Lego Hotshot

Firstly thank you for all the kind words from so many of you on my Lego Supershot, hugely appreciated.

So here is the 2nd model in my Lego Tamiya rc cars project. I halted work on the Frog after a few of your comments on the Supershot asking for a Hotshot. As the Hotshot was always on my to do list (and my favourite Tamiya car) this was not a big problem!

Obviously this model shares many similarities chassis wise to the Supershot so it was not a full new build but there were a surprising amount of changes made vs the last one. Quite a few improvements on certain areas I wasn’t happy with on the Supershot like the steering and roll cage attachment points. Also the suspension setup required a complete redesign of the front and back of the car.

The rear suspension geometry took hours and hours of trial and error to find a combination of pieces that worked and that would be strong enough to transmit the load to the mono shock. I almost gave up at one point but then suddenly I found a solution, I am very pleased with how it turned out, it operates just like the rc car version. The front suspension was also a little tricky, mainly down to creating the necessary strength.

The body isn’t perfect, I had to make a lot of compromises to get the best look possible. I wanted to have the asymmetrical sides represented but this just proved too difficult. Obviously the raised section on the top is much more pronounced on the model but this is the only way to create the shape with a smooth (no studs) finish. It does make the car look a bit more aggressive I think. The biggest compromise was the headlights, unfortunately the actual size lights fell right between 2 and 3 stud wide round lego elements so they are a little on the small side.

To finish off I decided that I had to get a set of wheels gold chromed. It looks good with black ones too (I do like black wheels) but for now I wanted to get it as close to box art as possible. I built a dummy engine again, just a V6 in this one due to space issues with the suspension unit. Overall, even with the Supershot to copy elements of, this took around 40 hours to finish.

Well that is it, am pleased with how it ended up and it looks great sat next to the Supershot, hope you like it. It does make me feel like finishing the set with a Hotshot 2…but for now I think I will return to the Frog, or maybe a Hornet...