A British engineer has built a custom remote control car that reached an astonishing 234.71 miles per hour, officially setting the fastest speed ever recorded for an RC vehicle and beating machines many times its size.
Stephen Wallis, a part time motorcycle engineer from Rugby, spent more than a year designing and refining the car, nicknamed The Beast. Measuring just over one meter long, the vehicle was built using 3D printed components and powered by high performance drone motors.
Despite its small footprint, the numbers are staggering. At 234.71 mph, the car is faster than some legendary supercars, including the McLaren F1. Wallis originally aimed for 200 mph, with a personal stretch goal of 240 mph. While he fell slightly short of that secret target, the run was still enough to claim the world record.
The Beast’s design is surprisingly direct. Four drone motors are bolted straight to the wheels, which are then fixed directly to the chassis. This minimizes drivetrain losses and maximizes power transfer. Wallis said the mechanical layout was relatively straightforward, but the electronics proved far more complex.
To push performance higher, he had to dive deep into brushless motor technology, learning how to extract more speed and efficiency from the setup. After months of testing and tweaking, he brought the car to a speed trial organized by the Radio Operated Scale Speed Association at Llanbedr Airfield in North Wales.
There, The Beast clocked a speed roughly 16 mph faster than the previous record holder, sealing the achievement. Wallis later received official recognition, including a Guinness World Record certificate and a commemorative cap.
For Wallis, the project was more than just an engineering challenge. He traces the passion back to childhood, when he first got a radio controlled car at eight years old. Decades later, that same fascination turned into a machine capable of outrunning many real cars.
It is a reminder that sometimes the wildest speeds do not come from full size race tracks, but from small scale machines built in a workshop with enough curiosity and determination.
