The Best And Worst Rc Car You Ever Had ?

[Sayer 742]

Best Cars?

Fiat 500 HPI Switch. I've got two M03s but neither is as fun to drive as the Switch with a Sport tuned fitted (it came with a 35t boat anchor). It's just completely out of its mind.

The WR8 Flux gets an honorable mention (rather than being listed as best) because its size prevents me from taking it out for a run as often.

Worst?

HPI Cup Racer. Apparently it needs a more pristine surface for running than a parking lot, or else it sucks up pebbles and chews the gears to bits. "shielded gearbox" my rear!

[mongoose1983 3335]

Interesting topic. I love to read old threads.

The worst: It would have to be the Traxxas Hawk. Slow, fragile... and totally fugly. All those 90's stadium trucks with funky wheelbases were frankly horrible.

In the looks department I would have to say most 1979-1985 Tamiya RC cars can be pointed as the "Best".

Now if this is about performance alone, I would have to point out the Wheely King by HPI as best. I used to think about HPI as lesser vehicles, but these little things caught my attention one day at the park when stopping a while to see some guy running one of these. "The face of this guy will be priceless when he'll have to go pick what's left of that truck, because of the way he's running it'll end up in pieces" I thought. To my HUGE surprise the WK stayed in one piece after taking an abuse no Tamiya car would have been able to survive. So a year later I got one and I'm all smiles. The bodies are not pretty, but the chassis is a sweet piece, and would keep you guys smiling no matter what. I tip my hat to these "lesser guys" from HPI. They surpassed anything I could have ever imagined.

[JeepnMike 150]

I will get shot for saying this, but.. Of the 12 cars I have had (all Tamiya but 1), my DT02 has been the worst. It hasn't been used that much, but I have broken a chassis, and I broke a gearbox where the engine mount screws go through. I have come to conclusion that the plastic is too thin, and has very little flex making it pretty brittle (toy-esque). In stock form, it is WAY under-dampened, not helping the fragile plastics. My Hotshot isn't far behind on the naughty list, but that is purely because the design makes it not fun to drive which could also be considered part of it's charm. If you want a 2WD buggy, you can get a race-ready buggy with quality plastics, real aluminum big-bore dampers (such as AE) for not much more money than a DT02 and it will actually be race ready, and not something purely for toying around the neighborhood, and will be a heck of a lot more durable.

My favorite car is close between my DB01s and my AE B4.2. The DB01s have given me so much joy to build / fix / tune / break / fix / and race some more, it is hard to say that anything could possibly be better (for me). This car taught me how to drive fast and how far you can take tuning. It is a blast to build, and a total blast to maintain. It is also cool being the only guy at the track with one and having folks wondering what the heck it is. I also have been really happy with my AE B4.2 though. I have been racing mine for over a year now and have learned how to race 2WD, and literally haven't had to replace a single part. I have never had oil leak from the dampers, every rebuild things are still tight, hard to beat... It drives like it is on butter, has traction galore, and apparently is tough as nails.

[ukfox 347]

Best---

has to be my brushless conversion TRF801xt

a joy to build (if you follow the excellent build tips)

huge size means it can run over a lot of surfaces

with 4s this is just plain fun

2nd best--

modified brushless Emaxx

after upgraded diffs and drive shafts this think takes a lot of punishment

can take 6s for insane speed.

its 2nd as it wheelies too much. The 801 will out accelerate it, as it keeps all 4 wheels on the ground

Worst--

I bought a nib kyosho high rider corvette when I was a teenager

wasn't impressed, ended up putting it in the bin after stripping the radio gear back out

[Wez-li 1790]

Best.

My original Manta Ray.

Worst?

A protech nitro buggy, wasn't much fun.

