1:1 Tamiya Monster Truck Inspiration

[mongoose1983]

I think I'm mostly a late 70's-early 80's grown-up kid... I love Tamiya cars, Monster Trucks, BMX bikes, KISS, and Daisy Duke. Well, I believe most of you guys here know about the real Monster Trucks that "inspired" Tamiya people to release some our most beloved R/C models. Here's some nice treat for you proud owners out there. Pictures of the trucks that inspired Clod Buster (Bear Foot, 1985), Midnight Pumpkin (Frankenstein, 1985) and Bull Head (Big Pete. The 80's version used to have the very same flame pattern the Tamiya model has! -these pictures are newer).

By the way, I think I'm going to get me a Clod sometime before next June. Unfortunately, the original is not available anymore :-( The box art of the original was neat with that cool bimbo cowgirl! (I truly believe someone should start a thread with them classic boxes to see what's the most beautiful of 'em all! My vote will go for the Midnight Pumkin Box). Anyway, the Super Clod Buster box is pretty much a turn-off for me. Now here's the question: so far the only diferences between the original and super Clods are the frot and rear of the body, the blower over the hood, the art box, and the rims, nothing else?

The original Clod Buster was influenced by the original Bear Foot created by Fred Shafer. Those days in the mid 80's monster trucks were rather heavy machines built on a true pck up truck basis. They ran very slow compared to what we can see in shows these days. Considering that the Clod Buster is based on a mid 80's monster truck I wonder why it has never stopped selling well. I mean, kids today don't know a sh*t about the first generation of monster trucks. It's been about twenty years since the last monster trucks were built over real trucks, cause nowadays all that we see are tubular chassis and special -surreal suspension systems. The Cold Buster looks old, now don't get me wrong! It runs great, it's a ton of fun, but it depicts an old extinct monster truck. I wonder what makes the kids keep buying it. Myself, I saw Bear Foot back in the day. And I loved it. Furthermore, I'll buy me a Clod sometime soon. But now I wonder what you guys think of it.

In the mean time, enjoy the pictures you lucky owners!
A great weekend to y'all!

[Saito]

To answer your question, the Super Clod also has the Bullhead's chassis reinforcement plates over the original Clod. There are other tiny differences like shock mounting hardware and the springs are slightly different too, but nothing major. The Super performs just like the original. There reason the Clod is still viable today is due in part to the highly versitile nature of the chassis along with the tremendous aftermarket that sprang up around the truck. Many Clods that get "built" today only retain the gearboxes (and sometimes not even those) while everything else is aftermarket. The crawler movement certainly has helped keep the truck popularity up despite the onslaught of Maxx-type trucks in the past years.

Clods were popular here in the states (since monsters were born here) but I was surprised at first that many folks in other parts of the world found it kind of foolish. It was often derided for its high plastic content and slow, tipsy, lumbering nature. Many however, have found these true- to-life attributes endearing. The Clod is one of Tamiya's longest running models and with its reduced price of late as well as popularity in crawlers should continue to sell well.

For truck that mimics modern monsters, look no futher than the awesome TXT-1. What I always found odd was the truck that came betwwen the Clod and TXT-1, the Juggernaut 1/2. The Jugg looked neater than the Clod and was more realistic but (as you noted) it was based on very old first gen full size monsters. The truck never truly replaced the Clod as Tamiya intended, so I suppose the old Clod has a unique charm of its own.

[Rabiedmushroom]

For you old-skool Monster Truck fans, there is a super fan site with hundreds of indexed photos, with wonderful details about each truck

www.monsterphotos.com

It'll keep you quiet for hours and hours!

I agree that apart from being blue rather than red, the original Bear Foot may have been an influence on Clodbuster bodyshell design. I don't know if there were many other 1980's (real) Chevy monster trucks?

[Saito]

Red Chevy monsters from that period? The Crimson Giant and Samson come to mind.

[mongoose1983]

Here's one I missed last night...

Well, if there was a real one of these, I wonder if there was really a Vanessa bimbo to ride this one?

[billg4]

For you old-skool Monster Truck fans, there is a super fan site with hundreds of indexed photos, with wonderful details about each truck

www.monsterphotos.com

It'll keep you quiet for hours and hours!

I agree that apart from being blue rather than red, the original Bear Foot may have been an influence on Clodbuster bodyshell design. I don't know if there were many other 1980's (real) Chevy monster trucks?

