Around a week ago a member of one of the Fb groups I frequent pointed me towards an eBay auction which he suspected might be of interest to me..... it was! The sale detailed an MMS-machined RC10 which, if you have read my thread on 'The Concept Car 4wd' you will recognise the beautiful chassis machining, part of which accommodates a Schumacher 4wd drivetrain.
The car had been reverted back to 2wd format, but still looked fabulous and also still retained the super-sexy and rare Brimod shocks. Interestingly, they were in gold - the only set i have ever seen in that colour. One red set has been posted up in the past, but they are pretty much always silver in colour. I chatted to the seller and explained I have the only known running example of the car in 4wd mode, and he invited me around to his house (fortunately it was only 30mins from me) to view it. MMS were based in the West Midlands, as were Brimod (Wolverhampton) so the fact that the car was still in Wolverhampton told me it was very much a local car.
When I got to the house the guy said he would take a cash offer so that was how it played out, but once we have agreed a price he then said i could also take the other spares and bits and bobs which had arrived when he had himself purchased the car some 2 weeks prior.
I could not quite believe my eyes when he started pulling out bags of bodyshells, toolboxes, rims, tyres, motors, and then to top it all off he revealed that there was in fact another MMS-machined car included. This one was in full 2wd format as it did not have evidence of extra drilling for the 4wd set up and steering. A rare beast indeed. I only knew of one such machined 2wd, which belonged to Jason Varley - another local (superstar) driver to me - which i had seen in an '86 Radio Race Car magazine. This red car was packed full of awesome features and upgrades.... the machining was way more extensive than seen on the Concept Car, with extra lightening taken out of the chassis sides, the nose was rounded-off and so was the rear end around the motor mount.
Both cars are in lovely used as-raced patina, which is exactly how I will be keeping them (although i will return the gold chassis car to 4wd format). I think i am seriously in love with the red car.
It has taken me a couple of days to establish what the ESC in it was, and I will detail it a little later on along with a separate post in the electronics section, but even that is super-cool.
Another amazing part of the haul was the peel-back RC10 bodyshell, which is just insane. I have added a few stickers to it to emphasize just how epic it is, and again I will post up a separate thread about that as i think it fully deserves it.
Also included was a Demon Dart shell - again the only one I have actually seen in the flesh and as such I have arranged for this to me repliacted from this example. They were an option offered by Nick Adams of Demon Power products and Nick actually ran one on his own RC10.
Dotted over these cars you will see a few Hot Trick parts (there is a spare nose plate in the bags of bits too) as well as some funky and very thick Composite Craft/Trinity shock towers, the rear of which houses the motor wires (I have never seen this design previously).
The seller put me in touch with the original owner - i nearly dropped the phone when I called him and discovered he lived less than half a mile from me and actually used to race at the 3 Tuns Buggy Club which was my local club and haunt for all of my time racing. He then sent me some pictures of his car from 1986 and detailed a lot of info. He was friends with Alan Stewart of MMS, and also Tony Britten of Brimod, so it is no surprise he has these rare pieces on his car and also explains the unusual colours seen on some of these items. Real one-offs.
Anyway - here is a quick summary shot of the entire haul as I collected it.
And here is the red car as it was in 1986. It came with the towers, rims, bodyshell and proline bumper as seen here. Timewarp!
