In case you missed it, which seems impossible but no judgements, David has been hard at work building a World War II Jeep essentially from scratch, using nothing but parts sourced on eBay. As his Jeep was coming together in its resplendent red-oxide primer finish, I was looking for a new radio-control project with an eye toward something affordable and fun to finish rather than a higher-performance (and more expensive) model. Tamiya‘s Wild Willy 2 made the short list, and the added fun of finishing it off as an extremely loose replica (just barely) of David’s Jeep made it my final choice as a fun build that would be even more fun to share with you for Toy Car Thursday.

If this is your first exposure to hobby-quality RC, please understand that there are much more detailed, realistic, and high-tech models out there, and the Wild Willy is very much a beginner fun-runner model – in case its cartoony chibi-style design wasn’t already getting that point across. I plan to do more advanced builds in future Toy Car Thursday installments (hopefully with a Traxxas TRX-4 soon) to show you what that end of the hobby spectrum looks like, but for now, let’s have some low-cost RC fun.

First, a little about the Wild Willy 2, or 2000 as it’s also called (so named because it came out in late 1999). That’s right, we’re building what is essentially a 27-year-old kit today – and you thought full-size automakers held onto platforms for a long time.

But remember, this is the Wild Willy 2, the sequel if you will. The original Wild Willy debuted in 1982, and was dubbed Tamiya’s first “stunt vehicle,” as its high center of gravity and short wheelbase made it a wheelie machine.

The Wild Willy 2 retains the look of the original, but is on the WR-02 chassis and replaces the original kit’s solid rear axle suspension with a fully independent design. Here’s what you’ll find when you open the box:

It’s pretty much standard for all RC hobbyists to grab the wheels and tires out of the box first. The WW2 gets squishy chevron tires pre-mounted to chrome wheels. Most RC models require the tires to be superglued to the wheels so they don’t peel off under cornering and acceleration loads, but the WW2 is mild enough that no gluing is required.

Most RC models’ bodies are vacuum formed from .040 clear polycarbonate for durability and light weight, and painted from the inside. The WW2 uses an injection-molded ABS body that is mostly unchanged from the original. The biggest difference is the grille, which sports horizontal openings instead of vertical – almost certainly to avoid licensing issues.

I do wish Tamiya molded the seat and fuel tank separately so they could be installed after painting, but oh well. The proportions are cartoonified, but it’s very nicely detailed and precisely molded.

The multi-piece body is assembled with screws, no gluing required. Digging deeper into the box, we find the assembly manual and parts bags. The bags are lettered to correspond with steps, and if you can handle a no. 2 screwdriver (JIS preferred, just get the Tamiya one), you’ll have no trouble – here, page through the manual yourself.

Like a static model kit, the plastic parts are attached to sprues. Numbers molded alongside the parts make it easy to ID what each step calls for.

You’ll need a little painting skill to get Willy close to his box-art look. He’s a pretty large figure compared to tiny 1/24 and smaller guys, so it’s really not that hard to achieve decent results. You can also see the NOS bottle, winch, steering wheel, and other accessories on the tree.

Willy’s a determined-looking guy, I gotta say.

A slight bummer for me is the factory-assembled gearbox. I wanted to do it myself, Tamiya! No matter, I can still take it apart. And why would I bother? So I can install ball bearings, that’s why. Nylon bushings are standard. You can see the installed Mabuchi 540 brushed motor, the quintessential stock motor for 1/10 scale models. Much, much faster (and brushless) motors are available, but for Wild Willy, the silver-can 540 is enough.

Tamiya supplies an electronic speed control made by popular brand HobbyWing, but you’ll need to provide a two-channel transmitter and steering servo to complete the model, as well as a battery and charger to power it.

Before any assembly, I did some disassembly and installed ball bearings in the transmission. This set was just ten bucks at Amazon.

The WW2 uses a gear differential, which I opened up so you can get a peek inside. The gears are pressure-cast metal.

