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NavySonicShell

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On 1/9/2017 at 2:50 PM, NavySonicShell said:

Not quite on the same page as everything else here, but Toyota's new designs are proving to break the mold of being boring commuter cars. This is the new CH-R

 

 

And This is the 2018 Camry that was announced today.

 

 

Even the Interior looks tasty.

 

 

Honda is also doing a good job in the design department lately, at least on the Civic.

 

 

 

idk i think the 2017 CRV looks nice as well

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Performing an eight month thread bump/revival and leaving regular cars altogether with a short recap of the rise, fall, and short life of one of the most beautiful and technologically advanced RC machines of the modern time. 

The Tamiya TRF501X was designed in early 2007 with one goal in mind: To win the 2007 IFMAR 1/10 4WD Offroad World Championship. 

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The first TRF501X being driven by Hupo Honigl at the Tamiya headquarters before being shipped out to the European Championship in July, its first and only real test before the World Championship in November. 

Having been the king of touring car racing for many years and having won the 1/10 IFMAR touring car World Championship for several years running, 2006 was a rough year for Tamiya with their new TRF415 chassis not living up to expectations,  the Tamiya factory drivers being handily beaten by Yokomo and by Hotbodies' new car, the Cyclone D4, with team leader Andy Moore taking the title that year. 

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The disappointing TRF415 in a studio shot. 

After the major disappointment, Tamiya decided that, without another onroad championship until 2008, they would pour their abundant resources into a radical new offroad buggy design that year in an attempt to regain some glory, despite not having ever manufactured an offroad vehicle for professional racing. 

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Thus, the TRF501X was born, and two prototypes were shipped off with factory drivers Hupo Honigl and Marc Rheinard, to the first major race of the season, the electric offroad European Championship in July.

The TRF501X featured a radical mid motor and center differential setup, along with belt drive, two things which had never been seen combined in 4WD 1/10 scale before. Along with an aggressively sharp but aerodynamic body shell, style points from the outside nearly matched the extraordinary drive system. 

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Having virtually no testing from the two prototype's completion to being shipped off for the Euro's, early practice running from Hupo and Marc proved that while the car was obviously fast in the soft, sandy track conditions, the radical center differential belt drive system also had a significant weak spot which led to snapped belts for both cars in three out of the six practice runs. 

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Reliability problems continued into qualifying for Marc Rheinard, costing him a spot in the A final, but quick-but-careful driving from Hupo earned him pole position, with a staggered qualifying time an impressive 15 seconds quicker than the Losi XXX-4 of Taylor Petersen in second. 

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The first main went off without a hitch for Honigl, this image of the first corner being the closest that Petersen would be the entire race. Hupo won the first leg with a 10 second gap to Taylor. 

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The second leg of the A-Main was the exact opposite for Honigl. An early bobble cost him the lead to Petersen, and most of the race was spent catching back up and passing.

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Once Honigl had passed Taylor, they remained Line astern until the closing two laps, when Taylor suffered a broken arm which put him out. Hupo Honigl won the European Championship with two victories, Crag in second with a second in Leg 2 and a win in Leg 3, and Petersen rounded out the podium. 

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Tamiya left the Euros overflowing with confidence, they had created something quite unusual for an RC manufacturer, a winning car on debut having no experience in that specific class. Sure, the car had been quite unreliable at times, but the overwhelming speed more than covered off the teething troubles, at least in their opinion. 

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Fast forward four months to the worlds in Japan, and the confidence from the euros quickly turned to disappointment. The expectation of a damp, soft track due to rain which is what the car was designed for never came, and the dry, slick conditions that the 501X faced was something that the company and team had never tested for. Both Rheinard and Honigl struggled through practice and the first two rounds of qualifying with a car that had no data for the surface, ending round 2 of qualifying in a shocking 45th place for Rheinard and 52nd for Honigl overall.

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An embarassing decision from Tamiya was taken to allow both of their drivers to run Associated B44 chassis which were reveling in the difficult conditions. Despite three respectable rounds the following day, the damage was done, and Honigl and Rheinard ended qualifying 16th and 20th overall, outside of qualifying for the A final. At the conclusion of the World Championship, the 501X was scrapped and Tamiya set to work on a new car, the 511. 

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