[scoobybooster 248]

Hmm, not easy to say which one is best or worst, but there have been some cars that have left their marks in my mind

on the good side:

Tamiya Falcon : very capable entry level car that brought me a lot of success in early racing days

XRAY T3: very easy to setup on almost every surface track-i loved mine

Schumacher Cougar SV Pro: probably the most reliable car i ever had ( and still have )

on the bad side:

Team Durango DEX410 (early versions): too many teething problems from the beginning, i just could not set this thing up properly

AYK 566B : my first car. Gears broke down every 2nd time when reversing the car. Was too weak even to handle early 540 on NiCad's

Hirobo Alien : i used to race one, handled not bad- as long as you stay away from any objects (Very fragile car)

[bromvw 744]

Worst - Rough Rider . Total disappointment . I had heard so much about how fantastic they are and while i enjoyed the build ( re build in my case ) actually driving it was a huge let down . Too heavy , too slow and handles like a wheelbarrow .

BEST - Blitzer Beetle . Fitted a 9t brushless and made some slight mods . Best fun for the money ever .

[bsy2010 218]

Worst: PB Mini Mustang

Expensive, bad quality, useless 2 speed and the Cats drove circles around it on the track...

Best (performance): Yokomo YZ-10 Mark Pavadis Special

Just a great car!

Best (fun to build and mod): Tamiya CC-01

Pretty bad out of the box, but so much fun on the trail after months of customizing it

[Sayer 742]

I used to think about HPI as lesser vehicles

For me HPI is the Happy medium between Traxxas and Tamiya. Most of their stuff comes ballraced and waterproof out of the box (Tamiya, I'm looking at you) with that kind of "how fast can I make this go?" mentality while the bodies still look like the designers are familiar with cars in the real world (Traxxas, I'm looking at you). If their bodyshells got anywhere close to Tamiya's offerings, I'm pretty sure I'd defect.

[IBIFTKH 1369]

Worst for me was my original Frog. A real space-age design back then, but the poor suspension and fragile diff made it very disappointing to own and run.

The best is harder to choose. Honourable mentions to:-

Willy's Wheeler, the car that taught me to drive. Sounds daft, but it's a car that you have to slow down for corners and be very progressive on the throttle if you want to keep the front end down and actually control where it's going.

Clodbuster/Bullhead, great builds, look awesome, nearly indestructible.

Traxxas Slash and E-Revo, our bashers; fast, tough, huge fun.

TXT-1, a real evolution, great to build, maintain and drive. Very capable and lots of fun.

But for me the best is the humble little Wild Willy 2. I think they look great, so much detail and character. But it's not some fragile shelf queen, it's a tough little beast and so much fun to drive. Whether it's on the shelf, my workbench or running full chat, the WW2 never, ever fails to make me smile.

[i_am_scarecrow 913]

Best car for me so far has been the Madbull. Simple chassis that keeps bouncing back time and time again. It wont win any awards for handling but it keeps me smiling!

Worst is no contest, I had a Thunder Tiger MTA4 nitro thing. Spent more time fixing it than driving it and when I was driving it I was waiting for something to break so I could fix it again, no fun at all!

[pastimesteve 49]

Worst is easy for me: A Duratrax Evader ST, my first purchase when I re-entered the hobby a few years ago. That thing broke all the time. It seemed like it was made out of glass. As far as Tamiya, I hated the DF03. Just a poorly planned and thought out design, IMHO. I really despise Tamiya ball diffs in bashers/fun runners. I was also disappointed in my Tamiya Frog re-re. I had all kinds of problems with mine.

Best: Wow, lot of different directions to go in with this one. I really like the Tamiya DT02 for its toughness, so I must not bash as hard as JeepnMike? I also like the Tamiya Dual Hunter/WT-01 chassis; Tamiya Blitzer Beetle/Stadium Blitzer chassis; Traxxas Slash (2wd and 4x4), Stampede and Rustler; and my Axial SCX10.

I would like to try the Mad Bull, because of recommendations like the one above. Maybe soon...

