How important is "Scale" to you?

[CMshooter]

Sorry, nontamiya examples.

 

 

[markbt73]

My general attitude is that if it looks cool in motion, that's what counts. Sometimes that means a highly scale-accurate truck with the same drivetrain and suspension as the real thing, traveling at scale speeds. Sometimes it means a fantastical spaceship-looking buggy with big knobby tires. Sometimes it means a monster-ized version of a Jeep or a Corvette or something. If it makes me smile watching it go by, I'm into it.

Generally speaking, I favor more reasonable speeds, and I like cars that I have to slow down in the corners for. The whole 6S battery and does wheelies at 50 mph thing bores me, frankly. You do that once, maybe twice, and then what else is there to do? But if you take a scale-looking buggy around the same course dozens of times, starting slow and figuring out where you can go faster, you're gaining skill as a driver as well as an appreciation for the machine and its limits. It's a far more entertaining way to burn through a battery pack, in my opinion. Gimme a Wild One or a Scorpion any day over some Arrma thingy.

Currently, it's scale-ish buggies, 2WD monster trucks, and classic rally cars that are holding my interest. So I guess the answer is - it's kinda important? But not always?

[skom25]

Hard question.

RC bodies are not very realistic. I have Mercedes CLK body only with "TRF" stickers and to be honest, I do not care when I run it.

On the other hand, I have also Focus WRC body which looks nice and I care to keep it in good condition. It adds bit of realism. I also think to get modern WRC body, like Yaris Hybrid.

In my case, summarizing...

I like Buggy bodies, because they are not realistic from the start and I do not have to care too much. I can create my own vision 

I am not huge fan of "real" RC cars, so e.g. for TC chassis I like bodies like Raikiri etc.

I think at least for me, even if someone prepare extremally good body, it still looks rather unrealistic. There is also matter of "scale". We are limited to chassis dimensions, so Yaris WRC will be more or less the same as Mercedes CLK or any other much bigger car.

[Beetlemankurt]

I love me some scale !!!. But I also love buggies even though most aren't based on a real world example. Even so, aestheics are still really important to me either way, it's gotta look good.  

The older I get, the more I'm drawn to the challenge of scale, hence the attraction to 1:14 tractor trucks also. I guess it all stems from my original fascination of RC's 'models in motion' tagline that I find fascinating. Oh, and I love my new Losi 22s Sprint Car, what a great model to bring out..

Cheers

Kurt

 

[ADRay1000]

I’m fond of how Tamiya sticks to scale. A Mini is a mini, and a sedan is a sedan, a monster truck is a monster truck. 
 

Hotwheels on the other hand makes me crazy. 

[Kowalski86]

6 hours ago, skom25 said:

We are limited to chassis dimensions, so Yaris WRC will be more or less the same as Mercedes CLK or any other much bigger car.

Apparently Ford F-150 pick ups and Honda Civics have the same wheelbase too!

https://tamiyabase.com/tamiya-models/58222

[Verskis]

14 hours ago, Big Jon said:

This is a good and tough question!

There’s super scale, highly detailed scale models that happen to be radio controlled, which I’m not terribly interested in building, because they’re too fragile to play with the way I want to play. However, if I’m suddenly wealthy, I’d really enjoy some hydraulic construction equipment and a big dump truck.

There’s semi-scale like touring cars with licensed bodies and most trail rigs. That’s my sweet spot. The cars look like the real ones, or close enough, and it makes them look so much better ripping around. Now, for me, semi-scale can range from something like a Bruiser all the way to say, a Willy’s Wheeler or Farm King with its cartoonish proportions. As long as its identifiable as a model of something that exists, it fits this category.

Now, the race/bash “no scale” stuff is unappealing. Race buggies and truggies don’t look cool anymore, current touring cars with their blobby bodies are ugly, and pan cars should be required to use Can-Am or other scale prototype bodies. Bashers, with their generic bodies and XXXXTREME paint paint schemes leave me cold.

Buggies are a whole different thing. Looks are subjective and all, but I know what I like, and it just has to look good to me, or at least interesting. The BBX, Wild One, Hot Shot, Scorpion, Javelin and similar are smashing, with scale looks, but I like an awful lot of the spaceship stuff like the Avante, Thundershot, Salute, Durga, and the racy cars like RC10, Optima, Astute. The cab forward race bodies and overly generic bodies are a big turnoff.

TL;DR: Yes, some sort of scale appearance is important to me, and has an influence on what I buy. If you’re slow, look good doing it.

