racer1

I have a Black Foot, Super Hornet and Clod Buster Decals from them. They look great but I would recommend ordering them with the high gloss over coat unless you want more of a satin look. I add the decals then spray a couple of coats of clear over the body so this isn't an issue for me.

One other quick tip for painting hard bodies. Turn the body upside down and be sure to paint the inside as well. Nothing worse than peering into a window and seeing white plastic after you just completed your nice paint job.

I don't typically use primer on bodies unless i'm doing a restore where I have had to sand down an old body and there might be some old paint remaining here and there. That being said I do recommend that you lightly scuff each and every body you paint and more important you sand down the bodies to make them straight and smooth. The MadBull body is pretty straight right out of the box but needed a little help here and there. Both of mine had a large lump in the roof from molding. The sides that lead back to the wing were pretty straight but the top of the rear wing itself had tons of waves in it. A few minutes spent with a some 220 on a flat sanding block took the waves out then followed that up with finer grits until smooth. I typically go up to 600 grit. If you ever build a Grasshopper or a Sand Scorcher you can consider these steps mandatory as those bodies are horrible out of the molds. Maybe it's my back ground in real automotive by wavy panels make me crazy... After that it's a good wask with Dawn dish soap then let air dry. Wipe with Rubbing Alcohol and paint.

Same question. I'm in for a set of uppers and lowers if these are still available.

I sold my original bruiser to a local guy here about 15 yrs ago. When he was ready to let it go he was nice enough to look me up and offer it to me first. Obviously I bought it back.

This is completely your decision. I have a few cars that I know I will never run due to their rarity and cost. I have a B2B Side Car that has only what Tamiya provided and 1 extra servo so that the from tire doesn't flop around. My original 959 and RX311 are the same way. I'll never run them and they are sitting in a display case so no need.

Grasshopper / Hornet with the paddle tires make great beach cars. Just run a little silicone around the two halves of the gearbox when you put them together and place a foam filter over the motor opening to keep sand out. I also run the stock plastic bushings in the wheels and outer end of the gearbox just so I don't screw up my bearings. Entire prep time is about 10 mins. I'd also recommend that you put the ESC is with velcro so you can easily pull it and the servos out for a good bath afterward.

The saint dragon body has all on the cut lines to fit the hornet chassis. You will just need to locate or make a rear body mount. Or you could just just sell me the body:)

Mad Fighter just bit the bullet a week or so ago. Went ot buy one that was in my cart at tower and it was discontinued.

Been away on a business trip and arrived back home yesterday to find a few of the items I've bought have arrived. Always a nice surprise to come home to new rc cars and parts. Lets start with this thing. Seller had 2 of these chassis and swapped all of the touring car suspension parts from the other car to this baja champ. I saw this posted once a while back then it was gone. When it was reported I noticed the bidding was slow so I took a shot and won. Interesting this is almost an exact duplicated of something I built back in the day. Difference was than mine started as a touring car and I added the larger wheels, tires and baja champ body. The approach was different but the end result was almost identical. Looking forward to running this one. next up was this I know it's not Tamiya but it's still worthy of mention. Since this one was discontinued I figured I should get at least one more for the future. And some parts. Not sure how it happened but I somehow missed out on the mad fighter. In my quest to own all of the hard bodies I somehow missed this one until it was too late. Lucky for me there was a seller on eBay that was parting out one and I was able to buy everything needed to convert a madbull into a mad fighter. Now I just need another madbull And finally. Couldn't pass up on a super hotshot re-re body.

Sorry. Duplicate

At the Moment. That's a tough on to pick. I can honestly say that i'm having more fun with my Tumbling bull right now than anything else. Not uncommon to run it around almost daily if I get home before the sun goes down.

I feel where you are coming from. The "Unique" handling of a vintage buggy is hit or miss for some folks. I personally love the different handling quirks of the various Tamiya models but that's just me. If you are going from Something like a Stampede to a Hornet you are not going to be happy. I buddy of mine a few years back was accustomed to running his Slash then decided to buy a Brat. Needless to say I was about to pick up a very nice lightly used Brat for almost nothing a week after he was finished building it as it didn't compare to the Slash. In all honestly the last Hornet I bought off Ebay was about a year ago but it I picked it up for almost nothing. I'd need to look it up but I want to say it was around $30 USD with a pretty nice clear body and a brand new set of re-re decals, wheels and tires running and ready to go. Haven't bought a Frog in a while but a quick look at Ebay shows them sold anywhere from $30 to $60 for used examples with new builds brings a little more. Like someone else said, Tamiya flooded the market with these so there just isn't a market for them right now.

