Watch A Couple Of Tiny Rally Cars Race Through Skoda’s Factory

One minute. That’s how often, on average a new car comes off the assembly line at Skoda’s main plant in Mladá Boleslav, where it builds vehicles like the Rapid and Octavia. And to highlight that rate of production, the Czech automaker put together this little race.

It was held between a couple of Fabia rally cars – but not the full-scale ones that you’d find competing in, say, the European Rally Championship. Instead this race involved a pair of radio-controlled miniatures. They’re just one tenth the size, but are still capable of reaching highway speeds of 100 km/h (62 mph).

Manning the controls were two semi-professional scale racing “drivers,” piloting their little competition machines along a designated route through the plant, passing the pressing, welding, paint, engine, and assembly shops, taking about a minute to complete the course – just like the cars rolling off the line.

“Although the scale is 1:10, our events resemble a full-scale rally in many respects,” said one of the drivers, Jan Viktora. “Obviously, we’re not sitting in the cars. Instead, we have to run behind them, so we have to be very fit. On a kilometre-long track, for instance, we’ll be running for seven or eight minutes.”

“It’s a big hobby and great fun. It’s very fulfilling,” added his rival Jakub Charvát. “I’d bite your hand off to experience a real rally car, but it’s better for me to be a top-class RC rally racer than an amateur rally driver.”

Sounds like fun to us, and you can get a feel for what these remote-controlled rally cars are like in the photos and video below.