Racing the World s SMALLEST BMW RC Cars

I got a parcel through the post yesterday from HPI Racing and it's got a bit of weight to it and I'm not 100% sure what's in there. It does say Nano Tabletop Racer on there and obviously I knew that something was being sent because they always message me but I wasn't expecting a big heavy box like this. My good friend Sean, every time I use a very sharp craft knife to open boxes it makes him cringe. So he very kindly sent me a new knife which is a very nice knife and I've purposely put this watch on this morning because they are almost the same green. What a legend! I mean it's not the first knife I've been sent, I got sent one quite a while ago as well. That's a bit blunt now, I've sharpened it a few times so I wish you a new knife. Anyway let's see what we got in here. Oh well there's a car. Oh 2002 Turbo, nice. Oh there's another one in there. Oh the other colour. HPI hooking me up. These look like some barriers. Jersey barrier. That looks like a track. That also looks like a track. Some more barriers. Oh they have hooked me up haven't they? What's this? Some more, oh they're kerbs. A kerb set. Wow I've got a busy time ahead. More kerbs, more barriers and more barriers. So it was these that were weighing it down because they're heavy. And I've also got in here, well I've got an M3 that we've not seen yet. Right we'll have a look at these cars in a minute but I really want to see what this track's like. Let's move all this. That is a lot of barriers and kerbs. I wonder if they're both the same. So I've already got some of these from Turbo Racing. I'm wondering, oh my word that won't come out. Come on. I'm wondering if they've like rebranded them for HPI. We'll find out in a minute because I kind of remember what they look. Oh no, nope that's different. Here we go. Oh it's a big mat. Oh this is like a little drift arena. So I guess you make your own track. I don't know whether these things drift but we'll have a look. Let's have a look at this one. I think it's the same. Oh come on. They got that tight in there haven't they? Yeah I think it's the same. Let's put that back in. Actually scrap that. I've just had a look on the boxes. That says open and that says creator one. That must mean they're different. Right then. What's different with this one? Ah there we go. This one's actually got some stuff on it. I think we'll use this one for the video because it'll be a little bit easier for me to to join that up and make a track. And I'm not sure those little things drift but I guess we'll find out in a bit when we try them. Anyway let's get one of these out. Thanks Sean for the knife. It's coming useful already. So there's a little bit of information on the box. Some more stuff there. I was actually lucky enough to see the prototype of this when they were developing it when I was at the HPI HQ in the UK. There's some instructions. The car's in there. We'll get that out in a minute. And I said to them when they were doing it. They asked me my opinion and I said if you're gonna make one you need to make it drive really well and it needs to look good. And from what I've seen with the Mustang they did exactly that. And I think I also said that it needs to be priced well to compete with some of the other stuff that was out there. And for us in the UK I'd say that they nailed that as well because they are actually priced really well. And these are what they're competing with. The Turbo Racing. And I've done a fair few of these and these are also very good. However I would argue that although they are nicely detailed they're not licensed and they don't drive quite as good as the HPI. And you also don't get a full transmitter with them. Well actually that's a lie. You do get a full transmitter. It's one of the ones that the top slides on and that you get a lot of the cheaper stuff. Whereas this is a little bit more premium. Now these have actually come right down in price. I think when I was reviewing them they were about maybe 50% more than they are now. On AliExpress I can pick up one of them for £57. £57.62 and the HPI is £63.99 from a UK shop. So I can get if I ordered that now that would arrive tomorrow. Although just a plain one is £59.99. Or if you've already got one or you've got a transmitter that you can buy into these then you can get one for £39.99. So same price as that but you're getting a licensed product from HPI. These are still good though. Nothing wrong with them but just trying to give you some comparison. They're actually bigger as well. These are £172 and these are £164 scale. And of course £164 scale is the same as Hot Wheels. So these will go right next to your Hot Wheels stuff but these ones you can drive remotely. The scale detail on something this small. It's so good. Look at the wheels on it. It's got working lights as well. Charged underneath with a USB-C plug and there's also, I can't remember what that's for, there's like as if it's got wireless charging as well. It's got these like little metal connections on the bottom. I don't believe there's anywhere on this to charge. I think this is a four channel radio as well. You've got throttle end points, you've got steering dual rate, you've got steering trim, you've got throttle