These Toy Race Cars Have Been Driving in Place for a Month—And They’re Still Going

Diecast Endurance is one of my favorite YouTube channels right now. In case you haven’t heard of it, the host—who simply goes by Mr. Endurance—has a homemade rig that simulates a rolling road for scale model cars. He places them on the device, effectively a belt sander with some special pieces to keep the cars in place, and fires it up. These two miniature Le Mans prototypes have been driving on it for more than a month.

I thought it was impressive when a tiny Mazda 787B ran for almost two weeks. But here we have an Oreca Gibson and a Cadillac V, built by Spark and MiniGT, respectively, doubling that mark (and then some). Both have held up ridiculously well, though at the time of this blog, the Oreca is holding on for dear life. I’d say it has far exceeded expectations; the race started on Sept. 20.

The channel’s production value has only increased since it started back in June. There are now five constant camera views, showing the cars on the two-lane belt sander from above, beside, and up front, with a “roving cam” that’s currently zeroed in on the Oreca’s wobbly wheel. Individual streams typically run for about 12 hours at a time before the next one starts up, although a few have been stopped short of that. Clicking over to the “Live” tab on Diecast Endurance’s page shows 73 unique streams for this run alone.

Endurance Run #10 – The Spark Oreca Gibson vs the MiniGT Cadillac V – Hour 784 Onwards

These single-seaters have more than doubled the previous record, which belonged to a mini Ford GT. If you scale up the distance, they’ve currently run the equivalent of 92,600 miles, though that figure is sure to be outdated by the time you read this. Even if you don’t scale up the distance, the tiny wheels have spun enough to cover more than 1,400 miles in the real world.

Right now, it looks like the Cadillac is holding on with little drama. I’m not sure if the run will stop altogether when one car gives out, or if they’ll simply remove it so the other can set its best mark. Either way, this is one heck of an advertisement for the two brands that build scale models solid enough to endure this type of torture.

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