This is exactly the same way as I think about scale looks, except that I don't really like the spaceship buggies.

[alvinlwh]

Actually this thread reminded me of a build off that I did a while back but never posted the writeup of. I build 2 P34 side by side (makes sense since they use the same paint), both Tamiya, both out of box with no extra detailing. 

I will let the pictures do the talking, you decide which is which. These pictures were deliberately taken so they appears the same size. 

I had been told that my modeling skills is crap and I know that. So no need to tell me that again. 

[Wooders28]

On 4/5/2025 at 1:44 PM, Twinfan said:

Scale accuracy? Not in the least bit interested. Buggies are my thing and most of them aren't really based on real life vehicles.

But putting 2.2" wheels on, still looks wrong,  that's 22" wheels if full scale 😳

[Twinfan]

32 minutes ago, Wooders28 said:

But putting 2.2" wheels on, still looks wrong,  that's 22" wheels if full scale 😳

Looks fine to me - they're not real 1:1 car replicas 

[Nikko85]

13 hours ago, alvinlwh said:

Actually this thread reminded me of a build off that I did a while back but never posted the writeup of. I build 2 P34 side by side (makes sense since they use the same paint), both Tamiya, both out of box with no extra detailing. 

I will let the pictures do the talking, you decide which is which. 

I had been told that my modeling skills is crap and I know that. So no need to tell me that again. 

I think these both look pretty cool.

I'm happy that some details will be missing from an RC car, but the general shape and form of both looks good. I don't mind things like body clips, they are something I can live with too.

I think for me it's more the function over form that puts me off many modern vehicles. I get making it look like a tyco rebound probably helps it drive, but when it doesn't look like anything real it turns me off. Lots of this is to do with scale: gravel, logs, sticks, grass and bumps don't scale down to 1:10, so tires often get oversized to help, then the vehicle gets wider to compensate.

I'd say the Tamiya Monster Racer/Stadium Blitzer/RC10T are probably at the more extreme end of what looks ok to me, but although they might not look 1:1 cars, they do have nice liveries and logos. 

I'd say there is a world of difference from this:

To this:

Even if they both don't really exist as real cars the Blitzer uses a design and style that is based on real cars (and you could imagine someone custom making one) and the Blackzon just looks like a toy that you'd give a toddler (no offence, sure it's awesome!).

 

 

 

 

[njmlondon]

I’m pretty much only into scale. I grew up with the early 80’s Tamiya RC handbooks and the Scorcher, Hilux, early F1 cars and even the tanks are in my DNA.

I appreciate compromises have to be made for running but I still want as much detail as possible and ideally the correct drivetrain.

I love my M03 Mini Cooper for that very reason, along with my Kyosho Scorpions which have the rail chassis, trailing arm suspension and a reasonable attempt at a Funco style body.

Over the years I have built and run the 959, Mountaneer, King Tiger and a bunch of rally cars on the TA02 chassis and the most “un-scale” car I have was the Wild Willy M38.

I keep my driving to pretty much scale too, no massive jumps or 3s wheel shredding 5t brushless motors for me.

Jelly mold buggy bodies and poorly details lexan M chassis or Rally bodies just don’t do it for me. Maybe it’s an age thing.

[Wooders28]

15 hours ago, Twinfan said:

Looks fine to me - they're not real 1:1 car replicas 

(I know I've posted this before but..) How i see the Super Hotshot on the 2.2's..🫣🤣

 

 

[njmlondon]

49 minutes ago, Wooders28 said:

(I know I've posted this before but..) How i see the Super Hotshot on the 2.2's..🫣🤣

 

 

Technically that is still a real car though 😆 

[kevinb120]

Meh, I've been doing scale static/RC cars/helis/aircraft/ships etc for 40+ years.  I'm pretty indifferent.  For this hobby some I like just to be whatever they are.  I do some very scale/realistic but then build them to have a more scale performance envelope, and something like a Kraton is going to be an Arrma Kraton.   Then some as far as Tamiya goes is just 'Tamiya Scale', where it just looks like the original Tamiya model.   Typically I'm not going to build a 4S Sand Scorcher, and I enjoy any R/C from 12mph to 70.  Just try to balance them out.  And if it takes WAY more time to do the alien body on the Super Avante than a 'scale' F1, so be it.   Best efforts to the point of diminishing returns for whatever it's going to 'be'.   Plenty of time at the field where I'd bring a fully scale years-long project aircraft and a foamie(back then glassed over) flying wing and a Stick. After you obliterate a few aircraft you have 400+ hours in, only you can decide if you're going to give up on them or just build it again(or something bigger!). 

