I’ve been around this hobby since its infancy and that is probably why I am so shocked to be talking about a Redcat branded model on this blog, not to mention on a drift blog. In recent years Redcat has been upping their game with more and more promising-looking models. First in the scale crawler game (I assume this had to do with former Axial founder Jeff Johns spending a two-year stint with the company) and now into the drift arena with what appears to be a pretty serious-looking contender called the RDS Competition Spec Drift Car. The RDS was easy to write off in early days with the generic body they teased, but when they pulled that shell off things got a lot more interesting. My little eye spotted some carbon goodies as well as some design queues that made me stand up and pay attention. Did I mention it is rear-wheel drive?
While the car looks extremely promising, it’s not the most attractive chassis I have seen. BUT given this is a freshman entry into the RWD market and squarely aimed at being a comp car it’s not really about being flashy. I would describe the RDS as practical with enough innovative goodies thrown in to make it intriguing. From their marketing remarks, they apparently brought in an experienced drifter in the design phase of the car to make sure the car has everything it needs to be competitive right out of the box. If that is the case then that will up the value delivered by this kit tremendously. If the RDS outperforms other cars in its class I’m prepared to swallow my criticisms regarding its appearance.
The kit version comes in at 240 dollars and 400 for the RTR. It appears to have all the adjustments a modern drifter would want with fully adjustable camber and caster, adjustable toe and a sliderack adjustable Ackermann which I have not seen on any car to date. It boasts 3 motor positions, 2 of them being high motor which I like. This should be a very versatile chassis. No details on what kind of steering rack it uses and no mention of the diff at all.
I’m hopefully going to get my hands on one of these very soon so I can spend more time getting to know the machine and bringing you my thoughts on how it drives. Until that time I’ll enjoy a few pictures and marvel at how things change.
That’s it for now gang, be good to each other and I’ll see you at the track.
-Evol
If you want to pick up one of these new drift kits you can find them on Redcats site here.
