History
The founder Cecil Schumacher was originally a transmission engineer who was involved with Cosworth. His young son at the Robin Schumacher started playing and racing electric cars. He soon started noticing large areas that these early primitive cars could be improved. Having noticed high tyre wear he invented the ball differential a design first for use in radio controlled cars.
These ball differential were used by Robin then his friends then local model shop request to stock it and soon international orders followed. It came to the point that Cecil Schumacher was making more money from this side business than through his employer. So in 1981 Schumacher Racing Products was formed in Northampton, England.
The first car to be produced by Schumacher was the XL lexan chassis pan car in 1981 which had intentionally highly flexible chassis. This was followed in 1983 by the "C" car which was made out of fibreglass reinforced epoxy resin sheet and designed specifically for racing on carpet. It included many features that are still around on every modern 1/12 scale car, race wins include the euros in 1985 and 1988.
In the latter half of the 1980s, off-road RC cars increased in popularity. Schumacher created the SWB CAT (Short Wheel Base Competition All Terrain) 4WD 1/10 scale off-road buggy in 1986 utilising toothed belts and the already mentioned ball differentials for power transmission. It was this car that went on to win the world championships in 1987 driven by Masami Hirosaka (JPN) who Schumacher lent a works car having noted his driving form during practice sessions.
The success of the SWB CAT led Schumacher to develop the CAT XLS (with a 15mm longer frame than the SWB version to increase stability) followed by the 2WD Top Cat featuring F1-style push-rod suspension with inboard springs and dampers plus a "kickback system" to protect the front wishbones in the event of a crash, in the nose cone. Original examples of the SWB CAT remain the most desirable and continue to appreciate in value with mint condition examples changing hands for upwards of £500 sterling.
Following the success of the 1st generation of off road CAT's Schumacher continue to produce many successful off and on road electric cars. The popularity of the touring car class seriously affected the off-road world during the 90's. Schumacher stepped down the development of this class through the 1990s. Schumacher was now starting to dominate a niche in the "fun" car sector, with high power/speed nitro powered models capable of real speeds in excess of 80 mph.
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