For some of the newer disciplines, like high level scale crawlers, you put maximum effort into something that's likely to roll over and get all scratched up, often higher efforts than I'll put into a 'perfect' shelfer. If you're going to worry about it, you're not going to enjoy crawling. Just run what ya brung, if you like it, you like it.  Bee-bop a scale crawler without fear, laugh as your Traxxas whatever slides 100+ feet on the shell missing 1/4 of it's suspension, the walk of shame to find your scale aircraft somewhere in the woods hoping at least you didn't bend the engine(the walk itself is often therapeutic)...  Whatever.

Scale or not scale is always a good break from each other to have both.

[alvinlwh]

50 minutes ago, kevinb120 said:

Meh, I've been doing scale static/RC cars/helis/aircraft/ships etc for 40+ years. 

TBH, even in the static world, there are "rivet counters" that will complain if the number of, or size of rivets are not correct, or my favourite "That is the wrong shade of green/brown/blue!" type... 

Then there are those who "As long as it looks similar a M4/F-15/NSR, I am fine with it". 

Tamiya actually caters for the second group. Their static kits are not super detailed, but are usually easy to build to a reasonable quality. They are not known as "shake and bake kits" without a reason. The real difficult kits are Dragon. I have nightmares just reading the instructions of one. 

[TurboRSR]

18 hours ago, alvinlwh said:

Actually this thread reminded me of a build off that I did a while back but never posted the writeup of. I build 2 P34 side by side (makes sense since they use the same paint), both Tamiya, both out of box with no extra detailing.

The static model and the RC are actually based on different model years of the real car, so if you compare the RC to the correct model year of the real car it doesn't look that bad. 

[kevinb120]

29 minutes ago, alvinlwh said:

TBH, even in the static world, there are "rivet counters" that will complain if the number of, or size of rivets are not correct, or my favourite "That is the wrong shade of green/brown/blue!" type... 

Then there are those who "As long as it looks similar a M4/F-15/NSR, I am fine with it". 

Tamiya actually caters for the second group. Their static kits are not super detailed, but are usually easy to build to a reasonable quality. They are not known as "shake and bake kits" without a reason. The real difficult kits are Dragon. I have nightmares just reading the instructions of one. 

And sometimes modelers go overboard even when they are at 'expert' level.  New techniques come in and some go absolutely crazy with putting every possible one of them into a single model without accounting for scale factor as you're 'observing' from a relatively great distance, let alone the many a debate about Zimmerit.  Gotta love a modern Dragon armor kit though.  85+ 1/350 aircraft with tail looks and gear doors and 64 windshield wipers on the carrier island is a hoot too.  Tamiya static kits give you great reliable moldings to form a basis for adding on, which is a lot of adding required if you're going to be an 'internet modeler'.   For R/C, the Subaru Brat can be more than challenging enough for most.   Still doesn't account for 'everything under it' not being scale in any way.  And at 1/10, 3mph is going extremely  fast over tough terrain.  So build it 'scale', drive 140mph+, what 'is' scale...

[alvinlwh]

4 hours ago, TurboRSR said:

The static model and the RC are actually based on different model years of the real car, so if you compare the RC to the correct model year of the real car it doesn't look that bad. 

I know that, but these are the closest I can get these days. I also know that there is a RC equivalent of the static but that is impossible to find. I also know Hasegawa makes a static of this RC version but it is rather expensive to get to the UK. 

What I am trying to say with my post is, if one is into scale accuracy in detail, RC will always loose. For example, I am sure this is nothing like the real car. 

Of course, the 1/10 static, the one that comes with the PE bits, is the best in details 

[kevinb120]

I'm too lazy these days, I just have the Exoto P34

[SlideWRX]

On 4/5/2025 at 4:22 PM, Nikko85 said:

Yes and no.

Jeep on a GF01. Spend a long time getting tries that worked. Moved to 6km hex as wider track width looked odd.

6km hex?!?  What kinda scale are we lookin' at here?  I thought those were pebbles, but maybe its more like this:

[Nikko85]

Just now, SlideWRX said:

6km hex?!?  What kinda scale are we lookin' at here?  I thought those were pebbles, but maybe its more like this:

Ok, I might have got that out by a factor of a million.

