Anki Overdrive: Fast And Furious Edition

Product Information

Read on to find out the seven lessons we learned that will equip you if you're planning to buy a Scalextric or other slot car racing set. You can also discover what we ultimately thought of the sets we tested, and which brand is best for you. Scalextric vs Carrera vs Anki Overdrive Paul Walker became an international icon after starring in The Fast and the Furious, and what started as a single film about illegal street racing exploded into a multibillion-dollar franchise that spawned eight sequels, the most recent being F9. While the supplied instructions are text-heavy, they are clear and easy to follow. By the time we'd got used to how to change the speed and braking settings for our cars we were doing it as fast as an F1 pitstop.

All this comes at a greater cost though, which means more detriment in terms of money wasted if you choose the wrong set. Walker starred in seven of the nine Fast & Furious films before his tragic death in 2013. By that time the franchise had shifted its focus to developing a series of heist and action films, instead of drag racing. An RC drift car is designed with the primary task of going sideways in smaller scale. An incredible racing sim setup is unfortunately the only other way you can get that sideways fix. Because the bad news is, a lot of the peak Gran Turismo era JDM drift cars have either been crashed, appallingly modified or are worth an eye-watering amount of cash.

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The Scalextric Arc Air powerbase adds a pit stop feature to refuel your vehicles. Simple, but increased the fun factor and tactics needed to race well.

Overdrive vehicles were the toughest - you could have a multi-car pile up and they'd emerge unscathed. That's one of the great characteristics of Scalextric sets, isn't it? Apply too much throttle, and you'll be underneath the sofa crawling your hand through dust and bits trying to retrieve your car. Apply too little, and it'll just handle like its on rails. Easy - they do slides. And slides are much more exciting than plodding along in a straight line. We've probably all tried to make an RC car drift at some point, only to be disappointed that it grips like glue. You might've even stared at a Revell model car kit for too long and imagined what it might look like when drifting. Dedicated drift cars comfortably solve that issue. There's a Scalextric set on the list - in theory, wouldn't they all drift? While its price point and features make for an appealing alternative, it was less fun in practice than Carrera or Scalextric. It is also unclear, since assets being acquired by Digital Dream Labs, how supported the system and app will be in the future.

JOIN THE FUN

I did it again, just before we started filming this, but in high school, I was already exposed to it,” Walker revealed. I’d go to the races. I went to a high school here in the San Fernando Valley, California.” In the original film, however, Walker plays an undercover cop who is tasked with taking down a group of car thieves led by Vin Deisel’s character, Dominic Toretto. For anyone who watches the movie, if it seems like Walker is unusually comfortable with joyriding and attending drag races, it’s because he was. The deceased movie star once revealed that he attended many street races long before he ever shot a scene for The Fast and the Furious. ‘The Fast and the Furious’ star Paul Walker attended drag races when he was in high school Vin Diesel and Paul Walker racing against each other in a scene from the film ‘The Fast And The Furious’ | Universal/Getty Images

Compatible with Scalextric digital where you replace the powerbase with Arc Air or Arc Air Pro power base for digital race featuresWe tested the Scalextric Ginetta Racers set with Arc Air powerbase upgrade, Carrera Digital GT Face off set and Overdrive: Fast and Furious Edition.

Scalextric is the synonymous brand in the UK, but others, such as Carrera and Anki Overdrive (now owned by Digital Dream Labs), offer racing ecosystems to rival the popular Scalextric sets. It raises the question: is Scalextric still the best?Walker revealed that every Wednesday night, he and his friends would attend secret street races that often ended with the police chasing them away. Connecting to the Carrera Go!!! Plus app for additional smartphone mini games when told to stop in the pits. Compatible with Scalextric spark plug where you plug a dongle into the powerbase to control cars with your smartphone Digital Dream labs seem to still have plans to expand the Overdrive system, but at the moment it seems limited to providing app support for existing Anki Overdrive sets.