Customer Reviews

Mattel Tyco R/C Speed Racer Electric Slot Car Racing

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

First off, I have EXTENSIVE slot car knowledge. I have been a slot car hobbyist since the early 80's. I currently have 30+ cars and probably 5000 feet of Tyco track.

If you are familiar with slot cars you probably know them from the old Tyco sets. Mattel bought Tyco several year ago and now only releases new sets rarely. If this is the level of quality we are to expect from Mattel then they might as well quit now.

With the included battery pack these cars are very underpowered. So I tried using one of my electric powered Tyco packs. This made the cars terribly overpowered. For testing purposes I tried one of my older Tyco slot cars. That ran fine on the track with electric power. So, it looks like the cars, although physically able to be used on the old sets are useless when actually run on them.

I mainly bought this set for the battery power pack (I wanted to see how well it worked) and the cars themselves (I'm a Speed Racer fan.) So in my case I swapped out the Mach 5 body onto a different chassis and it worked fine. I was very disappointed with the quality of the Mattel product though and will not be buying any more of their sets.

Make sure before you buy this set that you don't miss the "fine print". THIS IS A BATTERY OPERATED RACING SET, not an "electric" set as the heading states. Missed that myself when looking at everything and trying to compare products. Now I see that in the tiny second picture they have up for this item, it does say battery-powered and in the brief description it tells you it requires 4 "D" batteries. I did not see those things prior to ordering but why can't they title the DAMN thing correctly???!!! Give parents a break and at least be accurate in your title/description so when they are up late at night trying to order a birthday gift and compare it to all the stuff that's out there, at least they have the right info to go on. Technically, this is an "electric" slot car set because the batteries do generate electricity but who wants to have to decipher misleading titles?

I got this for my 5-year-old son for Christmas in 2008. Compared to the plug-in slot car sets of my youth, it doesn't have much power and so the cars don't run very fast and small problems with the track (such as oxidation of the rails) or the cars can make for some frustrating times when the cars get stuck. However, warm-ups of 5 laps or so and some occasional track maintenance will keep the cars running well. It's a good set for a 5-year-old because they can run the cars at top speed without having the car come off of the track very often, but for a child older than 6 I would recommend the plug-in tracks because the slower speeds aren't very challenging. A nice feature is the low price; the cars alone would cost as much as the entire set if you buy them elsewhere. However, the battery replacements will end up costing lots of money over several months of play, and so in the end a plug-in set might be a better value.

I BOUGHT THIS PRODUCT FOR MY CHILDREN PEDRO AND DIEGO, 4 AND 2 YEARS OLD,
THE RACETRACK AND THE CARS ARE EXCELLENT AND THE CARS ARE ALWAYS IN THE TRACK, ALLOWING TO PLAY CONTINUOUSLY,AND THE PRICE IS VERY GOOD FOR THE PRODUCT, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

The kids love the toy and it's fun (bought last X-Mas). Track pieces do not fit togeter all that well and seem a bit cheap, but works well once put together.

Takes 4 D batteries, which will drain fairly quickly. Unfortunately, I do not see any plug-in versions, so I guess this is soemthing you have to live with.

My 5 year old son got this for a birthday gift. I grew up with Tyco and slot cars but for him this was his first set. For a first set and at this price it's a good set. Easy to set up, disconnect and run. It's a fairly inexpensive way to introduce my son to slot cars and see if he wants to really get into it. I am bummed that Mattel does not have a bigger selection of compatible sets to go with this one. I suspect that we will be getting into more "serious" slots and go waaaaay beyond this set. But for a gift and a first set for a five year old, good set.

This is a starter set that quickly loses its appeal if you don't add more track. Since it's a proprietary track design, you're stuck with whatever Mattel wants to put out there (you can't use older Tyco or Tomy track pieces with this set). That's not really a major problem since the cars will run on standard HO track. The cars themselves are not highly detailed (disappointing if that's the only reason you bought the set) and not nearly as fast as other HO brands (like Scalextric, Tomy, etc.), and are not interchangeable with other chassis. Consequently, they aren't really collectors items and they aren't competitive racers. The only reason I got them was because I couldn't find the Speed Racer cars made by a higher quality company (AutoWorld makes one, but it's not A/FX; Carerra makes one, but it's not HO scale).

We gave this a gift to a friend and he loves it. It is set up in my playroom. It gets played with a lot. The track is easy for an older kid to put together. It is easy enough for younger kids to play with. Moms and Dads would have to put it together for the younger kids unless they have older siblings.