Max Roczen

Agree, modern buggies are so durable. My race buggy has taken some mad hits. Crashing off triples, other cars hitting me head-on and from behind. Buggies on top of me. Yet NOTHING has broken. Don't need a vast amount of spares. I've used none so far.

@toyolien You like things that you consider bland? Hmm, I never considered that. OK.

High performance items do go this way. Motocross bikes are all the same apart from the colour. F1 cars look the same. I bet pro-tennis requests look the same too. The differentiater needs to be marketing. RC isn't good at this. Apart from Tamiya as there is a lot of love for the big T (just not on the race track).

You don't like modern race buggies but you also said you want any new trf to be competitive. You've given Tamiya a tough brief there.

I'll tell you right now that I will not see a single one at the race tracks I go to. And have you seen how tough a traxxas rustler is? To be fair I would not expect the td4 to be that tough. But I think we've gone off track, the discussion was about TRF. Yes, if TRF released an off road buggy I would buy one.

Yep if these products fulfill the needs of Tamiya's customers and keeps the company healthy then that is great. They are not for me so I have started to move away from tamiya.

Still 540 silver can and no lipo or brushless tech. Can it be considered new? It's not strong enough to bash, not good enough to race. But I get your point. Tamiya know their market better than me. If it works for them and their customers that is great. Good luck to them.

It's a bit depressing seeing tamiya off road stuck in the world of 540 silver cans, nimh, brass bushings and cva shocks. I just started off road racing and really wanted a Tamiya. All I could find was 10 year old trf stuff. I bought a trf502x. Issue was no spares and no options. The ball diffs are no good on high traction surfaces. Eventually I went racing with a yokomo. If tamiya made a race buggy I'm pretty sure people would race it. Tamiya don't need to but club racers would. Eventually all the horders who are buying the re re toys will have bought all the re re stuff they want. Then what for tamiya, they'll have to do something in addition to re re. 1/8, nitro, racing, bashers, crawlers? Will be interesting to see what they do next. Fingers crossed.

I believe Tamiya gave the trf502x to it's team to race at euro and worlds level. This was the last 4wd for the team before tamiya gave up.

There were tamiyas that were made for brushless set up. They stopped making them around 2015 so you'd most likely have to source a used one. TRF201, 211, 501X, 511X, 503X AND TRF502X.

I suppose that original list of top of the range 4wd buggy should be: Hot Shot 1985 Avante 1987 evolved in to Egress 1988 (cheaper Vanquish in 1988). Top-Force 1991 and then Top-Force Evolution 1992 (cheaper DF-01 sibling 1990). TRF501X 2006 evolved in to TRF511X 2009 then TRF503 2014 (cheaper DB-01 in 2007). TRF502X 2010 (cheaper DB-02 in 2012). Then Tamiya gave up, 2015.

I know you're all wondering what I bought 😆 Initially I bought a Top Force. Now, three yrs after the OP I finally bought a TRF502X. The Top Force had too much play in the steering and suspension and the gearboxes won't handle lots of power. So rather than going down an expensive road on modifications I bought a brushless ready buggy, the 502X. I Could have got a B74 instead but it had to be a Tamiya!

Excellent points. Sounds like the car isn't that slow especially as i'd be racing at a novice level. As said, at this level the drivers will be the limiting factor. I probably wouldn't get the max out of a b64 anyway. So now I just have to bite the bullet and spend some money on an old TRF buggy!

Cool, found the trf off road group on fb.

I'm going to buy a 1/10th 4x4 off-road buggy. I've concluded (rightly or wrongly) that the best Tamiya (for dirt racing) is the TRF 502X. Does anyone know how much slower this buggy would be compared to a 2018 Team Associated B64? Is it night and day? I really want a Tamiya but the best buggy I can get is from 2010 (the 502X)!

@Juls1 Solid advice that I'll try. Cheers.

@Tamiyabigstuff thanks, I’ll expect to pay the fees if oredering from abroad. Agree it’s a real shame about uk hobby shops. The model I’m considering is a hard to find trf model.

My TL-01 also pulls to one side (the right). A few people have mentioned this so I'm beginning to think it's simply a bad design. Heavy prop-shaft on one side of the car, light front end at top speed? Anyone know if it's possible to solve the issue. If not then it gives me an excuse to buy a different car

Talking of post. Has anyone ordered a kit from abroad (I'm thinking of ordering from RCJAZ in Hong Kong). Do you have to pay tax and duty when it arrives in the UK? I guess you do but I wanted to see if there was any advice / experience of this. Thanks.

So I think their 4x4 racing buggies went: Avante 1987 Egress 1988 Top-Force 1991 Top-Force Evolution TRF 411X TRF501 TRF511 TRF502 TRF503 Gave up with off-road racing and turned to on-road instead.

Ah that all makes sense now. There was clear evolution from the Egress to the Avante and on to the Top-Force but then it fissiled out. Seems ownership of the TRF buggies went to Tamiya USA. So if I want to get a 4x4 racing buggy it may not be a Tamiya.

Hi all, Back in the day I remember Tamiya always having a flagship 4x4 buggy. Over the years which has been the top Tamiya 4x4? I've started the list below, is anyone able to complete and correct it? It's just out of interest as it all gets a bit unclear after Top Force! Hot Shot 1985 Egress 1987 Avante 1988 Top-Force 1991 Top-Force Evolution TRF503 2014 TT-02B MS 2015 DB01RRR