Playing Mantis has released their latest chassis. It is an almost exact copy of the original Aurora A/FX Magna-Traction. Carefully and somewhat cleverly named the X-Traction. I really love driving the original A/FX Magna-Tractions.

They are most like driving the bigger 1/32nd & 1/24th slot cars. Fishtailing around the corners and geared to run fast, but the A/FX Magna-Tractions had a few drawbacks and PM made no effort to correct these problems:
-The pick up shoes are too narrow. -The gear plate is too loose.
-The guide pin is too far forward.
-The chassis flexes too much through the body mount area.
-The original A/FX Magna-Tractions have small tabs on the chassis clip to hold the rear magnet down. The PM car does not. An absolute necessity for these cars.

It's obvious that PM sent a complete A/FX chassis to China and had it copied. Including it's faults. The car incorporates design tweaks Aurora used that PM will probably never use. Like:
-The hole for the rear guide pin that the A/FX Police cars had.
-The small nibs on the sides for the headlight wires.
-The blanked off hole where Aurora originally thought they were going to put a body mounting screw.
-The hole for the short wheelbase. (No PM body has the short wheelbase at this time.)

The one modification PM made was to "chamfer" the leading edge of the gear plate so that their bodies could snap on without interference.

The good points to note are the armature and the magnets. These are quality pieces. The tri-lam armature is the exact same one found in the PM Thunderjets. Also the gear mesh is quite nice, but the gear plate is too loose and can "climb" up enough to unmesh the crown gear.

The tires and wheels aren't too bad, but you will probably want to replace them with quality aftermarket parts.

It's too bad PM didn't consult any experts before spending their money. Now (hopefully) they will spend more money to correct the problems. IF they do, then this car will be an inexpensive and VERY fun race car.