The Day of the Dolphin.
**PLEASE READ THIS** for anyone looking at this model displayed in my showroom and wondering if I will sell it? PLEASE DON’T ASK!!! I get numerous requests from TC members wanting to buy cars displayed in my Tamiyaclub showroom, and to be honest I get very annoyed when people ask to buy something that is clearly NOT FOR SALE!! This car is part of MY COLLECTION and as such I want to KEEP IT!! So please don’t Email on the off chance that I might sell it to you, if I want to sell any of my cars I will put them up for sale in my TRADE ROOM, so look there to see what cars I am prepared to sell otherwise don’t bother asking cos the only answer you will get is NO!!! thanks for reading this disclaimer. Regards wldnas.
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Just before Christmas last year I happened to see one of these cars being sold cheap on an Ebay Buy-it-now, I knew of the Aristocraft cars from adverts in an Early US RC modeler’s magazine I borrowed from a friend, they seemed very toy like but meet my criteria for a collectable RC buggy IE: must be vintage (between 1979-1992), must have a “PROPER” digital proportional Radio fitted or require one to be fitted for running, and must use standard RC battery packs be they 6v-8.4v, The Aristocraft Hi-tec Dolphin fits all these requirements as well as being extremely unusual, obscure and rare making it an irresistible purchase for me.
I had put the car on my Ebay watch list while I waited a few days for the funds to become available, but when I checked back I found that it had gone when someone paid the Buy-it-now so I assumed the chance to own one was lost forever so I went looking for other quarry elsewhere, a week or two later I changed my Ebay search tactics and put “RC BUGGY” into the search engine to see what it would turn up, and to my amazement not only did it reveal another MIB Dolphin but its sister car the Koala and the ultra rare never before seen Monogram Brushfire! That was a very expensive night for me when I clicked all three Buy-it-now buttons (the other cars can be seen elsewhere in my showroom) anyway the price was paid for all three items including shipping and all I had to do was wait for them to arrive.
And so they did about a week later, I dealt with the Brushfire first, then I looked at the Dolphin, it was a very basic kit, Ready to run style and came supplied with a full Radio and Electronic Speed Controller fitted as standard, the radio installed is an early Hi-tec Challenger 260 with “Gun” style transmitter, most of the radio system components bare a canny resemblance to early Futaba sets, the battery clip on the base of the transmitter is an arse to get on cos the batteries keep springing out of the tray, but on the car it’s the ESC that’s most unusual, it’s a very early type (SP-2040R) with 2 huge exposed racks of heat sinks, and its mounted on a shelf directly on top of the rear gearbox and sticks through a hole on the body about where a rear spoiler should be mounted.
There was only minor preparation required to get it running, so I applied the sparse decals to the bland looking body and fitted the front bumper, when the batteries were installed on the car and in the radio it was ready to roll, the front and rear diff’s seemed to be locked at first, but then I realised that they were stiff from about 15+ years of inactivity and probably congealed lubricant so before running I had to work at the diff’s to get them to free up a little, it was quite hard at first but soon they started to work loose if a bit raggedy at first, up until this point I had not been too impressed with the cars toyish style and quality but that was until I first pulled the trigger on the controller and made the thing move.
The trigger on the controller is quite sensitive so one slight twitch and the car shot off into the skirting board, then I reversed the car and to my surprise it immediately changed direction, not sure at what had just happened I lifted up the car and switched the throttle forwards and backwards in quick succession and to my astonishment the speedo followed suit and reversed its direction instantly, no timed delay while it switches over like all modern ECS’s which is the main reason why I hate using them, this one electronic component is a revelation, it gives me the flexibility that I look for in a car throttle system and its so quick in its response that pulling wheelies with the Dolphin is a breeze, on carpet it jumps up nearly every time full throttle is applied, so I decided to give the car a drive outside.
Driving the car normally it’s a bit slow, there is quite a bit of noise from the chain drive and the steering response is a bit lazy but this is more than compensated for my the hyperactive throttle, I’ve never known a car take off so fast, I hate to think how quick it would go with a suitably hot motor on board, and wheely poppin’ couldn’t be easier, its even possible to get the car to jump up and waddle along on its hind quarters and even do a pirouette, I did get the car to fall onto its roof a number of times and its all due to the super duper speedo, it may be chunky and heavy, but I don’t cars so long as it gives me that kind performance, I gotta get some more of those : )
One other thing on note about this and other Aristocraft cars, as far as I can determine they were mainly produced to help establish the Hi-tec radio systems to the world market, and all the Hi-tec cars that I have so far seen produced (Koala, Kangaroo, Dolphin and Wildebeest) is that they all shared the same basic chassis design, but there was something about the design of the chassis that bothered me, it look very familiar in its general design, it took me a while to figure out where I had seen it before but then I realised it bore a striking resemblance to the chassis design of none other than the Marui Samurai.
When I finally got the chassis of the two cars together for comparison, I saw that there where a number of common features, both have 4WD chain drive, both have double wishbone front suspension with single overhead mono shock working off the top wishbone, both have trailing arm rear suspension, the gearboxes have a vaguely similar design although the orientation is different, and the battery mounting on the open type space frame chassis was nearly identical, but for the rest of the car the Dolphins design has been greatly simplified, gone are the multicoloured plastics instead its all over black, the steering servo orientation is different vertical instead of horizontal, the exquisite torsion bar front suspension of the Samurai is replaced with a crude coil spring on the ugly over extended front shock arms, and I’ve already mentioned the simplified gearbox being tilted back in its mountings.
When Marui made its cars, they had a habit of re-using its existing chassis designs at least once, but the Samurai was unique in this respect in that it was only used the once, given the Aristocraft chassis obvious family links with the Samurai, one can only ponder at the reason behind the Samurai’s solo appearance, perhaps Hi-tec bought the licence for the design and made certain changes and simplifications to keep production costs down, and as a result Marui abandoned the Samurai and decided instead to produce more conventional 4WD buggies after that in the Ninja, Shogun and Coors Melling Thunderbird, who can tell.
Comments
wldnas
Odd Ball Buggies Qualification: This car is quite RARE and is from a manufacturer who did not make many different models, the chassis is a CLONE of the Marui Samurai.
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