A mechanical engineer from Rugby has designed and built the world’s fastest remote-controlled car, using nearly 25 years of engineering experience to push a miniature vehicle beyond 250mph.
Stephen Wallis, who has honed his engineering skills at companies including Royal Enfield, Triumph Motorcycles and Greenjets, created, built and tested the Mach Reaper in just eight months.
The car reached 250.67mph through the timing traps at a ROSSA (Radio Operated Scale Speed Association) speed event at Llanbedr Airfield in North Wales, breaking the previous Guinness World Record and making Wallis the first person to drive a remote-controlled car at such speeds. Just a few weeks later, he went even faster, reaching 256.47mph at an unofficial speed event and setting a new personal best.
“At these speeds everything becomes difficult. Aerodynamics, tyres, electronics and reliability must all work together and there have been many iterations along the way to fine tune performance,” said Wallis.
The project began in 2024 alongside his day job, driven by Wallis’s long-standing passion for pushing the limits of remote-controlled cars.
Mach Reaper comprises around 40 different components, with Wallis designing the majority himself before manufacturing many of them in-house through 3D printing and hand fabrication. Aluminium and carbon-fibre components were outsourced where specialist manufacturing was required.
A major challenge was balancing the competing demands of weight, strength, aerodynamics and reliability. Finite Element Analysis was used to simulate different suspension and aluminium wheel designs, allowing Wallis to refine the car while extracting additional performance without compromising its ability to withstand the extreme forces generated at speed.
The design also underwent numerous aerodynamic iterations, with aerofoil development helping Wallis optimise the car’s stability and performance.
Wallis drew on almost 25 years of experience with computer-aided design during the project, having first encountered Creo while studying mechanical engineering at Imperial College London in 2002. He subsequently used PTC technology throughout his career in motorcycle and product development, and used cloud-based CAD platform Onshape during the Mach Reaper project to develop and refine the vehicle.
“When I started the Mach Reaper project, Onshape gave me the flexibility, accessibility and design capabilities needed to move quickly from concept through to testing and refinement,” he said.
The cloud-based approach also allowed Wallis to continue working on the project when away from home, while making it easier to share designs with external manufacturers producing specialist components.
Wallis has documented much of his engineering work through his YouTube channel, which attracts tens of thousands of regular viewers. He is also supporting his son Roy in his own attempts to set remote-controlled car speed records.
For Wallis, however, the 256.47mph run is unlikely to be the end of the project. He is already exploring plans for a new remote-controlled car capable of breaking the 300mph barrier – potentially taking an already extraordinary engineering challenge into entirely new territory.
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