Steve

[MadInventor 3884]

The best for me has to be the first TXT-1 that I bought. I've had it nearly 10 years and it's still going. The worst is probably the hornet. I bought one BITD after owning a hotshot and was disappointed in it from the first run. Ended up trading it in to buy another second hand hotshot that was in worse condition than the first one I sold, but at least I had a hotshot back

[Mr Big 29]

Best for me is my Blackfoot. It's provided fun for 3 generations of my family and all the abuse that's come with it!

Worst is my FWD Mini. No ground clearance, no grip on anything other than Tarmac and worse still... No donuts. Keep thinking about selling it, but I suspect it's not worth anything.

[XV Pilot 1936]

Best is difficult - I am lucky enough to have a good selection of runners, and I like them all, for different reasons.

For example there is my 4X4X4 Twin Detonator that provided a lot of fun with the building and modding, is incredibly versatile, and has had almost a decade of use without a single breakage.

There is also my highly-upgraded CC01 Pajero, that will likely never be finished as there always seems to be some new part or scale accessory out there that is worth adding, which is great as I love the building side of the hobby.

There are my Hornet and Hotshot, both models I craved as a child and finally was able to own as an adult thanks to my wife giving them to me as birthday presents.

And then there is my race TT01, that might be a relatively ordinary car, but has many positive memories associated with it since RC cars were one of the few things my father and I were both sufficiently interested in to be able to bond over. Building and racing our matching pair of TT01s was a great father/son activity.

On the other hand, picking my worst car is easy - the title goes to the Yokomo MR4BC. A poorly thought out buggification of the MR4TC touring car, it had screws and hinge pins of mild cheddar, a spur that wouldn't run true, belts that skipped, diffs that slipped, a weight distribution that resulted in nose-first landings over even the smallest jumps, and really poor parts availability. I ended up trading its carcass for some Tamiya spares after my cousin drove it into a curb and I couldn't get the parts to fix it after a year of trying.

[mr crispy 2293]

Worst car has to be the most disappointing for me an that was the Twin Hammers. Gears were too close, battery compartment was laughably small and in the worse possible position for COG. The standard motor was insane and the thing wouldn't corner even on a dead flat running surface without rolling over! Thankfully it's now sold.

Best car is harder to decide, really like my DT02 Rough Rider. It's the one I reach for whenever we head to the beach... but then so is my TL01B Baja Bug. The Wraith is very versatile but ATM I'm mostly running my Axial SCX10 G6. Very satisfying build, didn't need anything else than what came in the kit and the few mods I've given it were really just tweaking it to my liking

[andy_t 2]

Good thread!

Growing up in England in the late 1970s there wasn't much choice other than Tamiya - even in the 1980s, there was no HPI, Traxxas, Team Associated was unknown, so was Kyosho at least in my part of the world. So a T Audi Quattro Rally seemed amazing compared to toy RC department store-style cars, even the Meccano-like Rough Riders and Fordrangers. Since then I've had to rank it as the worst car I've driven - looking back it rolled all the time, terrible rear suspension and poor ground clearance.

The best - well a Frog was better than the Hornet which followed the Quattro after its suspension collapsed, but the Frog had gearbox troubles and I never really liked the body. I gave it to my cousin after endless paper rounds paid for a Hornet. The Hornet was such lightweight fun (and really made you learn how to drive, with its three-step MSC) that I'd have to say I enjoyed driving it more - and never went wrong. I went through the Hornet re-re craze later, and realised it was actually pretty hopeless. But still fun, and I reckon that's the most important thing.

[GeekSpeed 3]

This is a fun thread!

Best: Tie between my gold-pan RC10 and my Clodbuster. I got both back in the 80s and they put up with HUGE amounts of bashing. Once I put an aluminum chassis brace on the Clod, it never broke again. I still have my Clod, but I sold my RC10 in the mid-90s. I have another one I am rebuilding.

Worst: Associated TC3. It is not a BAD car, but the worst of the ones I have had. I was trying to get into on-road racing in the early-to-mid 2000s and it was a decent runner, but it was waaaayyy too fragile. I constantly broke suspension arms and whatnot. I still have the car, but it just sits in a box now.

