Last week the Nurnberg Toy Fair was held in, you guessed it, in Nurnberg Germany. This is the biggest toy and hobby trade show of the year so normally they have some big announcements. This year didn't dissapoint! 

The biggest rc car news came from traditional gas car company Serpent who showed three new electric cars. Besides their electric touring car, the S400, they will soon offer a 4WD off-road buggy, a 1:12th scale pan car and a 1:24th scale micro pan car.

The 1:12th scale racer is called the S120 but was only shown to the public with a body on it. They want to keep the exact design secret for now, but according to people who've seen it it has some innovative features. The S240 1:24th scale racer has a classic pan car design with graphite chassis.

The 4WD buggy is called the S500 looks a lot like the Durango buggies Gerd Strenge designed before. This car looks an further development of those cars and most parts of the car have been changed. The prototypes did very well at the off-road worlds last year so it is expected the production verion will be seen in amongst the front runners in many races. The main surprise to me was the milled aluminium tub chassis. It looks like this will be on the production car as well which keeps me wondering about the price of the kit because that looks like one really expensive part!

Schumacher announced a new 4WD off-road buggy to be out soon called the Cat SX, but gave no further specific information.

Hot Bodies showed of their new 2WD off-road contender the Cyclone D2. At first glance it looks like all the other 2WD buggies out there, it does have some interesting features though. The car has two piece shock towers and also has a machined aluminium chassis like the Serpent S500. This is a trend with the new car designs apparently, though I'm sceptical this will make it onto the production car as a molded chassis would make more sense as it is lighter and cheaper. We'll see what happens!

Kyosho came up with a line of cars even smaller then the Mini-Z, called the Dnano. The cars are 1/43rd scale, so I guess really intended for desktop races.

After a couple of quiet years, the 1:12th scale class is really taking off again with lots of cars an accessories being released. The most successfull and most experienced company in this class is without a doubt Team Associated. They had their new 1:12th scale racer on display, the RC12R5. Since some pictures have already been online since the Cleveland indoor champs, most of this car was already known but now the Team announces all the details. It has a 4-cell graphite chassis with pivot ball and link rear suspension. A more traditional T-bar setup is available as an option. The motor pod is optimized for brushless motors. The front suspension is completely new and is now a lot more adjustable. One striking innovation is the main shock on which the shock shaft protrudes on both sides. It's said to make dampening more consistent.

As usual, RedRC have great coverage and lots of pictures of all the news worthy items.