Serpent Model Racing Cars B.V. (known commonly as Serpent, or alternatively Serpent Motorsport, Serpent MRC or Team Serpent) was a company from

Heemstede Heemstede () is a town and a municipality in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. It is the fourth richest municipality of the Netherlands. History Heemstede formed around the Castle ''Heemstede'' that was built overlooking the ...

North Holland North Holland ( nl, Noord-Holland, ) is a province of the Netherlands in the northwestern part of the country. It is located on the North Sea, north of South Holland and Utrecht, and west of Friesland and Flevoland. In November 2019, it had a ...

in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

specializing in competition grade

radio controlled car 'Radio-controlled cars'' (or RC cars for short) are miniature model cars, vans, buses, trucks or buggies that can be controlled from a distance using a specialized transmitter or remote. The term "RC" has been used to mean both "remote controll ...

s which has won numerous

IFMAR The International Federation of Model Auto Racing (IFMAR) is the world governing body of professional radio controlled car racing. The organization was created in 1979 by professional racer and RC model entrepreneur Ted Longshaw. At that time, ...

and

EFRA The Europäische Föderation Radiogesteuerter Automodelle (EFRA), better known in English as the European Federation of Radio Operated Model Automobiles, is the governing body of radio-controlled car racing in Europe. History Setup in May 197 ...

titles, plus several national title; 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 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 is a Japanese company based in Tokyo, which operates internationally under the name KYOSHO. The company's main office is located in Chiyoda, and the production headquarters are located in Atsugi, Kanagawa. Established in October 1963, Kyosho cr ...

Dash 1 chassis modified by themselves, then 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

1:8 titles with their Mk. III Pro. One of its highlights of its competition career is the total domination during the IFMAR World Championship for 1:10 Scale 235mm IC On-Road cars that took place in

Apeldoorn Apeldoorn (; Dutch Low Saxon: ) is a municipality and city in the province of Gelderland in the centre of the Netherlands. It is located about 60 km east of Utrecht, 60 km west of Enschede, 25 km north of Arnhem and 35 km south of Zwolle. The ...

, in the

; 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 Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve co ...

software such as

Pro/Engineer Creo Parametric, formerly known, together with Creo Elements/Pro, as Pro/Engineer and Wildfire, is a solid modeling or CAD, CAM, CAE, and associative 3D modeling application, running on Microsoft Windows. Creo Parametric should not to be confu ...

and

SolidWorks SolidWorks is a solid modeling computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided engineering (CAE) application published by Dassault Systèmes. According to the publisher, over two million engineers and designers at more than 165,000 companies we ...

and are tested at the nearby race track in

. Other than competing in national and international championships, Serpent also has its own one-make series Serpent Nitro Tours and Serpent Series, also has its own drivers' development program (Serpent Driver Development). Ton sold off his shares to Bervoets in 1997 who 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 also 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 A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise very different conc ...

has never been changed since the beginning, the company's colour scheme has changed from

magenta Magenta () is a color that is variously defined as pinkish- purplish-red, reddish-purplish-pink or mauvish-crimson. On color wheels of the RGB (additive) and CMY (subtractive) color models, it is located exactly midway between red and blue. I ...

to the national Dutch colour scheme of orange and the logo has also been changed before the takeover. Another change to the company was, 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 for the production and Distribution in Asia, Serpent Europe for Europe and Serpent America for the American region. Michael Salven, 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 have won a total of seven world (IFMAR) and thirty three

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

an titles (EFRA) together with five

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese (JMRCA) and eight

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

( ROAR) national titles as well as three

Winternats The Winternats is a competitive on-road gas powered radio controlled car race attended by racers from around the world. It is held annually in Fort Myers, Florida at the Lee County Civic Center, usually in the month of February. The 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

1:8 811 Cobra Be Off-road EP 2011 1:10 411 On-road EP 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{{dead link, date=March 2018 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yes *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
Radio-controlled car manufacturers Companies based in North Holland Toy companies established in 1980 Model manufacturers of the Netherlands