Power is transmitted from the diff outputs to the rear wheels via “dogbones,” a simple solution that allows for smooth suspension movement and accommodates the change in distance between the wheel hubs and differential as the suspension cycles.

The WR-02 chassis is modular, with the front and rear subassemblies completed individually and then joined together.

It’s getting there …

Figure painting underway. If your hobby bench isn’t a mess, you’re doing it wrong.

Along with the ball-bearing upgrade, a wanted to give my WW2 a better set of shocks right from the get-go. I don’t mind plastic shocks, but the WW2’s friction-damped units are pretty meh. A screw head is pushed and pulled through a greased rubber sleeve to provide damping force. It works, kinda, but the feel is terrible.

I picked up a set of cheap aluminum oil-damped shocks when I ordered the ball bearings. Incredibly, I didn’t even need to fill them; they arrived full of oil, ready to install.

Plastic on the left, fancy aluminum on the right (obviously). In addition to better bump-eating ability, I also bought the shocks purely for a bit of anodized color amongst all the black.

Getting close! Just need to paint a few more details …

Et voila, there he is, Wild Willy ready to go wild.

Note the wheelie bar tucked between the shocks.

I’d give my figure painting job a firm six out of ten. I’d go higher, but the detail and realism the guys who score 10 can achieve is way too impressive for me to be higher than a six.

Willy’s got NOS! It’s not hooked up to anything, but he’s got it. I’ll make a little tubing for it on a rainy day.

Lots of fun! I’ll share video on socials when I get a chance to give Willy a good shakedown run. Hopefully you enjoyed hanging out for the build, and maybe you’re even inspired to build a Wild Willy (or Racy Tracy) of your own.

Story images: Peter Vieira
Top image graphics: Tamiya; Peter Vieira

The post David Built A Jeep In His Driveway, So I Built One In My Office appeared first on The Autopian.

It feels like it’s been ages since there was more than one model of Fiat on sale new in America. First, there was that stint when the only offering was the 500X. Next, there was that run when the only model available was the 500e. However, a second Fiat has crossed the Atlantic. It’s called the Topolino, it’s unbelievably cute, and we finally know what it costs.

Back up a second: What on Earth is a Topolino? Well, the name was originally associated with the mousey-looking 1936-through-1955 Fiat 500, but has since been applied to a more modern small, low-output machine. The Topolino we’re talking about here is a sibling to the Citroën Ami, a low-speed electric vehicle built in Morocco that serves as a cuter alternative to a golf cart.

We’re talking just eight horsepower here, and a standard top speed of a mere 19 MPH. Juice comes from a little 5.4 kWh lithium-ion battery pack, and the Topolino sports a modest range of 46 miles. Granted, there is a quicker version coming. Fiat’s planning to launch a street-legal kit this autumn that raises the top speed of the Topolino to a dashing 25 MPH. Enough to keep up with city traffic, but don’t you dare try to take one of these on the interstate.

While the Topolino normally features the exact same door assembly on either side of the vehicle, you can have Fiat leave them behind at the factory. Should you live in a particularly sunny locale, the marvellously camp Dolce Vita version swaps the doors for ropes and adds a canvas roof. Just enough elemental protection for a light shower, not quite enough for gale-force winds. Best of all, the beach car version doesn’t come at a premium. Both Topolino variants carry a sticker price of $14,985 including a $990 freight charge. Yep, essentially $15,000. However, in the world of golf carts, that’s surprisingly okay value.

Let’s say you want a two-seat Club Car with a comparable propulsion system. That would be the Club Car Onward 2 Passenger Li-ION XR, which starts at $14,099 before freight. For that money, you get a top speed of 19 MPH and comparable range to the Topolino, but you don’t get doors or side panels or rear panels. It’s also not exactly street-legal, but then again, neither are the earliest Topolinos at launch.

What about something more substantial? Say, a GEM e2. With street-legal tires, proper rollover protection, and a real windshield, it was arguably the most car-like of the golf cart crop before the Topolino came along. However, the GEM e2 starts at $15,240 before freight, and that doesn’t include doors.

