A company called Fat Shark offers one of the coolest R/C cars we've ever seen. How so? Its system has a camera mounted in the car's driver's seat. It transmits its signal wirelessly to VR-style goggles that give the operator a first-person view of the terrain ahead of the car itself. That alone would be neat, but the camera has pan and tilt functionality that the driver controls by simply moving his or her head to "look" in each direction. The video pasted after the jump gives you a taste of what what you'd see if the glasses were strapped to your noggin. Granted, you'll look like a dork with the antenna-festooned goggles on, but at least you'll be having fun. Fat Shark also sells the camera and components separately, so you can use them on model airplanes, too. Thanks for the tip, David!
Click the image above for more live and press shots of the Peugeot 308 RC Z Coupe Concept.
While many of the debuts in Frankfurt garnered either a decisive positive or negative reaction, the Peugeot 308 RC Z Coupe Concept held the middle ground. The front end is almost a direct carryover from the 308 on which it's based, but we couldn't help but want a bit more individuality and a bit less gaping maw. From the side, all we can see is Karmann Ghia, along with John's earlier assertion that the roofline apes the Audi TT.
Something like the RC Z could come to production since it's essentially a re-bodied 308, and with a 218 HP 1.6-liter blown four pot, you won't hear any arguments from this side of the pond – regardless of the fact that it'll never come our way.
You can read up on the Peugeot 308 RC Z in our initial post here and check the gallery below for additional live shots.
The Serpent F180 is the kind of car we could spend a lot of time with. A 1/8-scale replica of a formula racer, it has all-round independent double-wishbone push-rod-activated suspension, self-bleeding shocks, rear diff, 4-wheel disc brakes, a lay down engine with pushbutton starter, and a polished exhaust. In addition to the rear geometry, track width and suspension settings, you can adjust the brake balance and front anti-roll bar stiffness. Each car also comes with a carrying case and a keychain that features the car's unique serial number. Even if we could be trusted to build it properly -- it come with two manuals -- there's no way we could be trusted to get any work done once it was finished.
Click on the image above for all our high-resolution image gallery.
Peugeot will drop its latest hot hatch on us at Geneva next month with the debut of the 207 RC. After bringing you the skinny on the peppy little hatchback last month with early leaked photos, parent company PSA has been nice enough to give us the full monty ahead of the show, where they'll be releasing a number of new models.
The heart of the 207 RC is the same engine as the top-of-the-line MINI Cooper S, a 1.6-liter high-pressure turbo four pumping out 175 stallions. The engine was co-developed by PSA and BMW, and although the MINI's is coupled to a six-speed shifter, Peugeot has opted for five ratios instead. The corporate spec sheet claims the new Pug makes the run to 62 mph in 7.1 seconds and tops out of 136 mph.
Those European hot hatches just keep on comin'. Following the unveiling of the new Opel/Vauxhall Corsa OPC/VXR and reports on the upcoming Fiat Punto Abarth turbo comes the latest assault on the Renaultsport Clio 197, the Peugeot 207 RC. Parent company PSA evidently snuck the RC under the radar in its December online magazine several months ahead of its official debut at Geneva in March.
The 207 RC gets the most powerful version of the engine co-developed by PSA and BMW for the Mini Cooper S, a 1.6-liter twin-turbo producing 175 horsepower, which Peugeot says should get the hot little hatch up to a hundred kilometers per hour in 7.1 secods on its way to a 220 km/h (137 mph) top speed.
The base 207 is already one of the most stylish and aggressive-looking small hatches on the market, and while the RC version does get some subtle visual enhancements, they're not quite as extreme as the styling previewed by the 207 RCup concept. Will that be enough to pose a serious threat to the competition? That depends largely on how it drives.
Peugeot is giving its staple 407 a bit of a rally edge. Unfortunately, this is a more "show" than "go" package, with modifications limited almost entirely to the cosmetic. But it does have a mean look to it, especially for a wagon.