They are in a different league. While I have not driven the re-re optima yet I can tell you that owning one of the originals back in the day it was a great car and a lot more nimble than the HotShot. It's a lot of fun to run but without that unique quirkiness we love with Tamiya's

Buy the Optima. Like others have said, It's a great build and who knows how long it's going to be around. Tower hobbies already has the Tomahawk listed as discontinued so you never know how long these things are going to be available.

Tower now has the Avanti and novafox listed

Have you checked TamiyaUSA's site. The last time I looked the website said " Temporarily out of stock" so I gave them a call to see when they were expecting more and they had some sitting on the shelf. I bought a few to hold me over. It's only been a year or so. Maybe they still have them. Check for PN #58124

Jason, I'm away on a business trip so I don't have the cars in front of me to check this so it' purely from memory. I do not believe the Super hornet will simply drop on the old Hornet chassis. If i'm correct the rear section of the Super hornet chassis is just a bit taller where the body mounts so the body sits just a bit higher. If you attempt to drop the Super Hornet body on old chassis the body will hit at the rear uprights so you will either need to figure out how to raise the rear body mounts or notch the body slightly to get it to sit down far enough. I do believe the front mounts are in the correct location. I can check this when I get home this weekend. I do not have any picks if the truck builds but I can tell you that one was home made and the other was a kit from Ebay from about 15 yrs ago. I'll post picks of both when I get home.

The bloom isn't really olds so much as it is waxes. The tires will be fine.

No but you can easily reproduce the green shell as I'm pretty sure it's just tamiya TS52 paint inside and out. I've not dared scratch mine to find out but I'm pretty sure the body is not molded in green.

Just took a quick count but I know there are a few more as the green ones are not here. 6 GH1's 2 GH2's 2 Hornets 5 Super Hornets 2 Hornet/Grasshopper based truck conversions. 1 Rock Buster 7 mostly assembled chassis's 9 more chassis's in various states of disassembly. Pretty sure there is 1 more Black GH and 4 Green GH's at the other house and maybe another Hornet. I believe I have 2 of the metallic editions but I only see one here. 3 NIB re-release GH1 bodies with decals and a spare rock buster body with no decals. Thats all I can find at the moment. Yes I'm sick... I know!!!!!!

I don't think buying multiple's of the same kit is an issue. Especially if it's a kit with and ABS Hardbody. I've learned my lesson over the years by missing out on a number of models that I wish I had bought but just kept putting them off until they were no longer available. The last straw for me was missing the Jun Watanabe Hornet. I wanted a one f these but never bought it and then suddenly they were discontinued and going to $400 on eBay. Since then I've learned to pick up a few of kits that i'm interested in and just set them aside until I decide what I want to do with them. Look at it this way. As long as you're not putting yourself or you family in financial risk and you have a good safe place to store them without driving the family crazy then buy as many as you like. You will never lose money on a new in box kit so go for it. Looking at some of the cars I've picked up in just the past 4 yrs, some have almost double din value. After AE cut the re-release of the RC10 short I was in a hobby shop that had 5 of them on the shelf. I made a deal for all 5 and walked out the door. Last year I decided that having 5 of them was over kill and sold off 2 of them for double the original purchase price. Now talking mental illness. I suffer from when it comes to the Grasshopper/hornet chassis cars. I just can't let a decent one pass me..... It's an illness

I posted the following response in another tread. If you are dealing with a recent kit there is a possibility that the white haze is actually mold release used to get the tires to come out of the mold. If the kit is a few years old then you are more than likley dealing with "BLOOM". See below. "This is referred to as "bloom" in the rubber industry. Over time the plasticizers in the rubber begin to creep out and cause a white film on the surface. While I have no clue what the these RC tires are made from, we always handled the issues the same way regardless of compound by applying heat. This causes the compound to soften and reabsorb the plasticizers. The way we handled it was by placing the o-rings and gaskets in large mesh bags and tumbling them in an industrial dryer for a few minutes. I don't recommend that you do this at home as it causes a fair bit of stink and will get you divorced in quick order. For RC tires I've had good luck with a normal hair dryer set on Hot. Different compounds soften at different temps so you might have to get the tires pretty darn warm. Afterwards I would wash the tires with simply green and a tooth brush in very hot water to get any remaining grime off of them"

I just can't help myself. I see one of these things and I have to buy it. This was waiting when I got home today. It's pretty much perfect except for some peeling decals but it's a RE RE so that a cheap easy fix. I'm even liking the silver so this will be an easy clean up and decal job with some clear over it to keep the decals from trying to jump ship again in the future. I'm beginning to thing I have more of this chassis than anyone else on the planet. We should take a count. I'm going to be in serious trouble when the green cars hit the market again with the GH2.

You need t buy a pallet of these things and get them shipped here to the USA. I'll be your distributor and we'll make a fortune.....