1981 Sand Rover - Play with or Sell

[DaveA 4]

Hi,

I just unboxed my 40 year old Sand Rover, cleaning inches of dirt and dust from the top of the box (ok exaggeration).

The goal is to have some fun with my kids and introduce them to RC cars.

The car is currently partially unassembled and dirty, I played loads with it as a child, loved it. I was also a big Spiderman fan and my parents gave it a custom paint job in that theme ;-)

It has both small and large motor, and an upgraded speed controller + a body mod that allows action figures to sit in it ;-)

I have seen some posts saying that these old cars are wanted by collectors and enthusiasts, and I am wondering whether it would be better to:

 - spend time/money cleaning up the old car and getting it working again and just having fun with it until it breaks beyond repair,

 - or selling it and using the money to buy something new.

 

 

[junkmunki 829]

Hi and welcome to the club.

The question really is where you are going to run it. If you are going to just run it around your garden at moderate speeds, then it should be fine, but if you really want to use it hard and have a bit of bashing fun, then i would sell it and get something modern.

The front suspension mounts on these are very fragile, and known to break as soon as they see a bump, and getting a spare chassis is becoming harder, and good ones expensive. Tyes are also another consideration. If while in storage the originals have perished and cracked, finding a new set will be hard, unless you put different wheels on.

Also consider, that the older models were not designed to take modern battery packs, or brushless setups, so you will be hampered by speed issues, and how to fit a decent battery.

From the point of view of wanting to get your kids involved and have some fun, i would get something new, so that any damage can be repaired quickly and cheaply.

By all means restore this and keep it as keep sake from your childhood, but your own kids will have far more fun with something more modern.

J

[Grumpy pants 4235]

The best would be to sell it and buy something modern for the kids to rag around like a DT03.

The plastics will be brittle on the Sand Rover and it won’t take much to break it. 

The DT03 fluctuates around £75 on Amazon and it’s easier and cheaper to build a new kit than to restore an old model. 

[DaveA 4]

Oh, and if I sell it, whats it worth and where should I sell it?

 

thx for the suggestions on the DT03, I’ll check it out. 

[KEV THE REV 2269]

Check eBay 'Tamiya Sand Rover' listings current and completed sales to get an idea . You have the box and some spares including a rare 540 motor mount conversion plate , this all helps with the sale . These are great models , but as already said, they are very fragile , yours should be protected as a survivor

Was the gearbox / gears dis-assembled for a reason ? . The gear A on these can also be fragile , but I suspect it was to fit the 540 motor . The 540 mount won't fit together with all 3 of the gears , you need leave out gear B and shaft and move gear A foreward to the B gear position

[Nobbi1977 1769]

My 2p worth. Put it back in the box and think about it for a bit.

Get a cheap DT-03 for the kids and to get back in to the hobby. 
 

You do not want to be rash and get rid of it only to want it back later but building it and bashing it to bits would be worse.

[Alwb68 125]

Prices for these are creeping up. Personally I’d clean it up and keep it for yourself, you’ll never get another one.

You could probably get £200 easily I would have thought, maybe even more £250, because you’ve got the box, everything looks like it’s there, the 540 motor option mount. Even the rear tyres look like they have some tread left.

Buy a modern buggy to have some fun with the kids, plus modern electronics so more reliable and less issues. And no need to stress about the occasional broken part.

[mike in pa 64]

If you have had it this long, clean it up and keep it. If you sell it, you will regret it. Buy a new buggy for the kids. 

[BuggyDad 3111]

I would buy a new kit with the added bonus that you can spend time getting the kids involved in the build and it'll be "theirs" a bit more. The value in yours is in large part nostalgia which is nothing to them. It might not cost you much more than getting the old one going and you won't wince anything like as much with every breakage. And then if you get into the hobby a bit you might enjoy restoring this, whether that's to run, sell or put on a shelf you can decide whenever.

Other benefits too with the other new tech like radio gear, batteries etc, not least of which is that some relatively very superior stuff compared with the old days is also cheap. 

I'm new on here too, back to rc for first time since an 80s childhood. Built a DT-03 with my son only 3 months ago, then got one for myself, and am now falling down the rabbit hole of other cars. I'd love to stumble upon my 80s cars now. 

Amazon DT-03s are truly remarkable value. As far as I could see, nothing else comes close on that front. 

