New Losi mini no-prep drag car

[Mad Ax]

Not a Tamiya, but...

...this just popped up in my Youtube feed, I hadn't heard anything about it but it looks like a fairly interesting thing.

So, what is it?  It's a no-prep drag car in 1/16 scale.  I've so far avoided the 1/10 no-prep drag thing, because a) I have nowhere to run one, 2) nobody here is racing them and iii) it looks like it could be a money-pit.  The cars look awesome, there's a host of bodies available now and it's one of those race series where scale looks are as important as performance (which is a big plus for me).  But, OTOH, they annoy me, because they're not really 1/10 scale.  Or at least, not 1/10 scale as Tamiya and all the other touring car manufacturers see it (which we all admit is a fairly loose scale at the best of times).  But the no-prep thing going off and doing its own scale kind of makes a mockery of my displays.

Now the new 1/16 model has a 239mm wheelbase - that's shorter than a Tamiya touring car.  According to the video, the wheelbase can be shortened to 225mm to work with other mini bodies, but I'm not sure how many drag-style bodies exist in that scale.  And given the construction of the chassis, I'd say it would be fairly easy to extend to a regular TC wheelbase to get access to some of those neat drag bodies that have been around for a while and often look out of place over regular touring car chassis.

However, having measured the dimensions and thrown them around in my head for a bit, I think these cars might be around the right scale for a 1:14 big rig layout.  I'm always on the lookout for cars that will look good on the back of my haulers, most things either look too big or too small, but it would be interesting to see how one of these stacks up.

The price for the RTR version looks pretty competitive, too, but we'll have to see how they compare once they're actually in stores.

Link to the product:

https://www.horizonhobby.com/product/1-16-1970-chevelle-2wd-mini-no-prep-drag-car-rtr/LOS01023.html

So far there's only one review on the Horizon site, and it's not entirely helpful.

[Mokei Kagaku]

Being 1/16, it would normally not be of interest to me, but after checking wheelbase (239mm) and width (165mm), I'm tempted. The Tamiya M-chassis VW Bug body should virtually be a direct fit.

 

[Nikko85]

The given scales in RC cars make no sense to me, it seems things these days are so skewed by larger vehicles that something advertised as 1/16 might be nothing like that size. Many things sold at 1/10 scale are actually much closer to 1/8, and many vintage Tamiya which were near enough 1/10 scale when released look tiny in comparison now.

Looking at the real world data on these cars, it seems the Chevelle had a real world wheelbase of 2845 mm, which means these are almost exactly 1/12 scale. This means that they'd match other 1/12 vehicles like the Pumpkin, and perhaps fit in a 1/14 set up too?

As you said the wheelbase does look like it can be changed by moving the whole gearbox forward.

I am a little bit tempted,. Driver is perhaps my favourite Playstation game of all time (and the only driving game I was ever good at) so something like this could be excellent addition. Iam always looking for 1/12 cars to add to the collection. However I'd want it as a sliding, drifting fun car, not just a drag racer.