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PaPeRo

VW Baja Bug

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Finally took some pics of my newly purchased box stock never before run Duratrax VW Baja Bug.

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Now some pictures after running and some special decals and a roof mounted spare added. I need to reposition the Accel sponsor decal as it doesn't look right all by itself in the middle of the door. Also I need to move the number decals up higher and slightly back as it looks kinda off.

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I'm really liking this chassis as it's very simple and low cost yet performs great and is very durable. The plastic is very flexible and similar to my Kyosho Sand Master. It is designed for moderate club racing and not just bashing. There's a slipper clutch included that is easily adjusted externally. The suspension has loads of travel and proper camber links, the chassis is also very light with lots of room for adding a light module which I plan to do later.

Right now the electronics are stock, however the good thing is the ESC has a low voltage cutoff built-in so I'm running it with my hardcase lipo pack. I plan on upgrading to brushless eventually but it runs great in stock form not too fast not too slow. There's some realistic body roll during left right transitions which I'll show in an upcoming video. The shocks are very long more like 100mm and are oil filled but they are plastic with alloy caps. I've got an alloy set that will go on after some more run time. All in all very happy with the performance and value from this chassis...kudos to Duratrax. In fact I like it so much I'm going to build an Evader Desert Truck which uses the same chassis. I plan on building it out of spare parts. The RTR kit is only $160 so basically the car is only $100. I'm hoping the parts needed for a complete car less electronics won't be more than $100...we'll see.

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I like how they guarantee some of the parts for a year,

"Duratrax is so confident of the ruggedness of Stress-Tech parts that they'll replace FREE any Stress-Tech part that breaks during the first year that you own your VW Baja Bug."

I don't think volkswagen should be taking a cut though, it doesn't share enough with a 1/1 bug, the chassis or the body, but I suppose they are just providing the vw name on this one.It is a nice looking chassis Papero, cant wait to see some video of it.

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One warning: if it has the plastic shocks, the top caps like to pop off. The original run of Evaders had pretty decent aluminum shocks, but they switched to plastic as a cost-cutting measure and the caps don't fit very well. You can usually screw them back on, but it's annoying and it lets dirt get in.

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Thanks for the warning! I did plan on replacing them even before buying this car. I just despise plastic shocks in general. I actually have several alloy shock sets ready but I wanted to try out the stock setup for awhile so I could have a reference point to compare after replacing the shocks. Also the type of running I do currently doesn't have any jumps so the caps should be ok.

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So I've done a bit of research and it seems it's more cost effective to just buy another RTR Baja Bug and mount a Desert Truck body on it instead of building a DT from spares. I guess that's what I'll do but of course I'll be choosing another Baja Bug body instead of the blue/white I already have. Will probably place the order in December.

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It's almost always more expensive (2x) to build a car from spare parts bags.

-Paul

I was very surprised when I realised that. The clear body/body parts, tires, wheels, shocks, ESC, and motor already added up to about $100!

So I've been thinking maybe I'll save my money and just get the body and mount it on my existing Baja Bug when I want to run it as a truck. I don't really need another identical RTR chassis! Of course this assumes the body mounting posts are identical for the truck and the bug.

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Tower has this Baja Bug on sale for $119 this weekend as part of their Black Friday sale. They also have some standard discounts shown on their homepage. If you're a Super Saver club member, the price on this buggy is about $105.

Paul

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Haha yeah if you use coupon code 01461 you could get an additional $10 off. I actually took advantage of the Black Friday sale and the $10 coupon code and ordered another. Now I could mount the Evader DT body and have two cars to drive with a friend. The deal made for an easy decision.

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