment to build its 131 which is the basis for SCX鈥檚 model. Among the modifications Abarth made to the Bertone allotment were weight saving Perspex side windows, aluminum doors, and additional lighting. Engine performance was pumped up from 65 bhp in stock form to over 215 bhp in rally spec. If you鈥檇 like to learn more about this car, check out The Sporting FIATs Club web site. At first glance, SCX makes a nice presentation of their models in the clear plastic box they currently use.

As nice as the 131 looks sitting inside it, I think it will look that much better on the track. Out it comes for a few laps of the 22m Scalextric Sport test track I use at Mini Grid. The finish on the model I鈥檝e been given to test is flawless. The livery depicted is the 1981 Rally Costa Brava. The fender flares and air intakes are nicely rendered. The tampo is sharp and opaque. There are a few nice details like mirrors, wipers, mudflaps, roof spoiler and antenna. The interior is a partially recessed half tray. The flat portion is below the level of the windows which allows for decent interior detail in the form of a driver, navigator, and roll cage. A bit more paint on the dark plastic interior would have helped some of the molded in details pop. The half interior does leave tuners plenty of room for adding weights to the chassis. Another detail which shows that SCX is listening to what racers like is the molding of the window 鈥榞lass鈥?

In many cars the window part typically includes clear material up in the roof where it serves no purpose. This excess material is the first thing I usually cut out of my race cars as a weight saving measure. By molding a piece just for the car鈥檚 windows SCX was able to save few grams of weight from where they are needed least: the roof of the car. On the Sport test track the traction magnet keeps the car solidly in its lane. While SCX motors are not the fastest, the motor chosen for this car is appropriate given the size of the original car. The voltage at my test track is set to 11V. As I ran lap after lap with the 131 I only had to blip for the R1 curves on my test track. Otherwise I could take R2 or larger radius curves at full throttle. In stock form the traction magnet gave a reading of 279g on the Magnet Marshal.

The traction magnet can be adjusted to give even more downforce if desired. Homeset voltages will make this car a great mag performer on just about any track. My fastest lap was 8.875s with the traction magnet in place. My only complaint about this car out of the box is that the tires are not concentrically molded. Since the wheels and axles on my test car run straight and true the out of round tires made a thrumming sound as the car ran around my test track. Truing the tires on my sanding block knocked another .5s off my magnet test times. The SCX Seat 131 has functioning headlights, fog lamps, and tail lamps. The body is held onto the chassis by five screws. Removing them allows the body to be easily separated from the chassis revealing the plastic tubing used by the lighting system. This system routes the light from 2 LED sources to each of the 8 lights on the front of this car. There is very little spill from the lighting system inside the body thanks to this light tube arrangement.