My local RC club, DMS Racing, has recently started regular heats for micro racers. Since I have been well and truly bitten by the RC racing bug, I caved in and got myself something to race. In this post I’ll be having a quick look at the Carisma GT14 1/14 scale touring car, and I’ll also be posting about the Team Associated SC18 short course truck later.

First, a bit of video. When I got my Gt14, there wasn’t much info about it, so I figured I might as well do one of those “unboxing” videos that seem to be quite popular these days…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Having spent a bit more time with it, I must say I’m really looking forward to racing this for the first time. I’m very impressed with the attention to detail of this car, especially considering it could so easily be mistaken for a toy. The shell alone is a work of art – I’ll try my best not to scratch it up too badly on its first outing, but no promises! Obviously a realistic shell isn’t super important on a car that’s going to get raced and see some hard times, but it looks like they’ve already thought of that – the wing is held in place by four body clips, and I was very surprised (and glad!) to discover that the wing mirrors can be easily removed. I had thought that the first thing to go would be the mirrors, because although they’re a lovely scale touch, they do look extremely vulnerable. However, undo a screw, and each mirror comes right off. Speaking of the shell, each shell is available as an option (see the list of Carisma GT14 bodyshells here), and there’s also a clear Mazda 6 shell for custom paint jobs.

Moving on to the chassis, it’s quite impressive how they’ve shrunk a regular 1/10 touring car down to 1/14 size. Everything you’d expect to see is right there – adjustable shocks, proper diffs, a servo saver, adjustable geometry, slipper  - there’s even mountings for anti roll bars. There are a number of upgrades available (and there’s also a “pro” spec chassis-only version, the GT14 Pro V-One) so some of the components are basic – the shocks are adjusted using clip-on rings, unlike the threaded body “Pro” shocks; it doesn’t have the aluminium adjustable turnbuckles, settling for threaded rods; the chassis isn’t carbon fibre; the tyres are scale treaded instead of slicks or foam; and the diffs are geared instead of ball. However, for a nice, easy, out-of-the-box racer, you’ve got everything you need to keep you occupied for a while.

Carisma GT14

The motor is a bog standard 370-size brushed unit, however even this has a couple of nice touches. First off, there’s a clip-on heatsink (which I’ll be swapping onto my SC18 next time I race it!), and secondly, replacement brushes are one of the option parts! I imagine a lot of racers will be wanting to swap a brushless system in, but it’s good to know that if you stick with the standard motor you’ll be able to maintain it. I wouldn’t be surprised if some clubs ran a controlled class of this car, to keep costs down and make it easier for people on a limited budget to get involved.

Even the radio is quite decent. I’ve opted for a 2.4GHz model – I really can’t be doing with crystals and frequency clashes and so on, so for the extra £20 or so, it’s worth going for.  In fact, it’s really the only one that makes sense – apparently the 27MHz models have a combined ESC and receiver, so if you ever did want to go to 2.4GHz you’d need to replace both the ESC and the receiver, which would cost you more than the extra for the 2.4GHz model in the first place. Just a 2.4GHz receiver would be at least £35, so it makes no sense at all to go for an FM model. Anyway, the radio gear is not bad at all – the transmitter takes four AA batteries (supplied!) unlike the SC18′s demand for eight, and as well as the usal throttle and steering trim, you’ve got end point adjustment AND a dual rate knob. Not bad for a kit radio. The only downside is that even though it’s a 2.4GHz system, the receiver’s aerial is just as long as any FM aerial – at least 30cm or so. Fortunately it doesn’t seem to mind being coiled up inside the shell, so I’ll be racing it like that.

Anyway, that’s my first impressions – I’ll post an update once I’ve given it a run around the track!