This is the conversation I’m going to be having with SWMBO in the forthcoming weeks. I’ve never had a buggy/car before but I just fancy having one to tinker about with on the road, local woods maybe down the beach.

Any gurus on here can point me in the right sort of direction? Electric or not? Buggy or truck? What else do I need to think about?

I’ve been tempted by a Tamiya Hornet, if that’s any help with budget.

loved my Tamiya days (when I was 13!)

go for petrol ones – well fast!

petrol ones are well good just make sure you are in a wide open space when using it first.They are really fast.

Tamiya Hornet – wow, has this thread been bumped from 25 years ago!

buggy, either glow fuel or petrol.
you will be able to get a RTR one for about 200 quid.
top laugh.
http://www.tayracers.com/ in scotland, OR
http://www.goldstarstockists.co.uk/ in england.
ive used both of these and would happily recommend either.
hth.

There’s been a bit of a revolution with the leccy ones in recent years with the move to LiPo batts an brushless motors, talking 60mph+

You should take a look at say the Traxxas Rustler VXL. Try youtube.

Ohhh yeah from the link above 🙂

http://goldstarstockists.net/live/catalog/product_info.php/products_id/41599

traxxas are good on the lecy sceen as they come fully waterproofed and lipo ready
myself i use a hpi firestorm rwd nitro truck and its great fun.

Nitro is great fun,noisy and has that great smell of nitro fumes….. but for a beginner is a bit more fickle and takes a lot of tweaking.

Electric is a bit more simple and you can hit some amazing speeds.

Buggys are fast and furious, Trucks are great fun or also look at truggys.

Be prepared for lots of fixing and buy a model where spares are readily available.

Good Luck

Cars are so 2000’s. You need
a quadrotor http://www.snelflight.co.uk/QuadPod.htm

Ace, just remembering my 12th birthday when I received a Tamiya Monster Beetle.

Best Christmas ever, eclipsing the other classic year when I received a Sony Walkman and the Ewok Village aged 8.

Tamiya Rough Rider.

Happy days 25 years ago.

@ richmars,
now THATS a gadget.

I bought a Tamiya Baja Champ. It’s a good laugh but I would prefer a 2WD rather than 4WD to be able to make some sweet skids. Mine isn’t that quick (probably around 20mph max) and standard battery lasts for about 10-15min of riding. It can get expensive if You start buying mods etc. I wanted a petrol one to have longer runtimes but they were out of my budget. My Baja Champ is not waterproof or even sealed so it always took me ages to clean it after some fun on the beach. It would get stuck in soft sand.

This is mine.

I wanted a Tamiya Sand Scorcher after watching some vids on Youtube but it was silly expensive 🙁

Will I piss the neighbours off with a nitro/petrol?

pah, buggies are so 2-dimensional.

this is what you want:
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi7G-VzU2r4[/video]

2nd most of what’s been said, especially getting something your local shop or good website carries lots of spares or hop-ups for so you can easily fix and upgrade it.

Electric is easier to get to grips with but your fun is limited by the number of batteries you have charged up. Nitro is smelly, lairy and loads of fun and you can drive as long as you have fuel. Positives and negatives to both.

I’ve had both and nitro was more exciting but more frustrating unless you are good at tuning engines. Also a big anti social and the 1/8th scale need lots of space – think football field, BMX track or supermarket car park.

My 1/8th scale nitro buggy with a .21″ engine would easily launch the biggest jumps at the BMX track!

Buggies are excellent for go almost anywhere speed, truggies if you want something capable of bigger stuff.

1/18th is a good scale for the garden, street or just about useable with control in a big living room.

If you are interested in 2nd hand, I’m about to sell an 1/18th scale electric RC18T with brushless conversion and loads of spares.
Associated RC18T
http://web.re-create-it.co.uk/stuff/forsale/rc18t/

john_drummer – Member
pah, buggies are so 2-dimensional.

this is what you want:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi7G-VzU2r4

POSTED 4 MINUTES AGO # REPORT-POST

😯

That helicopter is insane. How is that possible?

Will I piss the neighbours off with a nitro/petrol?

If you have to ask, then almost certainly, yup! 😉

We found a massive gravel car park with a bank above and spent a fun 30 minutes carving 8’s and drifts around it. It was surrounded by playing fields but residents from over 500m away came over to complain so I got very selective about driving spots, which limited my fun as I didn’t want to annoy others.

Petrol cars tend to be 1/5th scale with 23cc engines and pretty massive.

Here’s a good shop to browse:
http://modelsport.co.uk/

“The Roflcopter was established by the U.S. Department of Defense to distract enemy forces by dropping the sickest tricks in aerial RC. Optimized for maximum dopeness, the vehicle suppressed Saddam’s forces and made a complete mockery of the Iraqi Republican Guard.”

beaucoup lollage

I have a brushless electric 4wd buggy running on 11.1v batteries. Nitro fast but super quiet.

does that youtube video look fake to anybody else…the camera man manages to keep the copter almost dead centre of the film throughout. Unless he knew exactly what the moves where, I would have thought that would be v v v difficult with the manouev..manourevr…..dexterity of that thing.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=396290
http://www.thebigtrak.com

That helicopter is insane. How is that possible?