Honorable mention: Tamiya M04L Beetle. Not the best racer, but such an awesome little car. My wife has one too. We love them.

[mantanz 2]

Nikko Venus was the worst because it was a slow piece of crap but it was also the best because it was my first ever RC. I loved it!

[emory70 153]

Best: Monster Beetle

Worst: Losi Mini LST2

[BangkokBulldog 151]

Best: Tamiya F104V2.

Worst: HPI Cup Racer. Overengineered piece of dog poo with so many weak points.

As far as the classics go, I love running my Sand Scorcher and Hornet. The Frog is great fun until the front wheels fall off or the dog bones pop out.

[Klausen 1197]

Best:

Tie between my previous Mspec Mugen MBX6T with RC-Monster brushless conversion and my previous Gorillamaxx G4. Both excellent RC's.

Worst:

Traxxas E-revo vxl. Really worthless RC.

Best Tamiya:

Love my Super Hotshot, drives well, and gives plenty of that vintage feeling.

Worst Tamiya:

Frog rere. Really didn't like the handling of the Frog, so it is sold.

[RCcoachworks 59]

Worst: Had to be the Kyosho USA-1. First time I ran it, the gears stripped and was never able to get it to run reliably.

Worse than that had to be an MRP High Roller that I attempted to build for a friend. You could twist that chassis into a pretzel if you grabbed the front and rear of it. Pure junk.

Best: Monster Beetle, but mostly because it was my first RC and it was all I had for years. In reality, it was a maintenance nightmare and handled like a fish tank.

[Nitomor 2122]

Hard thread this one.

For me, best has to be the WT01 Mud Blaster II. Simply because it's so useable everywhere, that it is my basher of choice and so reliable with some minor mods and I've had some great experiences with it. Runners up would be modified LB and WW2 but it's early days for the WR02 Wild Willy 2. For road going, the TA03F Pro.

For nostalgia - The Hornet, my first RC bashed to death and still trooped on. Now I have a pair of Monster Hornets that I'm itching to drive but being limited editions they're shelf queens in my nostalgia shrine. Might buy another to run as a basher/trasher. Seconded maybe by the Manta Ray, which really seemed to move the game on at the time compared to anything else I'd had.

Worst - Sorry to Kyosho fans, but my Turbo Optima, awesome car to look at but everytime it went out it broke, favourite was the front uprights near the lower wishbone, all the time. Chewed gears up too from memory. Ended up swapping it for a Hotshot II with Technigold engine which was a rocket back then! Other worst cars, the various Nitro's I owned (Tamiya/Kyosho), filthy, dirty temperamental things, thank goodness for Lipo and brushless!

Best build - The Bruiser, by far, but I haven't used it yet. I hope it isn't a let down to drive.

[JYCM3 236]

Based on the 10-12 cars that I owned back when I was a teenager.

Worst:

-Original Hotshot. When it first came out, I want it so badly as it looks really cool and the first 4wd from Tamiya but it was huge disappointment. It was slow, radio box was really cramped ,Dog bones wear out real fast or the end of the dog bone will come loose from the aluminum tube shaft. Propeller shaft wore out fast as well. Shocks was hard to adjust once there is dirt on it. Later when the Superhot and Boomerang I can see that Tamiya made many improvements.

-Kyosho Stinger MK2. Suspension was made of soft plastic and it broke all the time. Front universal dogbones will bend on full turn under full power. The glow engine was real finicky spending most of my time trying to get it running.

The Best:

The Fox. It was fast out of the box, very low maintenance and best part was the water resistance chassis in modern buggy. It went everywhere and was really fun reliable backyard basher for me. Later with Technigold and 8.4v Goldpower battery pack borrowed from my Bigwig, it got crazy fun :-)

Kyosho 1/8 MP5 buggy with Picco P6 engine, this got to be the all time best I have owned. It was insane powerful and very fast. Never had any issues it's like a tank and i think most of the credit goes to that Itallian Picco engine!