Sloter are another relatively new company, also based in Spain. They have previously released versions of the Ferrari 312, Lola T280 & T290. Now comes their latest model, the Zytek LMP. Initially available in two liveries, the red Team Jota car, and this one, the Team Creation entry from Le Mans 2005.

First impressions aren't great. The car comes packaged in a rather cheap-looking card box, rather than the plastic display cases used by most manufacturers. But don't let that put you off, this car is well worth a closer look.

LMP cars don't generally offer a lot of scope for additional detail, but the Zytek is nicely modelled. The body is light without feeling fragile. The smooth sleek shape is recreated well, with crisp panel lines and open wing vents. The cockpit is nicely detailed, especially the steering wheel. 

Two screws hold the body and chassis together. The chassis looks straight forward enough, a flat pan with a Slot.It style pod holding the motor and rear axle. The pod is a different size and shape to the Slot.It pods, so they aren't interchangeable. The motor is a Mabuchi style, though adaptors are fitted at both ends and it looks like a boxer/NC type motor should fit without modification. The pod fits into a cut-out in the chassis, which will also accept an anglewinder configuration. An anglewinder pod is apparently in development.

The guide is a screw-in type, and a fairly tight fit. You'll probably need to back the screw off about half a turn to allow the guide to rotate freely. A Ninco-style button magnet is fitted just ahead of the motor pod, though if you race with magnets you'll probably want to add a little more down-force.

The front axle is solid and runs directly in the chassis without bearings. There are holes in the chassis to fit two grub screws to set the axle height, but these aren't provided. The rear axle is driven via a metal pinion and nylon spur gear. The gear mesh feels a bit lumpy to start with, but improves with running. The axle is quite a loose fit in its bearings, which doesn't help (though the oil & superglue trick can improve things!). The axle seems an odd size, slightly larger diameter than Ninco, so replacement bearings could be hard to find. To be honest, club racers may wish to consider replacing the whole axle with Slot.It, NSR or Ninco ProRace parts. 

The tyres are soft and grippy, and required very little sanding. 

On my Scalextric Sport track the tyres offered reasonable grip and straight-line traction was good, giving strong acceleration. But with the small mid-mounted magnet, cornering was a bit limited and it didn't take much to push the car wide.

Even on a small track the car is smooth and fun to drive, though it was rather noisy at first.

The Zytek felt much more at home on the routed track. No specs are given for the motor, but it's enough to give this light weight car some real speed. The tyres work very well on my track, and the car corners fast and smooth. I think the car would benefit from a couple of grams of weight at the front - the car de-slotted a few times on a couple of descending corners.

Straight out of the box the car felt fast, so I tried it against some fairly quick opposition -  AvantSlot Audi R10, Spirit 'Racing' Reynard and Ninco Mosler. Just to make it even less fair, the three competitors all had minor modifications - the Audi's front end is lowered, the Reynard has Slot.It P3 tyres and 5g weight, the Mosler 5g weight and braced chassis.

After roughly 50 practise laps each, the cars ran sets of 10 timed laps on my freshly-cleaned track. Each car ran a minimum of 5 sets of laps. The best times were:-

Spirit Reynard - 7.75sec

Avant Slot Audi - 7.81sec

Ninco Mosler - 7.86sec

Sloter Zytek - 8.00sec

The Zytec couldn't quite stay with these cars, but for a brand new car with what appears to be a standard Mabuchi motor, it didn't disgrace itself either. With an upgrade to a Slot.It or NSR motor this could be a seriously fast car.

The Zytek is quite an impressive car - it looks good and goes extremely well. There is a lot to like and recommend about the car, but as mentioned, a couple of potential problems too.

It isn't a cheap car (around £35 in the UK), but it's the only model of the Zytek available, and the performance is persuasive...

Bigger pics in the Gallery