Bozzer
I had the original version of this, when I was a kid. It was fast, and hard to control, especially on ice, but the ESC was terrible! I'm glad to see that they eventually replaced it.

Sander de Volder
A 2WD on ice? That needs some razorsharp reflexes! Speedcontrollers have come a long way since the nearly on/off style MSCs, to the point that Tamiya stopped making their own and started supplying us with Hobbywing ESCs. That must have been the best decision they have made these past few years!

Bozzer
It was a very basic coil resistor. When it burnt out, things got interesting! The new stuff is much more responsive and better.

Sander de Volder
Luckily runaways are more rare these days.

Bozzer
I thought that too, but when I took my truck to the show, the Bluetooth reception between my phone and truck, was practically a metre. Hence why I picked up the Flysky. That's also going to be a New Year project. I'm gonna start doing it in February. I need to get the Mack in paint too. That might be a weekend job, for the future. I'm hoping to take two trucks to the show this year.

Mike Pullen Author
What was chassis like to use? Wondering why it was one of the vintage chassis they never resurrected with updated parts instead of releasing on new chassis.
ESC is a major improvement over MSC which is just really used for nostalgic rebuilds of vintage mainly for shelf queen use i would suspect.

Bozzer
If I'm honest, it wasn't bad. It took a good beating from a teenager and nothing ever broke. Unlike the Monster Beetle I had, that was always breaking suspension parts. Maybe I just ran them too hard, but that's what kids do, right? Thinking about why they didn't continue the chassis of the buggy, I wonder if it was because they engineered it so well, they wasn't making any money from it? That would make sense to me. I ran them rear tyres bald, and it just kept on going.

Sander de Volder
I would say it is a demand issue, as in not enough of it. More people chose the Grasshopper or Hornet over this one probably. Funny thing about Tamiyas is that they get more fragile the higher up in the range you go.