As crazy as it sounds, the Fiat Topolino might actually be an alright deal. It’s priced competitively against similar golf carts while offering no-cost weather protection and a windscreen defroster. Sure, nigh-on $15,000 is still a lot of money to spend on something limited to roads with speed limits of 35 MPH or less, but it could steal some real sales in this sort of space. Of course, it’s no Changli, but then again, what is?

Top graphic image: Fiat

The post The Adorable Fiat Topolino Costs $14,985 In America. Here’s Why That’s Actually A Pretty Solid Deal appeared first on The Autopian.

We are really talking here about corruption on a world-historical scale, the kind generally only found in tinpot dictatorships:

President Donald Trump’s reported income soared to more than $2.2 billion in 2025, as the president took in more than $1.4 billion from cryptocurrency, digital tokens and related partnerships, according to his latest financial disclosure forms.

The 927 pages of disclosures, released Tuesday, indicated that Trump’s income substantially increased after he reentered the White House last year.

Overall, Trump reported assets worth at least $2.4 billion and income of over $2.2 billion. His assets are almost certainly worth more, since the federal disclosure forms require only that asset values be reported in ranges that top out at“over $50 million,” which leaves the full value of the president’s holdings unclear.

In his 2024 financial disclosure, filed a year ago, Trump reported assets worth more than $1.6 billion and income of over $600 million.

In addition to income from crypto ventures, Trump reported over $620 million in real estate, hotel and golf-related income.

The president also reported receiving $86.5 million from settlements in five separate lawsuits against ABC, CBS, YouTube, Meta and the social media platform X.

The 2025 disclosure includes $635 million in royalties from a license agreement with Celebration Coins; at least $525 million in proceeds from token sales by World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency project founded by Trump and his sons; $65 million inproceeds from World Liberty Financial’s equity sale; and $196 million in net proceeds from a stablecoin transaction.

Trump also saw increased income from his golf clubs and resorts. He reported $121 million fromTrump National Doral in 2025, up from $110 million a year earlier, and $77 million from Mar-a-Lago, up from $56 million.

In retrospect, I’m not sure enough attention was paid to the fact that Hillary Clinton preferred not to use two BlackBerries in the 2016 campaign.

The post The two billion dollar man appeared first on Lawyers, Guns & Money.

A new state law limits Florida communities’ aims to offset greenhouse gas emissions that are warming the global climate and intensifying disasters such as hurricanes.

Specifically, HB 1217 prohibits local governments from pursuing net-zero emissions goals. At least 10 cities and counties have implemented such policies, including Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Orlando, and Leon County, where Tallahassee, the state capital, is located. But the new law will not necessarily upend these policies, said Bradley Marshall, senior attorney at Earthjustice, an advocacy group.

“It’s certainly meant to scare municipalities and local governments from trying to do things to further net-zero policies,” he said. “Now, its exact impact and what it exactly prohibits is probably up for some debate. Things that are adjacent to it—emissions reductions and even climate change reduction policies—on their face will not run afoul at all of a ban on adopting a net zero policy.” 

The measure requires local governments to submit an affidavit annually to the state Department of Revenue verifying compliance. Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, signed the measure on April 22, Earth Day, and the law will take effect July 1. It states that “net zero policies, carbon taxes and assessments, and emission trading programs are detrimental to this state’s energy security and economic interests and inconsistent with the energy policy and the environmental policy of this state.” 

“I proudly sponsored HB 1217 to fight for jobs and affordability in Florida,” according to a statement provided by the office of Rep. Berny Jacques (R-Clearwater). “This bill protects our residents and businesses from additional costs by ridding our state of Green New Deal policies. Carbon taxes and fees are not welcome in the Free State of Florida.”

