Gas RC cars (gasoline powered)
As with rc aircraft and boats, 'gas rc cars' is often used as a collective term for radio control cars powered by nitro (glow plug) and gasoline engines, or indeed any IC engine (IC: internal combustion). But, this page just focuses on gasoline.
Gasoline powered radio control cars and trucks aren't as widely available as nitro or electric ones, but they are becoming more popular.
The primary difference with gas cars is the size; because of the larger dimensions of a 2 stroke gasoline rc engine, obviously the model itself needs to be bigger. Indeed, some gas rc cars use engines based on the 2 stroke ones commonly found in the 'weed eater' type garden tools (such as strimmers, edgers and blowers).
This generally puts such cars into the 1:5 scale, about twice the size of their nitro or electric cousins - that's big!
One example of such a beast is the Mutilator Off-Road Buggy (shown below), powered by a Zenoah 23cc 2 stroke gasoline engine.
See the Mutilator gas buggy in more detail.
Another popular choice of gas rc cars comes from 'HARM'. The HARM range come RTR and there is a choice of bodies - some modeled from real cars and other non-scale ones. Also with a 23cc motor, these cars have plenty of power to push them along, and a good size gasoline tank gives a run time of around 40 minutes, which is a lot of driving!
Try eBay for HARM gas rc cars.
Shown below are a couple of examples of models from the HARM 1:5 large scale range, the Mercedes DTM CLK and the Cross Buggy:
Admittedly, these cars are more expensive than their nitro powered cousins and because of this they're probably not the kind of model you'd buy for a first time radio control car. But, gasoline powered radio control cars such as these are easy to maintain, probably more so than nitro cars in many cases. The 2 stroke engine is easy to work on and everything is very accessible because of the large size.
Despite the higher purchase price, the running costs of gas cars are substantially lower than nitro models because the price of gasoline is much cheaper per volume measure than nitro methane fuel.
Furthermore, these large scale gas cars are very impressive to watch, and sound 'meatier' than a 2 stroke glow powered car!
Try eBay for HARM gas rc cars.
Buy the 5th Scale iFMAR World Championships DVD.
Related pages
Nitro rc cars - an overview of nitro powered cars.
Electric rc cars - the quieter, cleaner, cheaper alternative.
RC car simulator - practice in safety at home.