There were lots of them, USA1, and Taurus were also 2 of the hugely popular chevies of the time.

Clods are still extreamly popular in the states, they get raced every weekend at many tracks. Though like mentioned little KIT is left but the axles. The TXT is geared wrong, to heavy and costs more money than it's worth. That's why the Clod still dominates. The Jugg, it was JUNK from the get-go and many were glad to see it discontinued. The TXT1 is basicly a revamped Jugg, but still is lame when compared to what the clod can do. Not until you put 3 times the kit cost back into it is it a good racer, and then all it is is the 2 axles because it'll have a E-maxx trans.

[mongoose1983]

There were lots of them, USA1, and Taurus were also 2 of the hugely popular chevies of the time.

Yes indeed. There were many Chevrolet monster trucks back in the mid 80's, but Bear Foot was the C30 with a blower over its hood. USA-1 shifted from an early 70's model to the 87 or 88. Same withJackie Willman's Taurus. I must admi Samson I had a similar look, but the wheels were a bit different. If you look at the videos, I'd say it might have been Bear Foot the one that inspired the Clod.

Oh, BTW, I don't have a juggernaut, but I thougt you went a bit rough over that one... I mean, now it's harder for Tamiya to cope up with all the competitors out there. But still Tamiya is the best, and to my taste it always be the best because they're a model company first. All of their trucks have incredibly realistic fetures!

Goodnight!

EB

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[billg4]

Oh, BTW, I don't have a juggernaut, but I thougt you went a bit rough over that one... I mean, now it's harder for Tamiya to cope up with all the competitors out there. But still Tamiya is the best, and to my taste it always be the best because they're a model company first. All of their trucks have incredibly realistic fetures!

Goodnight!

EB

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Dude if you bought a 350.00 truck kit, the radio, bearings, a esc and servo to build it costing over 500 bucks and first run (with stock silvercans BTW) it disintegrated the axle gears you'd call it JUNK to. But the real *******er was Tamiya charging the customer for the fix. New axle cases, gears and shafts to stop the stripping of something that was engineered all wrong. That was what burned me.

Imagine buying a car new from the dealer and while driving it home the rear axle blew out the ring and pinion gears. Then they tell you for a few more bucks they'll SELL you the parts to fix it right. That would leave you really fuming. That is what Tamiya did with the Jugg. It was a long while before I bought another Tamiya. They knew it had problems, yet released it anyway knowing they still were working on the fix. Not smart on they're part.

I do believe since that they've really stepped up the QC so it never happens again.

[Saito]

What were the "care packs" that Tamiya sent out for those trucks (honest question, no sarcasm)? I thought they were free. I won't disagree that the Jugg 1 was a total disaster. There was no way they could have done any durability test on that truck and not encountered a problem.

Both Jugg trucks always baffled me from a marketing standpoint. What was Tamiya trying to do? Mix a Bruiser and a Clod? Its a neat piece to look at and certainly very imposing but at the end of the day, a stock Clod really outperformed it. I can see they aimed to inject some realism into the model but full size monsters hadn't been built like that for years. I suppose thats why came to America to do research for the TXT-1. Everyone thought the Clod replacement would be some kind of mod-Clod that folks had been building for years only now as a genuine Tamiya kit. Instead we got the throw-back Juggernaut. Go figure.

I wounldn't call the TXT-1 a bad truck either. Its a great representation of a full size monster truck (and in the end, that's what Tamiya likes to do). Its not a racer and its not a dedicated crawler. It acts and does what today's real monsters do in scale (even at a scale speed, read:slow). Its good engineering practice to get some of the unsprung weight out of the axles and into the chassis like the TXT-1, but some folk will always like Clods and some will like shaft driven trucks. For most RC offshoot related practices however, the good old Clod still is a great way to start.

[billg4]

care packs were just the bevel gears that kept stripping, and they too stripped right out.

But, they stopped giving them out when the FIX was ready.

And yes, unsprung weight is really key to handling, but in the scaled down world of R/C where trucks travel at 200 mph scale speed or more the low CG of the clod based race truck is hard to beat. The way the big tires want to bounce around a bit of axle weight actually helps. A super light chassis, lexan body so only the battery really counts as chassis weight.

TXT is ok if you change shock layout to standard aluminum boddied shocks and put a 2spd maxx tranny in it. But just the TXT truck kit and bearing is $$ costing double the clod.