DeSantis implemented a law in 2024 erasing several instances of the words “climate change” from the state code and restructuring the state’s fossil fuel-based energy policy around reducing reliance on foreign sources and strengthening the energy infrastructure against “natural and manmade threats.” The measure also nullified goals aimed at enhancing renewable energy use. The goals were initiated in 2022 after 200 Floridians, all under the age of 25, filed a petition for rulemaking calling on the state to move toward 100 percent clean energy by 2050, a benchmark scientists say is necessary to avoid the worst consequences of climate change.

“This bill is definitely part of a larger coordinated push by the political enablers of the fossil fuel industry to obstruct any tools—legal or legislative tools—to hold the industry accountable for its contributions to climate change,” said Laura Peterson, senior analyst at the Union for Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group. “Florida is really on the front lines. So I imagine the governor is taking this step because he sees what’s coming down the pike. It’s not getting better. So I can only assume that this is an effort to satisfy some of the pressures that he’s getting from donors and from his party to protect the industry. And he’s doing it at the expense of his constituents.”

There is overwhelming scientific consensus that fossil fuel emissions have accelerated the planet’s warming since the industrial age, leading to more extreme disasters such as hurricanes. One study concluded it now is scientifically feasible to link individual emitters with specific harms, for the sake of litigation.

HB 1217 also prevents local governments from purchasing items such as vehicles or appliances based on the fuels they use or production of the items. Local governments may not participate in carbon-trading programs or use public funds to support other organizations with net-zero policies. Cities and counties also may not charge a tax or fee tied with carbon emissions.

When the Orlando Utilities Commission (OUC) announced in 2020 its commitment to net zero emissions by 2050, the municipal utility and city were recognized as leaders in a state where most local governments at the time were more focused on climate impacts such as sea level rise and flooding. The commitment set in motion one of the biggest evolutions at the utility in its nearly century-long history, utility leaders said at the time. OUC is the second-largest municipal utility in the state, serving more than 288,000 customers in Orange and Osceola counties.

“We are aware of the legislation regarding net-zero emissions policies,” a statement OUC provided to Inside Climate News says. “Our focus remains on delivering reliable, affordable energy while continuing to reduce our carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions in a responsible and balanced way. Since 2020, we have made meaningful progress in lowering CO₂ emissions and remain committed to further reductions including a 50 percent reduction by 2030 and 75 percent by 2040.”

Boca Raton and Fort Lauderdale, and Broward and Miami-Dade counties also have been pursuing goals of net-zero emissions by 2050. Miami, Miramar, Pinellas County, and Sarasota have similar goals.

But in Leon County, leaders have taken several steps back in response to HB 1217. They rescinded a 2023 resolution declaring a climate emergency. They also rolled back plans to phase out fossil fuel-powered vehicles and amended a policy to remove a mandate for recycled paper. The Paul Russell Road facility, which the county bills as the nation’s first government retrofit building to achieve net-zero certification, will lose that certification, although the building’s solar and energy efficiency systems will continue operating unchanged.

Susan Glickman, vice president for policy and partnerships at The CLEO Institute, an advocacy group, worried the law could have a chilling effect on other local policies aimed at moving Florida to cleaner energy.

“It means that everyone is going to pay more money on their power bills, and there are plenty of people who can absorb a higher energy bill,” she said. “But there are a lot of people who cannot, and this is coming at a time when housing prices are up, groceries are up, and insurance prices are high. And so there are people who are suffering out there.”

This story originally appeared on Inside Climate News.

Amy Green covers the environment and climate change from Orlando, Florida. She is a mid-career journalist and author whose extensive reporting on the Everglades is featured in the book MOVING WATER, published by Johns Hopkins University Press, and podcast DRAINED, available wherever you get your podcasts. Amy’s work has been recognized with many awards, including a prestigious Edward R. Murrow Award and Public Media Journalists Association award.

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Formula E is in its final year for the current technical regulations, with a new single-seater EV set to be introduced at the start of next season, which begins in December in Saudi Arabia. The new car, known as GEN4, is a big upgrade—at times more powerful than a Formula 1 car, although heavier and with much less downforce. As speeds rise with the GEN4 car, we knew the sport would become too fast for some of its current venues.

