MicroTurismo Will Have You Racing F1 Replicas Through Your Living Room

Ladies and gentlemen, lovers of all things fast and nimble, like Formula 1 cars for example, lend me your eyes for just a few minutes so that, you too, can raise your quarantine game. A recent Kickstarter campaign ended today, April 24, 2021, with it one of the most successfully backed campaigns I've seen launched on the service. What did 512 backers pledge their money for? MicroTurismo.

To keep things simple, MicroTurismo is the smallest F1 car racing game I've seen thus far. Anytime you hear the word game, you’ll probably start thinking of a digital one. No no no, this is the sort of game that has little remote-controlled cars zipping through your living room like it’s Monaco.

What you get if you ever buy this kit, is basically a high-performance race car that’s been designed to be raced in the comfort of your own home. The idea is rather simple, but this is one of those products where execution matters most, and the designers seem to have nailed it.

The entire design sits upon a chassis. It’s this chassis that constitutes the vehicle you’re racing. What you’ll get is basically a frame, motor, camera, remote receiver, and a battery back. The chassis is composed of 5754 and 6082 aluminum, 304 stainless-steel, titanium, and oilite brass bearings.

Once you’ve put everything together, you’ll still be missing one important aspect of the design, the bodywork. Out of the box, you’ll receive the F1 bodywork, composed of 5754 aluminum and 3D printed parts. Yes, 3D printed. Why? One of the features of this entire project is that it includes an open-source library of bodywork, although, it’s not up and running yet.

But that mean... Yes, that means that new bodywork designs can be downloaded, and 3D printed in the very comfort of your home, assuming you own a printer. Now, you can race the car without the bodywork too, but imagine racing your favorite car right in your living room through a track setup exactly to the shape you want. Don’t worry, there’s an app that goes hand in hand with the car, so you’ll be racing via your smartphone.

To take things one step further, the chassis is also an adjustable one, meaning you can also play with the size of the car and bodywork. But the real reason behind the modification is that the MicroTurismo chassis is adapted to fit specific car models from famed RC car brands.

The team will have you racing scale models of a Ferrari 250 GTO, Porsche 911, the 1978 Monte Carlo edition, of even a Ford Mustang FF. And that’s just a quarter of the designs available. You can also use a Porsche GT1, Jaguar E-Type, Audi Quatro 4WD, and even a Datsun pick-up. That last one sounds kind of personal to me. Some of the brands considered are Fly Car Models, Scalextric, AirFix, and Ninco.

Let’s say for a moment that the campaign was still on. For €129 ($156 at current exchange rates), you’d have received one car kit, remote control, and library access to designs. With that little car, two batteries are offered. One allows for 20 minutes of drive time, while the other 60 minutes.

With a high-rev and fully functional replica of a V6 engine, you’ll be leaving 15-kph (9.3-mph) burn marks on your hardwood flooring. Just kidding, the tires are urethane, so no marks.

All I've got to say it the following: Dear MicroTurismo team, I understand that your Kickstarter campaign has ended, but where can I now buy one of these sets. You know, my birthday just passed, and I haven’t gifted myself anything yet. I’d like to start with this.