The 407 SW RC starts with the 407 sport-wagon and adds a bit of flair. Included in the RC package are blacked-out 18" five-spoke alloy wheels, a rear spoiler at the trailing edge of the roof, a mesh grille up front and blingin' chrome twin exhaust tips. Inside are black quilted-leather seats with special insignia and the requisite special floormats...sacré bleu!
The 407 SW RC is available only with diesel power, which is just as well since the European market seems to prefer it that way. The choices are a 2.2-liter HDi with 170 horsepower or a 2.7-liter V6 HDi putting out a more rally-worthy 204 hp.
The 407 SW range costs starts at €22,600 and tops out at €41,650. Hard to say where the RC version falls in that range, but the two models can be had for €33,500 for the 2.2 and €37,900 for the V6.
Our man on the ground in Paris John Neff is reporting on one the most imposing, scariest car at the show: the sinister Peugeot 908 RC. The concept sedan shares its engine with the 908 Le Mans , a 5.5-liter HDi V12 turbodiesel pumping out an earth-shattering 700 horsepower, driving through a six-speed sequential gearbox.
Constructed of a carbon composite and aluminum, the sedan is capable of reaching over 300 km/h and covering a kilometer from a standstill in a scant 22 seconds. To get the enormous 5-meter-long sedan back to a standstill, the car is equipped with the latest carbon ceramic brakes from Brembo with 6 pistons up front and four in the rear.
Check out our previous posts for the full specs and even a couple of videos, and follow the jump for more photos from the show floor, factory-sourced press pics, and even a few design sketches.
Later this week at Paris, Peugeot will be officially unveiling the menacing-yet-elegant 908 RC concept car, details and photos of which we brought you last month.
Now, ahead of the show, Peugeot has released two videos of its precious new 700-hp diesel V12 show-car in motion. The first video has the car on some sort of rooftop wind-tunnel, while the second features footage of the 908 RC moving smoothly down the highway before switching about two-thirds way through to pans of the futuristic interior.
Both videos feature some impressive cinematographic splicing, with smooth transitions between clips of the car in motion to standing still. Enjoy!
For those of you who haven't kept up with radio-controlled car technology since the days of the original RC10 and Tamiya Grasshopper, well, things have changed just a bit. Thanks to lithium-polymer (LiPo) batteries and inexpensive brushless DC motors, RC enthusiasts now have access to more power than we could dream about just a few years ago.
The above video shows a Team Losi Mini-T 1:18-scale RC truck ripping around on a sand dune. With the stock motor, this would be less entertaining than watching paint dry, but there's nothing like increasing the power output by an order of magnitude to increase the fun factor. While something like this is by no means the fastest RC car in the world (despite the claim of the video's editor, that record belongs to Nic Case at over 160 MPH), it's probably capable of 60+ MPH like this author's Castle Creations-powered RC18T.
Why should automotive enthusiasts care? Well, for one, playing with RC cars will put a grin on nearly anyone's face, and provides a pleasant distraction when things aren't going well in the 1:1 world. But more importantly, the same sort of technology that gives us insanely fast toys can also be expected to brighten gearheads' days if the internal combustion engine gives way to electric motors as the power source of choice for future vehicles.
Volvo has created four 1:5 scale mini XC90 SUVs for a very specific task. These true baby utes were built for the European Athletics Championship in Gothemnburg and will be used to transport javelins, hammers and discusses from wherever they land on the field back to the throwers. Each one was hand built by Volvo and feautres an open roof through which discusses and hammers can be placed inside and a special javelin rack up top that is unlikely to see produciton on full-scale XC90s. The radio-controlled Volvos are powered by 2 hp electric motors and can ferry four discusses, three javelins or two hammers back to competitors. Though Volvo has no plans to produce them, we're sure some Volvo engineers will have some fun lunch hours after these RC XC90s finish their tour of duty.
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