With the release of the season 12 calendar for 2026–2027, that limitation has become clear: a 21-race lineup across 13 cities that now includes several traditional race tracks.

The Saudi double-header is scheduled for December 18 and 19 and is the only season 12 round this year. Then the series starts 2027 off with a string of Formula 1 venues in North America: Mexico on January 16, the Circuit of the Americas in Texas on February 7, and the Miami International Autodrome on February 20. The addition of COTA to Formula E's calendar makes it the seventh US location for the sport since 2015, including the American Airlines Arena in actual Miami; Long Beach, California; Brooklyn, New York; Portland, Oregon; Homestead-Miami, and the Hard Rock Stadium on the outskirts of Miami.

The race at COTA will use the shorter version of that circuit, as used by NASCAR for its visits, rather than the full F1 configuration. This spares the inevitable lap-time comparisons between the two series, but the new calendar marks a clear departure from one of the series' original selling points: racing in city centers where no other series could come visit.

Some traditional Formula E tracks remain. Berlin-Templehof takes place in May, as does the Monaco e-Prix. But the indoor-outdoor ExCel Arena in London has been outgrown; instead, Formula E will race at the Brands Hatch circuit in Kent, just outside London, in late May. It is believed that rather than use either the Indy or GP configurations of this historic circuit, the sport will use a unique layout, similar to the way Formula E's Monaco is ever so slightly changed from the F1 layout used a couple of weeks later.

Zandvoort in the Netherlands—another F1 venue—takes place in mid-June, followed by Jarama in Spain at the end of that month, then Shanghai at another F1 track in early July, and the season finale in Japan in late July.

"We are incredibly proud to unveil our biggest and most ambitious calendar to date. Expanding to 21 races across 13 iconic cities is a huge milestone, and welcoming world-renowned tracks like COTA in Austin, Zandvoort, and Brands Hatch provides the ultimate stage to showcase our new GEN4 era," Alberto Longo, Formula E cofounder and chief championship officer, said in a statement.

"Every stop on this calendar has been chosen to deliver maximum sporting drama. Launching the season with our first-ever opener under the lights in Jeddah to demonstrate the speed of these GEN4 cars sets a spectacular tone, while grouping our races into distinct continental clusters ensures we do so as sustainably as possible. The tracks are faster, the competition is fiercer, and we cannot wait to get this historic season underway,” Longo said.

There's also a new format for weekends with double-header events, which is most of them. On the first day, the cars will race for 30 minutes with high downforce bodywork. This is a true sprint race, where the aim is just to go flat-out. The second day will feature a more traditional 45-minute e-prix, where the drivers will need to stay on top of energy management, as they do currently.

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I finally got around to starting 007 First Light last week–so far it’s been pretty fun, and even though my PC sits in a nebulous area regarding the game’s recommended specs, it runs fine with most settings on high. I began playing on keyboard and mouse, my default way to play games, but the keyboard layout is a bit clunky: The hand-to-hand combat involves a lot of keys, and having to activate Bond’s watch by holding down the Alt key is uncomfortable. So I decided to switch to controller, and now the game barely runs at all. 

On Sunday morning I started First Light over so that I could go through the tutorials again with the controller prompts, because I have a very humiliating disease where I need controls shown to me instead of just looking at a layout. The Iceland mission ran the way it had when I played it previously, and things certainly felt a bit more intuitive on my Xbox One controller. But while following Moneypenny around the MI6 office, I noticed that this time around Bond was subtly rubberbanding, lagging behind her and then rushing forward. By the time I got to Malta, the whole game was dragging.

Literally nothing had changed since I’d last played the game with keyboard and mouse, so I found this very weird. I checked to see if there’d been an update that might’ve broken things, but there wasn’t. I spent a good half hour tweaking all my graphics settings–reducing things back to medium, cranking down lighting and shadow effects, fiddling with DLSS–but nothing made the game run the way it had barely a week ago.