[Exit13 663]

6 hours ago, mike in pa said:

If you have had it this long, clean it up and keep it. If you sell it, you will regret it. Buy a new buggy for the kids. 

+1. No reason to give it up unless you absolutely need the cash. Just buy a new one and keep it. 

[Max Power 5]

Box it back up and safely pack it away, then grab a new kit to assemble. 

After you get a taste of hobby again you may want to do a quality restoration of the Sand Rover. It's a highly sought after model and worth spending the time and money to preserve it.

What ever you choose to do I'm sure you'll have fun. 

[Willy iine 17928]

@DaveA I would definitely set aside the Sand Rover and get a modern kit you and your kids can build together.   Then restore the Sand Rover completely.. and only dad drives that one.  Vintage cars are cool.  

[Busdriver 6088]

I’ve never really been in to the Vintage market but if I may throw my hat in the ring I would say KEEP IT!!!! Don’t let the kids anywhere near it. As others have suggested buy something else to build with them and then clean up your old one and run it on your birthday!! In my opinion don’t over restore it. If you want a more modernish car but still oldskool try the Beetle Blitzer or Stadium Thunder. Great chassis for thrashing around and easy to maintain. 

[InsaneJim69 1579]

Pretty much as others have said. Buy a modern buggy for thrashing around. You can even get the modern DT02 release of the sand rover !! My son loves his DT02 and so far it has been bomb proof.

Again if you don't need the money, do not sell the Sand Rover !!! Keep it and restore it for yourself to run gently, or put it on a shelf as a reminder of the past 👍

James.

[DaveA 4]

OK, so I bought a DT03, currently in progress building it ;-)

thanks for all the advice, still uncertain whether to sell or keep my 1981 Sand Rover,

yes it has lots of goof memories for me, but I don't have space to display it, so it would just sit in a box in a storage space.

I was offered 150 for it, which is a very tempting offer.

[BuggyDad 3111]

58 minutes ago, DaveA said:

OK, so I bought a DT03, currently in progress building it ;-)

thanks for all the advice, still uncertain whether to sell or keep my 1981 Sand Rover,

yes it has lots of goof memories for me, but I don't have space to display it, so it would just sit in a box in a storage space.

I was offered 150 for it, which is a very tempting offer.

I would just box it up and defer the decision. You can always sell it later but you might as well let time elapse on building and playing with your new one, and make the decision in the knowledge of how you feel about this stuff then. 

I only built up a DT-03 with my son in October having been out of this since the 80s. Since then I've built another the same, broken countless parts, modded the heck out of both, bought a different 2nd hand car and another kit and pre-ordered a blimmin Kyosho. Needless to say, this chain of events is not what I expected from buying my son a birthday present... 

[InsaneJim69 1579]

On 1/4/2022 at 7:38 PM, DaveA said:

OK, so I bought a DT03, currently in progress building it ;-)

thanks for all the advice, still uncertain whether to sell or keep my 1981 Sand Rover,

yes it has lots of goof memories for me, but I don't have space to display it, so it would just sit in a box in a storage space.

I was offered 150 for it, which is a very tempting offer.

There is no way I would accept £150 for it. It's worth £200 as an absolute bare minimum all day long with the original box etc, I would have it up for £300 and then go from there imo, you can also knock off £20 or so in a deal.

James.

[Juggular 4660]

On 1/4/2022 at 2:38 PM, DaveA said:

still uncertain whether to sell or keep my 1981 Sand Rover,

yes it has lots of goof memories for me

Ah, I suppose you have not felt the regret of selling the childhood memory yet.  

For many of us, that was not a pleasant experience. We would feel like "I want to pay twice as much to get it back!"

So deferring the decision sounds like a good idea.  

 

[c64orinoco 655]

I've got a Sand Rover the same age. the front suspenion uprights had cracked (a common problem) , so I replaced those with aluminium plate bolted to the chassis. Maybe not pretty but it's what I would have done in 1982. My Gear B is missing a few teeth, so I really can't run it without horrible noises from the gearbox. Those gears are pretty much irreplacable, so be careful with them. I didn't clean the body, I kept the orignal 1982 patina of dirt, scracthes and bad paintjob.

I would store the Sand Rover and get a new car. I'm going to be different to the other recomendations and suggest a TT02B, Neo Scorcher or Plasma Edge. They are simple modern buggies, 4WD and quite afforadable. It's what I started with when I got back into the hobby in 2019.