Madwolf Anyone?

[Lhodgo]

Does anybody know anything about this buggy? Have an opportunity to pick one up.

- NIB value?

- Rare?

- Performance/quality 

[chevelle]

These are a interesting buggy, Bandai's answer to the Tamiya Falcon. These have an unusual drive system, with a gear box driving rwd left and right chain drive units. I can't speak to the quality having never had one, However I see these in the market nib for $300-$400 AUD. I would say NIB though is still rare.

 

[Hibernaculum]

The Mad Wolf is one of I think two R/C kits (the other being the "Interceptor") by a company (Ban Dai) which today is one of Japan's biggest toy companies (perhaps the biggest?). Ban Dai owns lots of other companies now.

Like so many companies, Ban Dai made a foray into R/C in the mid-late 1980s when the industry was booming. You might consider their contribution to R/C to be similar to Tomy - another major Japanese toy company who dipped into R/C for a few kits, then quit and went back to their huge range of other toys. Ban Dai's kits copied the Tamiya standard of box art, blister packs, etc etc. But as with Marui, the cars themselves contained plenty of original ideas, just as chevelle says.

The end result is that when you see kits like this in the flesh, you begin to appreciate that they are really every bit as worthy as many classics from Tamiya. They were just less well known back in the day. This leaves them undervalued today in my opinion. They are like the lost cousins of Tamiya kits - made in Japan by talented designers, with high quality and cool ideas.

A Mad Wolf NIB is reasonably rare. I have seen the odd one sit for sale for a while, waiting for a buyer. But the number left in the world that are still NIB is unlikely to be more than 50, and possibly a lot less. I speculate based on memories of the ones I have seen over the years. There is no way to know for sure.

I believe in the US, this car was sold under the Monogram brand, with a different body (perhaps not as attractive), as the "Monogram Mad Wolf".

Worth noting also that Ban Dai did release other R/C cars before the kits. They rebranded some earlier R/C models (pre-1986) from high quality ready-to-run R/C toy brands like Matsushiro (such as "The Winch"), so technically they had a few other R/C cars in their history.

[Lhodgo]

Great rundown guys. Hmmm do I venture back into the outside world (not tamiya)? A little while back I sold off my Marui gallaxy's and a awesome Javaline as I told myself to stick with the tamiya stuff. Anyhow, I love the look of this wolf my minds ticking...

[Saito2]

Thanks for the history lesson guys. I did know this car as the Monogram Madwolf in the States back in the day. I don't think many folks gave it a chance as Monogram was known mainly for their plastic model kits (like Revell). If I remember, they also had another kit called the Tornado with unique lay-down front shocks.

[werewolf]

A bit late to the party, but I really like that Mad Wolf. Would love to have one and race it in our vintage races, but I think I'd be too afraid to even build it because it seems impossible to find spare parts for it  I love their solution with the drive chains in the trailing arms!

The Monogram Tornado you're refering to Saito2 is the exact same car as the Bandai Interceptor that Hibernaculum mantioned. It was also released as the Monogram Bushfire with a more futuristic body.