Worried something was going wrong with my hardware, I grabbed my mouse to start poking around my system. When I moved my mouse, the game stopped lagging. Shocked, I tried steering Bond with my keyboard. He moved smoothly, and the game played smoothly around him.

I picked up my controller and moved Bond up and down the Malta street. He jerked along, and the game flailed and stuttered. I switched to keyboard and mouse; I was playing a normal video game again.

I am known, when faced with PC problems, for not quite thinking through the way a computer actually works, inventing narratives to explain a situation that run counter to the cold, logical bounds of the machine. My first thought was “my controller is breaking this specific video game,” but even I knew this was an absurd assumption. I closed First Light, updated my graphics driver, and tried again with my controller, only to find the problem persisting. But when I played with my mouse and keyboard, everything worked. 

This all gave credence to the “my controller is breaking the game” theory, but it still made no sense. For months I’ve had no problems with this controller, a wireless Multiversus-themed Xbox One controller that got tossed my way when we were cleaning out our desks at The Washington Post. It connects to my PC via Bluetooth because Xbox doesn’t seem to sell a wireless adapter anymore, and while I sometimes have to pull out and reseat the Bluetooth dongle to get it to pair if I’ve left a game sitting on pause too long, it generally does what controllers do, and has never once fully broken a video game just by existing.

Incredulous at my own thought process, I googled “xbox controller causing lag pc.” And I could not believe it when results actually came up: a thread on the Microsoft forums from 2025, some Reddit posts, complaints on the EA and Steam sites going back years. Some people pinned it to dual instances of Microsoft’s GameInput program–I only had one installed but did find multiple instances of it running in my Task Manager, though closing them did nothing. Others pinned it to the controller batteries dying, but swapping them out for fresh ones did nothing either. Others suggested it was a Bluetooth problem solvable by wiring the controller up, my preferred method of attaching everything to everything but which would require a trip to the Microcenter for a USB data cable, and I couldn’t let the mystery sit half-solved while I left the house. 

I took to Bluesky with my discovery, where multiple people said they’d had the same problem. The Video Game History Foundation’s Frank Cifaldi even helped me narrow the mystery further, sharing that he’d had this problem when using a controller with games through the Epic store, and this was in fact my first time using my controller with an Epic store game. 

Here’s how I’m currently dealing: I play for about 20 minutes until the game stops working. Then I disconnect and reconnect my Bluetooth dongle, resetting the whole situation. I play until the game breaks again, then repeat.

Besides being a deeply unpleasant way to experience First Light, this entire situation is also ridiculous. Is this how computers work? I’ve made my peace with all the tweaks and fiddling required to be a PC gamer, but I’m not willing to accept that performing my gaming computer’s essential function–playing games–could require deleting processes and messing with my registry, or just playing a game in 20 minute increments. I’d be willing to accept a problem with the controller or with Bluetooth that caused input to lag, but the whole game? I imagine it doesn’t help matters that I’m still on Windows 10, which I can no longer update, but shit like this is one more reason why I’ve been dragging my heels on getting Windows 11. Why would I go deeper into an ecosystem that appears to have a known bug with using a controller to play video games? 

I’m even more baffled that this isn’t just a me problem, which I could chalk up to my shoddy, aging PC build and my own stupid luck. So many of you have experienced this, living in this absurd status quo, that I am extra furious on your behalf. It’s not even due to all the new enshittification being shoved down our throats–this is just how the fucking PC works. This problem goes back nearly a decade at least, and it seems like if we want to use the computer, we just have to accept it as a thing.

This is some first rate bullshit, and I refuse to go quietly. Of course none of my raging is actually fixing the problem, which will most likely be sorted when it stops raining here so I can go up to the store and buy a cable to wire my expressly wireless controller to my PC. In the meantime, playing First Light like I’m binge-watching episodes of a sitcom is annoying as hell, though the game is pretty good. I just wish I didn’t have to deal with the computer to play it.