Category: Xpress

My Pixel Z1 showed up late last week and, after spending the weekend building it, I was finally able to get it on the track. Out of the box, the car drove better than I expected. With its narrow front and carbon chassis, I envisioned lots of traction rolling but the car was actually quite stable and easy to drive.

Is the Pixel Z1 on par with some of the racer oriented cars from companies like Atomic, Xbility or Reflex? Absolutely not. At the end of the day it is still a $99 car that is 95% plastic. For the casual club racer, this is fine but, to make the Pixel Z1 competitive, its going to take some considerable effort to get it up to the same level as a pro-level car.

Well, we all knew that Xpress had a bunch of upgrades for the Pixel Z1 on the way. What we didn’t know is what they looked liked on the car or, that if you wanted to use 24mm batteries, you will need the brass chassis.

The reason for this is that you can’t mount the aluminum chassis stiffener (and the floating battery mount plate) nor the aluminum graphite battery mount to the graphite chassis. There are no mounting holes on the chassis for these upgrades.

Xpress surprised many last week when they unveiled their first 1/28 scale racer, the Pixel Z1. While not exactly a household name in the U.S., the company’s touring cars have a massive following across Asia.

To be honest, Xpress really isn’t breaking any new ground with the Pixel Z1. In fact, if I asked ChatGPT to design a 1/28 pan car, it would probably look something like what you see above.