trim, you've got a channel there which probably won't do anything and then you've got channels there. One of them will do your lights I believe but yeah like I said a very nice controller with these. Right I will get this on charge and we'll have a look at the other one, the white one, and then we'll have a look at the M3 as well. It's not as much of a flex as it used to be but I have USB power in my sockets. I think it's more common now than it was when I first got them installed. Little light at the front there to tell you it's charging and it probably won't take long. Right let's have a look at the white one. I guess the white is the more classic colour for these. Look at that. Again a beautiful looking thing. Look at the chrome detail. I don't know how well my camera's picking it up. The chrome detail around the windows, the stripes on there and across that front valance, the little BMW badge. There's even a little it even says turbo on the back and you can read it even though it's very small. They have absolutely nailed the scale looks of these things. Right M3. I've had this one a while. I'm not sure when these come out. This one is already out. Such a classic isn't it? The E30 M3. Such a classic. This one's in the grey. You can get three other colours or two other colours. You can get red and you can get the one that's got the race livery on it. I love a bit of like graphite grey. Looks really nice. Obviously the lights at the back are clear because they are LEDs so they'll be red once this thing's fired up. These come with rubber tyres. That's why I said I don't think they drift because they've got quite grippy tyres on them. So rubber tyres. Fully proportional as you're going to see in a minute once everyone's charged. But before we do anything I'm going to have to build a track. So we're going to have to set it up on the floor. Although I am going to build up all the barriers sat here. I'm not sitting on the floor doing it. Right so that's two full packs. One pack of You get loads. There's still some left that I haven't used just yet. I'll use that to do the main track. Still some bits here. You get stickers for the bottom of your kerbs. You'll notice I've also got a bit of wood now. I went out and got a bit of wood cut so that I could mount it properly. I've just screwed it into the corners there. So now it's super smooth. I can mount it on there. I didn't want to mess about on the floor so now it's up here which makes it way easier for me. And it looks cool and it means I can permanently fix it. There's little holes in all of these and in here and I guess you can put like a tiny little screw or even maybe a little nail through there. You won't need to do all of them. I'll probably do one at each end of these barriers because they separate out like that. But I should have enough barriers to go all the way around and then I'm going to get all this out and I'm going to make an actual track. And then well yeah we'll get back and we'll do some driving. I just thought I'd show you how you get in a single pack because it's quite a lot. I've managed to do that, that, that, that, that and yeah that's it. I've got some spare but they're the wrong configuration to do the rest. So I should be able to get the rest done and then I'll probably use the yellow and black to maybe do the outside bit of the track. Anyway I'll work it out but I'm going to make a decent track here so I can do some little like timed runs. Then hopefully because it's permanent on this board I can well take it to some other places and let other people have a go. Look at this. All finished. I'm glad I got that bit of board as well. It made it so much easier to get it all on there. Took me a little while. I should have really counted how many I used but I got loads of spare of the yellow and black. Hardly used any of them. I used all but them for the barriers. That was to go all the way around and then I've got one there, one there and then a little bit there. The reason I've got these in because I wanted to make a track that's only one way i.e. there's no points where it crosses over because it'd be good to get a couple of these racing on here at some point. It means you're not gonna have like a crossover and crash into each other and so that's why I put these in just to block it off. It's all just held on with some tacks that I got from my local DIY store. They were a little bit thick to go through there so I had to drill out the hole a little bit so I didn't split them. I've painted these ones silver just to blend in a bit and ideally I could do with painting these white and red but it doesn't really matter and actually by using these metal tacks it's done something for me that I wasn't really thinking about. Obviously when you're racing around the track if you try and cheat and you cross the line because they're metal that's actually a magnet under there and it sticks to it so if you try and exceed track limits you'll get stuck. Talking of track limits I had a little issue with the silver one as you can see the wheels are like that. Now that isn't what I broke. I was doing a few laps just to make sure that I had the turns at the right angle and stuff and I was coming down the straight. I came around this corner