1980s Maplin car?

[Yalson 514]

Hello,

I was reading a thread about Chinese copies of other manufacturers' chassis on another thread just now and was reminded of an unidentified car which I remember from my time as a teenaged racer back in the later 1980s. All of this has been filtered through thirty-odd years, mind, so forgive me if any of this is misremembered.

I occasionally used to buy a magazine in the UK which I think was called Model Mart or Model and Model Engineering Mart, or something similar, mainly so I could scan the small ads for any 2nd hand bargains. It had a red cover and was mainly full of old school black and white print, but the back cover ad was usually full colour and frequently featured an ad for (I think) Maplins, featuring a 1/10 RC kit of unknown manufacture which seemed to be aimed at racers, but which always seemed unfeasibly cheap (about the price of a Hornet at the time). It was a 2WD chassis with a spindly design which vaguely resembled an early Ultima. It was shown as having (if memory serves) five-spoke wheels of an unfamiliar design, aggressive-looking spiked tyres (also unfamiliar) and a presumably polycarb body with separate wing (painted white with blue and red lining in the image). It always looked like a pretty tidy-looking kit to me and not at all like the cheap, injection-moulded, non-modifiable toys which seemed to pass for RC models elsewhere. I considered buying one at one point with my hard-earned pocket money, but my father advised against it, citing its unknown pedigree and unproven supply of spares.

I have often thought about it since, though, and wondered if anyone here was ever tempted by one or has any idea what it actually was? It seemed to my reasonably well-informed eyes to be a pukka kit, but that could have been wishful thinking cobined with a misleading photograph. Another thought which recently occurred was that it could have been a cheap copy of an obsolete Ultima or something similar which had been knocked off wherever such things were done back then before China got in on the act.

[Yalson 514]

Ha ha! Just modified my search terms and found it. It was a Maplin Killer, apparently. A Fox rip-off, the details of which can be found elsewhere on this very site.

[Yalson 514]

And there was me thinking the Maplin Killer was indifference and the internet?

[Wooders28 4723]

23 hours ago, Yalson said:

Ha ha! Just modified my search terms and found it. It was a Maplin Killer, apparently. A Fox rip-off, the details of which can be found elsewhere on this very site.

It was Maplins " beagle " I was asking Santa for, he mustn't have got the letter though (@ £160 I can see why!🤔😂) 

Had a search myself:- 

http://vintage.dirt-burners.com/2017/05/07/the-clone-wars/

[Yalson 514]

1 hour ago, Wooders28 said:

It was Maplins " beagle " I was asking Santa for, he mustn't have got the letter though (@ £160 I can see why!🤔😂) 

Had a search myself:- 

http://vintage.dirt-burners.com/2017/05/07/the-clone-wars/

Wow. They had literally the whole dictionary to choose from for a name and they chose 'Beagle'? Then, having realised their mistake, they decided to be a bit more aggressive with the follow-up model and went full-on crazy and called it the 'Killer'.

I also love the fact that one of the companies is called Great Vigor.