I
don't know much about pan cars. They are usually 1/12 scale
touring cars meant for strictly on road use and have minimal
suspension. I'm not sure if "pan" refers to the typical FRP
chassis plate or the flat shape of the body. In any case, they
have been a specific class of on-road racing for many years. This
specific model, the Kyosho Fantom EP, came out way back in 1983 and won a
national championship in Japan. Kyosho re-released the model in
2020 with some obvious accommodations for modern electronics, and I
decided I better have one to round out the variety of my collection.The Fantom is 1/12 scale which makes for a much smaller chassis than I am used to. You might assume this would therefore use a 380 sized motor, but it is actually designed for a standard 540 Back in the day, this would have used a Kyosho 480T racing motor. As I understand it, the "480" implied that this style of motor was suitable for 480 second (8 minute) races which was practically an endurance race at the time. A car in this class would need to be light and not consume much power. The "T" is apparently for Torque. There was also a 480S (Speed) version of the motor. Fast forward to modern times and Kyosho released a brushless version of the venerable 480. This is a gorgeous polished can 21.5T motor that comes is a pair of end bells: green for the 480T and blue for the 480S. Pair this with a chrome 240S electronic speed control and you have a marvelous (and unbelievably expensive) power system. So that's what I did. You also need to use a mini sized servo. These are very rare in the USA so I ended up spending way more than makes any sense on it as well.
The chassis itself is very different. It uses double deck FRP plates which isn't that unusual, but the rear axle is direct driven from the motor pinion (no gearbox) like a Tamiya F1 or Group C chassis. The differential is built into the spur gear. The front axle is also driven via a ladder chain. This chain is made from bent wires, and individual "links" must be manually removed by the builder until the length is right. There is no front differential, but there is a two-sided one-way bearing that allows the front wheels to turn at different speeds. It turns out this is important because the front tires are smaller in diameter than the rear. This would normally be a disaster for a 4WD vehicle, but because of the front one-way the front wheels can just coast most of the time. They only really grab when the rear slips in a corner, pulling the car into the turn. I'd never thought of that before. There is no sprung suspension of any kind. Kyosho says it has "3 point suspension" which I interpret to mean no suspension at all. Only flexure of the lower chassis plate is available to keep all 4 wheels on the ground. The tires are foam, not rubber. Pretty much all of the other parts of the chassis are aluminum. It is quite lovely to behold and was fun to build. Painting and decorating it was not so fun.
I had always been lead to believe that pan cars had exceptional throttle response and sharp steering which is what made them so special. Is that true? Not really. I don't find that it drives and handles much differently than any other RC touring car. It is reasonably quick, but putting a 540 sized motor in such a small car could certainly be much quicker. 21.5T isn't that fast. The complete lack of sprung suspension means that the opportunities to drive it are few. Given these factors and the exorbitant amount of money that needs to spent on this caliber of electronics, it's hard to say that this one was worth it. I do always enjoy something completely different though, so I don't regret it.
 Page 1: Assembly |
 Page 2: Final Photos |