 

[urban warrior]

8 hours ago, alvinlwh said:

TBH, even in the static world, there are "rivet counters" that will complain if the number of, or size of rivets are not correct, or my favourite "That is the wrong shade of green/brown/blue!" type...

Those folks seem to be driving all the fun out of the hobby ... my opinion. If they are "hysterical" about their own models, they may go ahead. But let the others live! And when that has swept over from the "real model building" to Sci-Fi models, well then everything is lost! I remember discussions when Fanhome released the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars about some "wrong" greeblies on the outer shell. You losing all the fun posting your own work, when you're not so pettifogging. I like to enhance models a bit, but I am not planning to join any model builders contests ... that's a lost cause these days.

[Alexei]

to me, scale does matter quite a lot. but not to a extreme degree. with 1:10 onroad, many bodies are made to a standard fit of 257-260mm wheel base, which mean many bodies are not true to scale in that aspect. this is not a problem for me, as is it still very clear what car the body is supposed to represent, and still look right. on the other hand, with generic unlicensed silly race bodies that looks like blobs or copies, thats a no go for me.

also about the way it drives, keeping a relative scale look while moving is also a plus for me. thats something i like a lot about drift cars and trail trucks. i think fast RC's can get extreme too easy, and i find those extremes tiresome and get bored of it quickly.

[Nitrocrushy]

Hi.

I try to keep it short:

Scale and scale speed, was never important, more speed, the better it is. Then comes the age, then comes the time you discover that many like the low budget Tamiya, and even adults having big pockets like a low budget Tamiya re-re or just an original plastic non Dyna Blaster or Dyna Storm Tamiya kit.    But why. After collecting top of the line competition rc cars of all brands, then you see RC Legends in his living room talking about his Tamoya buggies and then he says the magic words: "it costed nearly nothing as new but it is my all time favorite Tamiya".

And then you start to analyze why, how, what is special. And one evening with a low carb beer in one hand, a self made golden question mark in teh other, it suddenly makes "Shogun". "Bang"  "Boom"  "Badadoum"   and your question mark in your right hand has changed to an exclamation mark !

Then you also understand why your cool rc torpedo boat builder and collector never wanted his boats or his Tamiya Globeliner to go fast, now you understand all this older and middle aged people having fun in sailing, swimming or cruising while rc boat demos  and you remember these magic words "I want it to be scale".

Why scale?  Our hobby is called radio control model or hobby model shop and why on every kit they put this Scale: 1:20   1:10   1:12   on it. This is exclusively important to know if you can transport it in a car or if it goes in an RC bag or why is this scale mentioned ?

You know that any Tamiya rc car scale 1:10 has a minimum speed of 25 km/h

Let's take the Tamiya VW Golf V5 with maximum speed of 224 km/h, so this would be 22,4 km/h and what is the speed with a Mabuchi stock motor?   Exactly: > 22,4 km/h    so it is way out of scale with 40 km/h. 

Brushless it drives 50 km/h and more, so it should be scale 4.5.

18 wheeler drives 15 km/h in 3rd gear, it is scale 1:14, so this would be 15 x 14 = 210 km/h in real speed.

So this is a fantastic example where pure scalers see a goal, a chance to live their dream to feel like a real trucker.

They drive at demo shows carefully with 3-5 km/h in 1st gear, dividing 210/3 = 70 km/h

But in 1:1 the truck drives also only at 5-10 km/h when he drives backwards 

Even here we have an 1:2       so I guess it is pure feeling.

You feel that the truck goes to fast and then you slow down.

All multiplication factors are totally out of sense.

Scale is just for the length and dimensions that peopls are aware how big the 1:1 one is but speed 

can't be proportional to scale.

Why do people wanna build a car of their own, from scratch in a specific scale and why it is important that a window scale 10 cannot be mixed up with a roof scale 1:14: because optics and esthetics will just not fit

It's all about the exterior, why do I really like Tamiya now: because you can't afford the 1:1 car and want your model to be as near to the original one to feel as a racing driver or to just feel good.

Scale is so very important for shelf queens. You see if a car is right or if something is wrong.

If a car is not scale, you just do not like the car and take it off the shelf and put it in a box, except some cars you will always like.

So this is no general rule. It is my new beginning to consider scale so very important now after 25 years of loving no scale tires and wheels on everything I collected.

You need this "Shogun". "Bang"  "Boom"  "Badadoum"  moment on evening and do not forget the drink in your left hand :-)

Happy scaling.