Serpent Model Racing Cars B.V. (known commonly as Serpent, or alternatively Serpent Motorsport, Serpent MRC or Team Serpent) was a company from Heemstede, North Holland in the Netherlands, specializing in competition grade radio controlled cars, which has won numerous IFMAR and EFRA titles, plus several national titles. They are currently Chinese-owned and all products are made in China as of printing.

History

The company was officially founded in 1980 as a brand name to Berton BV, named after a combination of its founders, Pieter Bervoets and Ron Ton, who were both radio controlled car racers. The pair built their first RC car in 1972, using a Kyosho Dash 1 chassis they modified. In 1977, the duo started to develop their first car under the Serpent name in 1977 and in 1979; both Bervoets and Ton had won separate EFRA 1:8 titles with their Mk. III Pro.

One of the highlights of its competition career occurred during the IFMAR World Championship for 1:10 Scale 235mm IC On-Road cars that took place in Apeldoorn, in the Netherlands, when the Impacts, its competition car for the category at the time, dominated the top 10 positions in both the Class 1 (sportscars) and Class 2 (touring cars).

The cars are nowadays developed using 3D CAD software such as Pro/Engineer and SolidWorks and are tested at the nearby race track in Heemstede. Other than competing in national and international championships, Serpent also has its own one-make series Serpent Nitro Tours and Serpent Series, which also has its own drivers' development program (Serpent Driver Development).

Ton sold off his shares to Bervoets in 1997. Bervoets in turn sold the company off to Ronald Baar and the works' championship-winning driver and designer, Michael Salven, in 2005 to allow him to concentrate on his other project that he had been running for years before, Virtual RC Racing, specializing in RC car racing simulation for home computers.

Following its takeover, there had been a few changes to the company, although the hissing snake symbol has never been changed since the beginning. The company's colour scheme has changed from magenta to the national Dutch colour scheme of orange and the logo has also been changed before the takeover. Another change to the company was when the popular and long running RC community orientated website myTSN was disbanded in favour of a more dedicated company site

In 2008, the Dutch company went into bankruptcy. The recently started Off-Road projects were paused and the brand and the stock was sold to new company VectorRC in Holland. Serpent Ltd in Hong Kong is now in charge of the production and distribution in Asia, Serpent Europe for Europe and Serpent America for the American region. Michael Salven and Ronald de Baar are owners of the Serpent brand and run a company (VectorRC BV) that takes care of the development and the marketing world-wide.

As of 2009, Serpent has won a total of seven world (IFMAR) and thirty three European titles (EFRA) together with five Japanese (JMRCA) and eight U.S. (ROAR) national titles as well as three Winternats.

In 2011, VectorRC teamed up with 2 new partners in China and created Serpent Ltd Hong Kong. By moving to China, Serpent has been able to develop the car line-up massively to over 30 different models, while maintaining the very high quality and performance standards.

Product lines

Off-road

Electric motorEP

On-road

Electric motorEP

2011

References

• http://www.retromodelisme.com/liste_manuel.html?d=30&l=&co=&m=6&c=&e=&mo=

• http://www.rcmag.com/reviews/retro/voitures/piste/lesvoitures/serpent/serpent.htm

• https://web.archive.org/web/20110719113818/http://www.wh-racing.de/01973c9224134640c/automodelleverbrenner/serpent.html

• https://web.archive.org/web/20060312182602/http://www.rc-junkies.nl/images/library/SpotlightopSerpent.pdf

• https://web.archive.org/web/20110724030306/http://www.rcbazar.net/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=469

• http://www.rctech.net/forum/showthread.php?p=4035794

External links

• Official site