Lola has an illustrious history of racing sports cars and formula cars spanning over 50 years. In the 70’s the manufacturer was actively competing in the powerful and prestigious Can-Am series, but they found they needed a more nimble car to compete in the European sports cars race series. Rather than the powerful v8s that were used by the Can Am cars they fitted a 2 litre engine and so was born the T298.

The nomencalture used by Loal for their race cars is quite interesting. The following is taken from Wikipedia. Lola’ssports cars and formula cars followed a naming scheme of being numbered in order of construction, and preceded by the term Mark (Mk1 through Mk6). However in 1964, the designations were altered to become Type (marked as simply T), with the first digit or two designating what type of car, and the final digit designating a variant of that car.

This continued until 1986 when the numbering scheme was slightly altered. The T would remain, yet the next two digits would designate the year of original design, and the next two would designate what type of car it was. The final digit would again denote variants of that design. This was again slightly altered in 1998, with the T being replaced by a B, in honor of Lola's owner Martin Birrane. The numbering system would however remain the same.

Anyway the T298 did not have an illustrious racing career but it did compete at Le Mans. In Spain it did have a very long career on Hill Climbs. The Repsol liveries car reviewed here was piloted by Ander Vilariño whom was 4 times European Hill Climb champion between 1989 and 1992.

The model

I only found one picture and that came from Powerslot themselves. Comparing it I felt they had got the stance of the car near perfect and the placement and colour of the livery and logs more or less spot on. However the execution of the tampo printing did leave quite a bit to be desired. This is most apparent on the Repsol logos where the orange fades at the edges rather than being sharp and the Repsol wording on the bonnet is slightly askew. Other details we’ve become accustomed too were also amiss including the wheel arch vents not being opened. A shame as other details depicted in the cockpit are good.

Overall I think Powerslot could and should do better.

The mechanics – the chassis is an angle-winder with metal set screw gears, axle stop and their Set-Up motor pod. A magnet sat just in front of the long can, smooth but powerful motor (PS-3).

The guide sat a bit high for my competitive racing likes but I liked the height adjustable front axle.

The wheels were plastic and while one side was nice and true the other hub was way off and also required gluing on to the axle. I would do that as a precaution on all plastic hubs. The tyres were poorly molded resulting in them not sitting well on the rims. More than a little excessive molding flash meant I decided to change them to some NSR rubber which once given a quick true (after truing the hubs a bit) really transformed a pretty poor performance to one that has potential.

On the Track
The car has a magnet which on my copper routed track does not offer one bit of help.

Performance wise I had to adjust the set-up mount to ensure perfect gear alignment as it has far too much play in it. This took a bit of time but is worth doing as it gets you used to the Set-Up concept and how to get the most out of it. With the original tyres performance was poor and I decided they were not worth even trying to salvage. I trued and glued the hubs and put on with a set of NSR supergrips and gave them a quick true - performance was much better.

I worked on the front axle so that it supported the front of the car in the corners and varied the amount of play the motor mount and body had. I found an optimum set-up being a quite loose motor mount and the body having a slight movement. I was not able to keep pace with my nicely established Fly Classic Porsche or my Slot-It Alfa 33/3 but it was a reasonable performance. I think with a considerable amount of work and a replacement of the rear hubs I could get with 2 or 3 tenths on an 8 second lap time

Note that the review model was a pre-production model and the issues highlighted have been provided to Powerslot whom we hope take note and resolve them before final production.

Conclusion
If you’re a fan of Lola or classic race cars then this is a must have. The car has potential for competitiveness but be prepared to spend some time on it to get it competitive.

The instruction given are really clear step by step and as such I won’t go through them. From opening the box to having a completed model took me about 20 minutes.

Tuckers Rating

Lola T-298 No.1 - Repsol (CM024)