Hudson

Very nice. Looks like you shortened the suspension too? The things I’ve fiddled around with over the years on the Falcon are: Wheels, shock length and adding in extra snap pin fixings for the body on the sides at the back, to kind of hold it down and in and reduce the width. It’s fun trying to find ways to ‘improve’ the look. I do also love just going total stock box art.

Personally I’d love to see the Falcon back- but with a few ‘tweaks’. Firstly, fix all the weak spots (hopefully without impacting the aesthetics). Secondly, bigger wheels!!, I think it’s a statement of fact that the Falcon looks better with 2.2 wheels. I’m convinced it was a Tamiya marketing ploy back in the day to make everyone upgrade/pay up to the Wild One wheels. Also, slightly widen the stance at the front. I know that Tamiya have stayed away from tweaking their re re’s, no doubt for convenience and for fear of losing the essence of the originals, but in this instance I reckon it’d work well. It would also help to differentiate original to re re.

I know that this has been discussed to death already, was just wondering if there's any expert opinions out there? Are the weak spots on the Falcon too numerous to warrant a re run? Are Tamiya being Tamiya and holding back a few trump cards - along with Porsche 959, Toyota Monster Racer etc?? Is it inevitable that we'll get these at some point or are there legitimate, plausible reasons for these conspicuous absentees?

My first post here for a while, I hope everyone's well. I'm a big Falcon fan and have restored/rebuilt/tinkered with at least a dozen over the years. Much has been written about the weak spots the Falcon possesses - in my experience the two issues that crop up on virtually every single rebuild are - cracked front arms and front suspension mounts broken where the shocks attach. As such, I was wondering if anyone had ever tried to fix these problems - over and above glue/epoxy etc? I've seen a few vids on plastic welding using black cable ties and wondered if this could be a solution for the front arms? (of course cracked arms are a problem for many a vintage Tamiya). I have no clue about making metal parts but I keep thinking that a metal plate with the extrusions for fitting the shocks could be pushed into the exterior upper recess of the shock tower (which seems a strong fixing point)?? Of course there's 3d printed parts now which perhaps negates all aforementioned thoughts! I couldn't quite bring myself to pull the trigger on these as I don't think they look quite right?! (I'm a bit of a purist) and they're also quite pricey. I literally have a bucket of used parts with at least 10 shock towers all broken in the same place but otherwise perfect, and same again for the front arms. Any thoughts?

A very informed response - much appreciated…….

Yup, I think that’s excellent advice - I’m gonna make an offer…..

I live in France and someone’s selling a NIB on a well known national website - I was just very surprised that I’d never come across this model. I looked at ‘members models’ on TC and only found one - I guess it was a short production run!? Also just seems strange as it’s basically a Sand Viper. I’m just curious……

I’m a big fan of the DT02 chassis and thought I was aware of all the different releases over the years - Holiday Buggy , Sand Viper, Neo Falcon! etc etc. I then came across an advert for a NIB Fighter Buggy SV - this is the first time I’ve seen this precise model - it seems to be a Sand Viper with different colour box art and different wheels/tyres. Can anyone throw any light on this for me?

Are we expecting an old skool Tamiya box art box or something more along the lines of the Avante black special box? Personally I’m hoping it’s the former……. (apologies if this has already been covered earlier in thread)

I reckon they got the colour scheme wrong, somehow that metallic blue and yellow lacks class (imho!), whereas the Astute 2022 in those classic colours is very cool looking. In fact I’m about to buy one (pre painted). Certainly as a collector and a fan of box art the Astute 2022 is the nicer of the two.

My guess is that Tamiya did tinker with some Fox variations but never landed anything satisfactory. Add in the electrics access nightmare plus more demand for four wheel drive at the time…… Only a guess of course! Is there any sales data from this period? Two of my best mates had the Fox back in the day, it was surely a good seller. In any case, the Fox remains my favourite ever buggy and I’m pleased Tamiya never ‘diluted’ its appeal with variations of the same chassis

So I messaged Tamico and this was their exact response - ‘all our new Tamiya kits come shrink wrapped from our supplier’.

No I don’t think so, he would receive his kits direct from Tamiya (not shrink wrapped) so presumably he can simply remove the lid and add or remove esc. As previously discussed, some distributors choose to/have means of shrink wrapping, others don’t, and wrapping seems to be much more of a ‘thing’ in the US.

Yes ok good idea. I mean, I’m still gonna buy the kits shrink wrapped or not….. Is there a small implication here that I shouldn’t be happy buying from Tamico? That’s a genuine question, it’s only very recently that I’ve got the re release bug and I definitely haven’t settled on a preferred place of purchase, I’m in rural France so definitely no local hobby shop!

So are we concluding that in terms of European distributors, none of them routinely shrink wrap?