Fairly standard stuff for “3D” heli flying – can’t see any reason why that video might be fake. Even I can hover one upside down (in the sim), and all that stuff basically relies upon being able to reverse the pitch of the blades – that and very high levels of skill. There was a chap from my work out doing more basic versions of that yesterday when I went out flying my RC plane. I also have helis, but can’t fly anything like that (mine are all fixed pitch, so they don’t fly upside down anyway) – if you’re interested in one of those http://www.buzzflyer.co.uk/Sub-Micro-RC-Helicopters/Nine-Eagles-Solo-Pro-V2/p-97-1560/ is about the best value beginners model with proper control rather than being a toy – one of those doesn’t fly itself, but will do a lot more than anything cheaper.

Not wishing to jump on any awesome band wagon type thing but some people just have the most awesomest stuff no matter what the subject. I have awesomest stuff envy 😉

Alan Szabo (sp) is one of the top 3D heli jockeys in the world.

While my main heli is 3D capable, I am most definitely not – I can just about hover tail-in. Side on & nose in I can manage with a co-ax heli but they just about fly themselves

Love the Tamiya models, had them as kid, then just had to have them again when I became a big kid!!!

First I built the buggy,

Then I built him a support vehicle.

i got a rc nitro car, they are great and mine does easy 70kph with no stress standard.

probs are like said, its gets expensive!

had a crash, cost the half to replace the front end 😉

but they are great.

id like a buggie but again i woul break it and cost me more 😉

bike is expensive as is,

😉 great fun

problem with road car types is that the surface has to be perfect the slightest gravel or so is just shit to drive with it…

The problem with RC cars is you never take them back in the house ‘cos you’re bored, you take ’em back in because you’ve smashed it into a kerb/lampost/ankle!

Either that or the throttle has stuck full on and it just so happens to be heading away from you with no steering input straight for that kerb/lampost/innocent bystanders ankle….

Not radio controlled but do have a passion for the miniature combustion engine and these spring to mind

Awesome enginnering

Nitro is cracking fun, but as has been said, the “faff to play ratio” is about 1:1, which can get annoying.
Also, if you are a bit throttle heavy, and are keen to fling it off massive jumps (AKA me), it can cost about £5-10 in spares each run!

The beauty is, everything is upgradable/replacable, so you can make tweeks here and there.
I’ve got a pretty fancy one – traxxas revo 3.3cc – it’s got f1 style suspension linkages don’t you know!

I started off with a second hand 2wd nitro (ebay for about £80):

But quickly got the Revo – much bigger, 40mph OFF ROAD!!

Get one – you won’t be dissapointed!

DrP

The problem with RC cars is you never take them back in the house ‘cos you’re bored, you take ’em back in because you’ve smashed it into a kerb/lampost/ankle!

Either that or the throttle has stuck full on and it just so happens to be heading away from you with no steering input straight for that kerb/lampost/innocent bystanders ankle….

100% spot on!
Even with my fail safe and 2.4ghz system, it sometimes goes a bit haywire!!
Imagine a 2kg mad dog running at 40mph around the street, and you get an idea!

DrP

Tamiya recently commissioned a life size sand scorcher.. 🙂
SandScorcher

Thanks for all the pointers everyone. It’s definitely going to have to be electric and sub £200. I quite like the look of buggies and stadium trucks and have found stuff like the Traxxas e-revo quite nice.

Anything like that that gets a recommendation?

Loving this thread.

IC is where it’s at for top quality tinkering. Electric ones just work – so you’ll get bored faster 🙂

You’re probably right… but 5mth old child does not equal free time anyway 😉

So I’ll be sticking with the ready to run version for starters!

I always used to find electric ones ridiculously frustrating. A £30 battery would last about 15 mins when used on tarmac – a lot less on grass, then it was 4hrs to recharge…..

I take it batteries have moved on massively? What sort of run time can you expect out of a modern electric r/c car of the dune buggy variety?

I think if I was gonna get one, it’d be a nitro one. I considered getting an HPI Nitro Rush for ages, but could never quite work out where I’d use it and I find it gets boring if all you’re doing is ragging it back and forth across a playing field.

I take it batteries have moved on massively? What sort of run time can you expect out of a modern electric r/c car of the dune buggy variety?

yes. The batties and the motors. Back in the days of the tamiya 7.2v cars a RC heli was barely possible, now they can match the performance of petrol (upto a certain size) without the noise and oily mess. i’d definitely get electric if i was buying again.

I had .30 sized heli and it was great fun. Managed to learn without crashing, but had a bad one when attempting some sort of vertical flip thing! straight into the ground from 200ft, but did ‘only’ 60 quid of damage which wasn’t too bad.

i think i’d get bored of a car fairly quickly.

Plus, with something that flies you can stick a camera on and get some cool pictures. I think you can even buy a real-time live camera feed thing to fly them remotely now.