tamiyaclub.com

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

As I’m fast running out of cars to collect? I’m constantly looking out for new models addition to my wanted list, modern cars in general don’t really interest me much, the design of RC buggies these days has become very staid, Competition buggies are the same, just hyper refined versions of a basic design that is neigh on 20 years old, Model Buggies (like what Tamiya make) are slowly becoming more outlandish and toy like and to cap it all they are using modified Touring car chassis designs in order to save money on tooling and development costs, and Toy based or RTR RC cars are so rubbish and basic that they aren’t even worth me bothering with?

I hark back to the good olde days of the Mid Eighties when Tamiya were in their prime and making nothing but Off-Road buggies and their were a myriad of other companies who were desperately trying to jump on the then blossoming RC buggy bandwagon and others who were trying to copy Tamiyas market leading cars and steal a bit of their thunder, and the result was a very exciting time in the market, with everyone making cool and exciting chunky plastic Off-Roaders but things today are very different and you just can’t get cars like that anymore…. Or can you

More recently a particular car has emerged that looks really old school and just like the buggies of the halcyon days of the 80’s yet it’s a new car that has only recently come out in the last 18th month or so? Who makes such a car….. System Robbe of Germany does and it’s a nice basic all plastic 2WD buggy called the Fuego, when I first saw the small grainy pictures of this car on Ebay it immediately reminded me of the Tamiya Falcon with its bright yellow spoked wheels and its red contoured wedge shaped body, I was intrigued by it then but did know enough about it and they were always being sold by German sellers who demanded the usual Credit-transfer type payment which I could not give them, so I passed them buy without giving them any more thought?

But more recently as I’ve run out of more notable cars to collect, I’ve cask my eye back to other possibilities such as the Fuego for future purchase, anyway I set abut searching for some more of these cars and a few interesting ones came up, and one of these was being sold by a German who accepted Paypal, well needless to say I jumped at the chance there were a few slight hiccups with the payment along the way when the Paypal site when down for two days which really annoyed me as I had a few payments to make including the one for this car :S but eventually it all got sorted out and now I finally have one of these interesting looking cars

In the Auction pictures and on the Box top this car does look kinda cool but when you open the box its not quite so good as your first impressions make it out to be? The car comes with the chassis fully assembled, all you need to do to complete the car is fit the wheels and tires, trim the body and apply the decals, fit the rear wing then install the radio gear and your ready to fly, the first disappointment is the Decals you get with the car aren’t quite the same as the ones on the Box display? You get far fewer decals and they aren’t as big or impressive as the ones shown in the box art, I’ve had this before with other cars in my collection and I find it quite annoying as you could say that its false advertising, another thing about the body, it made from pre-coloured Lexan and they seem to have pressed the body out on the wrong side? As the surface on the inside of the shell is shinier that outside finish which is kinda dull looking?

Another thing about this car, which is slightly suspect, is the fact that the plastic the chassis is made from is rather too soft and flexible? Now it has to be said that Tamiya is the only RC manufacturer that has ever got the quality and consistency of the plastic they use on their models just right, most other manufacturers either make their plastics too hard and brittle (like Marui did?) or too soft and flexible like on this car? In some ways it good that this car has soft plastic on it cos its less likely to snap or break in the event of a high speed collision, it should make the chassis quite robust and durable but there is a downside to this and its that the suspension wishbones flex too much when the car is going over the bumps, the springs on this car are a little on the stiff side and this in turn makes the suspension warp when operated? This would defiantly effect the handling of the car I’d say?

Now there is one thing that you can say about Robbe? They never really make anything for themselves? They normally buy in car designs for other manufacturers, re-package them and knock em’ out under their own brand, now I have seen this car (or something very similar) on Ebay but it was made buy another maker (some far eastern model company you never heard of?) anyway I suspect that this car is another one of those knock off jobs that they are so good at doing but that said the actually design of the chassis is quite a concoction of bits and designs taken from other cars made by more reputable companies like Tamiya and Kyosho? I mean the chassis tub is a Chinese copy of the Tamiya TA-01 tub? The front and rear suspension is vaguely similar to that of the Bear hawk or Stadium Blitzer cars? The gearbox is defiantly inspired by an early Kyosho Ultima design? But its been modified to it onto this hotchpotch of a chassis its few saving graces are that its gone some rather nice yellow spoked wheels and its got some good ground clearance unlike most modern off-road cars which are all set up to sit on the deck?

The Speed controller is a miniaturised version of Kyosho/Hitec design, that uses a Tamiya style resistor to control the lower speeds, the build quality on this car is decidedly suspect, as said before the plastic and suspension especially is far to wobbly and bendy to be taken seriously? But as a general ensemble the actually works quite well, the body design is reminiscent of the Traxxas TRX-1, Kyosho Outrage and Schumacher Boss Cat but with the paltry set of decals you get with this thing it doesn’t really do it any justice, still I guess that if you want a good old fashioned plastic buggy these days then this is as good as it gets :S

I’ll still give it a place in my collection as there are still aspects about this car that I like but don’t ask me what they are cos I haven’t the foggiest idea, as for will it ever become a runner, well usual rules apply here, when I get a new radio that I can fit into it? then I will attempt to run it, but till then its another dust gatherer just like the rest of my collection