obviously just at the right angle and it caught the barrier there, went over the top, landed on its roof and then the motor shifted or something shifted in there and it started sounding a little bit geary. Now I took it apart and it wasn't too hard there's just some screws underneath there, the body comes off, there's little bits like the lights come out and these two little plastic bits come out so it does kind of fall apart a bit and then there was a single screw holding like the PCB the circuit board on. I took that off and I tried to prise it apart. You know when you like open a bag of chocolate or like sweets, candy or something like that and you pull it and as you do that it just flies everywhere. Well I pulled it, it pulled open really quick, all the gears fell out, the steering arm, the wheels all fell off and it just went everywhere and I can't find the little steering arm that keeps the wheels straight. Everything's back together and it's working, I've just lost that steering arm and although I've tidied the workshop recently and the floor's pretty clean it's such a small piece and it's black. I just can't find it anywhere. I have searched everywhere, I've pulled everything out of there, I've pulled everything back there, I've looked under the bench, I can't find it. So the silver one's out of action so I'll be running the white one and the M3 and the cool thing about it being 164 scale is you can put some little cars around and they fit in really well, just need a few figures. You can actually buy and you can 3D print figures the right size as well so you have some marshals and all sorts. Anyway although I have practiced a few times I've still not got it quite dialed in but the control you have with these is mad. The steering really nice, it's a bit noisy because it is gears in there but the steering's really good. You have got indicators on there, not too fussed on something this small. Rear lights, brake lights, front lights. This one actually, this white one does actually sound a little bit more geary than that. I don't know why but it does. It still drives alright but yeah I've not got it quite dialed in but I'm certainly getting there. I'm going to time my lap in a minute but out of all the mini ones, I think I said this with the Mustang, out of all the mini ones these HPI ones definitely drive the nicest. They're the easiest and the smoothest to drive as you can see. Like I said I've not had loads of practice but they just drive really well. They don't like get twitty on the straights, they turn in nice he says, they turn in nice. You can adjust the steering dual rate, you can adjust your throttle. Really well set up. I think I should set a lap time. Let's set a lap time with this. I'm going to run a few laps round. We'll set a lap time and then we'll come back and then we'll get the M3 out. It shouldn't really perform any different but we'll get the M3 and we'll see if we can beat the lap time. It shouldn't make a difference really. They're all the same underneath, it's just the body but maybe it'll be a bit more streamlined down the straight. People often ask me what I use to time lapse. It's called lap tracker. You can only get it on iPhone I think. I'm not sure if you get it on Android. Hopefully the screen's recording now so you can see what it's doing but you basically set it up. Should be right like that and when something passes it the only issue with them is if you're outside or if you walk past it and it causes a shadow then that's when there's a problem. Is it recording? Right here we go. Let's get some laps in. Can I get into the fours? 5.1 something at the moment. 35 5.83. Oh come on. 36 6.03. Slow is fast. 37 5.07. Oh 5.07. Come on let's get in the fours. Eventually. 71 6.17. 72 4.90. Yes 4.90 we got there. I don't know how many laps that was. 60 something. 72 laps. It says the fast lap was 3.8 but that was a spoof one where I crossed it by mistake. Lap 72. 4.90. The M3 looks really nice. Lap tracker set up. 4.9 to beat and once we beat it once we beat it that's going to be the new lap record. Come on let's go. I've got to do it in seven within 70 to see if we can do it in 72 laps. The steering on this it's a little bit noisier. 23 4.80. Yes 4.80. Lap 23. I'll tell you what let's put it on here. 4.80 seconds. Third of the third. 26. There we go. The time to beat. I had the throttle turned down on that track but they're actually really fast. Really fast for the little car they are. Well if you've got cats they'll probably love chasing one of these. What's your cat doing? Oh it's just chasing a BMW 2002 turbo around. Can we slide? Yeah. It'd be cool if they did a gyro for one of these so you could get it drifting properly. So there you go there's two of the new Nano TTRs from HPI. They've got some more coming out. I'm pretty sure I've seen they've got some Porsches coming out which is going to be awesome. Really good fun and now because this is fixed down almost permanently. I mean obviously I can take it off if I need to. It means I can go and store it away somewhere and then when people come round I can give them a race. They can try and beat my lap time and I could take it to some events and stuff and well give some people some chances as well to beat me.