'The Concept Car' 4WD RC10

[dinglem]

Another unicorn has landed in my lap... this one being a genuine loft find which was discovered whilst I was actually researching the Brimod prototype car. This 4WD car was developed by MMS over in the UK (around 12months before they developed the white MMS diffs), and was raced by Jason Varley on the UK circuit. They offered Brimod shocks as an option which is how it got linked to my Brimod research.

Lots of hand made custom parts. As you can see it is in rough 'as found' shape, but all of the necessary rare components are there and it should clean up really well.

I vividly recall reading the two mag articles in early '87 and always wanted one of these, although i never actually saw one bitd.

The Concept Car has always been on my hit list, so i am totally stoked to have finally got hold of this. Resto will commence shortly and as with all of my cars I plan to run it.

The 1987 Euro Championships:-

[R Cane]

You find the coolest stuff!

[KidAgain]

so freakin cool

[scr8p]

Nice!

[Nick]

What an amazing find, keeping the history alive!

[bluewormx]

The beginning of a great build
Can’t wait to see it all in one piece, a video of it running would really be icing on the cake.

[jwscab]

So that's a schumacher drivetrain and a crazy steering setup in an RC10 from what I'm seeing. pretty cool

from all outward appearances, it seems like you hit the lottery every few days..... must have been born under one helluva lucky day!

[dinglem]

Yes, it has a CAT drivetrain.... and the hubs have been custom made as part of the conversion to accept the CAT stub axles. The steering on this car has been butchered somewhat, but if you look in the original mag article the intended set-up is a little more acceptable. Thankfully the butchery seen here uses the standard bellcrank holes so it can all be reversed without issues.

About 30minutes after sending that very picture to my buddy bluewormx on here, he was sending me back a CAD rendering of the linkage, scaled from the known distances between the standard RC10 bellcranks, and a few hours thereafter Jeff at Factory Works sent me this picture(!)

Some pretty cool people about, that's for sure

I am the first to admit I have had a few lucky finds recently.... i have too much time on my hands when I am away working so can have a good dig through old posts and the like Part of the hobby for me at least, is researching the more obscure items and trying to locate examples of them.

[winner_evo]

I'm surprised you bothered with this seeing as it doesn't have the optional Brimod shocks .................

Oh wait, doesn't matter, you already have them

Great find.

[dinglem]

I'm surprised you bothered with this seeing as it doesn't have the optional Brimod shocks .................

I have that covered

It will be getting Brimods and a variation on the mag article flame shell theme.

I was actually speaking to the Brimod test driver about the Brimod car and he mentioned that Brimod were involved with CML when they were looking at developing and marketing the Brimod car itself, but they were working on this 'Concept Car' at around the same time. Jason Varley was the test driver for The Concept Car and they (he and his father) were running CML at that point in time. The machned aluminium front steering hub parts are strikingly similar to those on the Brimod car so there is possibly a machining link there, supported by the use of Brimod shocks as per the article.

I was digging into that research line when I was pointed to an old photograph which had been posted around 18months ago.... i managed to get in touch with the poster who had been sent the picture by another old racing friend... and the following morning I had caught up with that friend and bought this car!

[dinglem]

Another point of note on the magazine car is that wide Polycarbonate bumper. Most of the UK guys will have seen something like these before in the late 80's, having been made by Richard Robertson of Star Electronics from Sapcote in Leicestershire in the UK. They mainly made ESC's in the mid-to-late 80's but also sold these bumpers in the same format apart from the fitting areas for numerous models. I have the Hotshot version on my Rory Cull car, but would love to source an RC10 one for this if anybody can help at all?

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The Rory Cull Hotshot bumper example - you can see the main front end of it is identical:-

[dinglem]

Not seen these fitted onto a goldpan before... aided by the machined-in Schumacher castle fitment inside of the rims and the Schumacher stub axles this car runs.

Will polish up the outer silver rim and they should be good to go

[dinglem]

Couple of quick updates.... mock up build to check all of the parts are there, and a painstaking sticker application night.

[dinglem]

Well a little more time has been liberated for work on the Concept Car 4wd.... mainly just a tidy up and some shell sticker application and sorting of the matching rear wing.

The gold pan was fully stripped down and whilst everything was off it the MMS machining on the base was cleaned up a little with a Dremel. It needs a hand-polish with some fine emery, but the main gouges and scratches have been tidied at least. It is a used chassis, but the original item so i do not intend going too overboard with it.

I had sourced some original wishbones to change out with, but in actual fact the front wishbones which came on the car have come up really nicely, so will be retained. Quick first mock-up with one of the brimod shocks also gives an indication of how it will look when finally back together.

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We also discovered the same marking hand-written on the nose piece 'B28'... the same writing was also discovered on the main chassis under the battery position as well as some other hand-written text relating to washer packing. I have no idea what the B28 signifies, but i felt it was necessary to preserve it as much as possible, so that is what we have done.

Whilst stripping the drivetrain it was decided to go for a slightly upgraded white nylon belt pulley set - the original plan being to go for the somewhat fitting MMS variety, but then a very nice WASP racing front gearbox housing complete with rare WASP front diff came up for sale so i thought that would make for a worthy replacement of the tired original, and an optional orange WASP belt completes the set-up. Next up is bolting it into the car.

[RC10th]

I hate to think how much you spend on RC

Awesome find though, thanks for posting it for all of us to see.