I received two of the new WBB EZ Street sedans from Nassau Hobby Center today, only 52 hours after ordering (UPS Ground took two days, yes, but they were shipped the same day as ordered!). These are exciting - the first major new product investment by anyone in 'Streets in quite a while. That bodes well for the future.
My Take on the Stock Vehicle
These vehicles feel solid and nicely heavy in the hand. Not the most detailed of bodies - not fully up to even low-end 1:43 diecast standards maybe, but they are acceptable. They have a very generic mid '50s look: sort of a 1954 Desoto-Packard-Pontiac-Ford. In addition, I thinkif you put a Rolls Royce grill and dual headlights on one, particularly the cranberry/cream one in the first photo, they could pass as an acceptable model of a late 70s - '80s Rolls Royce.
I will let everyone decide for him/herself if they are 1:48 or 1:43 in scale - they certainly mix right in with 1:43 diecast: The photo below shows one of mine with a diecast 1:43 '56 Ford (White Rose, I think). They are almost exactly the same size.
Below is my other one in comparison to a Brookline '54 DeSoto. In particular note the size of the wheels/tires. This WBB sedan has "car size" tires. That bodes well of bashing as only the Lionel Vintage truck had "car size" wheels among all previous offerings (more comments on the wheels later).
Running them. Out of the box both of mine stuttered badly, stalling in places. I oiled them just in case (had to open them up to get at the gears) and cleaned their rollers and wheels very well. I don't know if those were dirty, or like some locos, had a thin protective coating. Anyway, cleaning helped . They still stuttered but I ran them in and they seemed to get better. They ran very well on clean track at realistic highway speeds after about 1/2 hour of running - they run a tiny bit slower than previous 'Streets stock vehicles.
Like all previous 'Streets vehicles, they are fitted with a full-wave rectifer from track feed to motor, and so they run only forward, regardless if fed AC or DC power, they don't care. I ran mine on both and there is no difference in how they perform. (You can, of course, remove the bridge rectifier inside them and wire the motor directly - then they will run only on DC, but will now backup if polarity is reversed.)
Taking them apart and looking inside them (see photo below). They come apart easily - three small easy to extract screws and the plastic body comes right off. The interior (just the front bench seat and dash) is held on with six even smaller screws and comes off in two parts: dashboard and steering wheel, and front bench seat: smart someone is already thinking of mixing parts, etc., in future models.
This is an all-new chassis/body design, unlike anything before. The motor and the bridge rectifier appear to be the same type as in past 'Streets vehicles but everything else is new.
Metal chassis with plastic body. The chassis is metal - very thick metal, and very heavy. Basically the sedan feels heavy because of the chassis. The body is thin plastic: not fragile but close to it. This is a significant and meaningful change. Except for very early K-line vans (those made in the first year of production - I think 2002, something like that), all 'Streets vehicles have had a fairly light plastic chassis and a heavy diecast metal body. Nothing wrong with that, necessarily, except, they need a heavy diecast body to provide enough weight to hold down the center rollers down on the track against their springs. You can install another body on them to convert them to something different, but it has to be diecast metal or you have to find a way to add a lot of weight to a plastic body.
Now that is no longer necessary. You can bash these puppies by installing a light plastic body if you want, or still use a metal diecast: it won't hurt if it weighs more, but it does not need to. This chassis weigts enough to run without the body on in, fact. You can't do that with Lionel and K-Line plastic chassis.
New center rollers. When WBB took over 'Streets they converted the the one vehcile they offered up to now, the old K-Line/Lionel Ford van, to roller pickups. These sedans have a new but similar design roller: like the WBB vans they telescope directly up and down, and are not lever types.
The wheels I've mentioned. They are very important to me for potential bashing projects: car-size wheels.
The chassis is adjustable, something WBB promised at York a year+ ago and that was discussed on another thread about these new sedans. You loosed two screws and can lengthed or shorten the chassis in increments controlled by teeth that engage (see below).
Bashing this will be both easy in one way, and a challenge in another. The challenge will be cutting this chassis - woe be onto you if you have to - its heavy metal and thick. On the other hand, you often won't have to do any cutting: it can adjust nicelyby almost an inch in length (see note about this at the end).
And here is my very "bash": okay, they one does not look perfect: I need to do just a bit of grinding so I can move the chassis forward about 1/16th inch in the body and find a better front pumper attachment. But this took all of five minutes to complete: I shortened the chassis all the way (from the stock length shown) which took less than a minute, and drilled some mounted holes and screw it down. It runs slightly better than stock (short wheelbases always do - see note below the photo).
And I'm thinking about that DeSoto. I would have to adjust the wheelbase 1/4 inch longer but it looks like the chassis would fit, easily. I might have clearance problems inside given how thick the Brookline castings are. Won't know 'till I try. But that's a pretty expensive model to take apart - I'm still thinking.
Note: since all stock 'Streets vehicles have two fixed axles, they struggle in turns because they are pushing their wheels at an angle against the outer rail as they power around the curve. The longer the wheelbase, the worse the angle and the more they fight the curve.
