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 Western Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. In 2021, it had a population of 27,545. Located just south of the city of Haarlem on the border with South Holland, it is one of the richest ...

North Holland North Holland (, ) is a Provinces of the Netherlands, province of the Netherlands in the northwestern part of the country. It is located on the North Sea, north of South Holland and Utrecht (province), Utrecht, and west of Friesland and Flevola ...

in the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

, specializing in competition grade

radio controlled car Radio-controlled cars, or RC cars for short, are model vehicle, miniature vehicles (cars, vans, buses, buggy (automobile), buggies, etc.) Radio control, controlled via radio. Nitro powered models use glow plug (model engine), glow plug engine ...

s, 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 is a Japanese company based in Tokyo, which operates internationally under the name KYOSHO. The company's main office is located in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Chiyoda, and the production headquarters are located in Atsugi, Kanagawa. Established in October ...

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 Apeldoorn (; Dutch Low Saxon: ) is a municipality and city in the province of Gelderland in the centre of the Netherlands. The municipality of Apeldoorn, including the villages of Beekbergen, Loenen (Apeldoorn), Loenen, Ugchelen and Hoenderloo ...

, 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 c ...

software such as

Pro/Engineer Creo Parametric, formerly known, together with Creo Elements/Pro, as Pro/Engineer (commonly referred to as Pro E) and Wildfire, is a solid modeling or computer-aided design (CAD), computer-aided manufacturing (CAM), computer-aided engineering (CA ...

and

SolidWorks SolidWorks (stylized as SOLIDWORKS) is a brand of software used for solid modeling computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided engineering (CAE). It was one of the first 3D CAD applications designed to run on a desktop PC. The brand is owned ...

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, 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 Home computers were a class of microcomputers that entered the market in 1977 and became common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a s ...

. Following its takeover, there had been a few changes to the company, although the hissing snake

symbol A symbol is a mark, Sign (semiotics), sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, physical object, object, or wikt:relationship, relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by cr ...

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

magenta Magenta () is a purple-red color. On color wheels of the RGB color model, RGB (additive) and subtractive color, CMY (subtractive) color models, it is located precisely midway between blue and red. It is one of the four colors of ink used in colo ...

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

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

an titles (EFRA) together with five

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

ese (JMRCA) and eight

U.S. The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous ...

(

ROAR A roar is a type of animal vocalization that is loud, deep and resonating. Many mammals have evolved to produce roars and other roar-like vocals for purposes such as long-distance communication and intimidation. These include various species of ...

) 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

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