What do you like to drive?

[Saito2]

With wide variety of cars and trucks offered by Tamiya over the years, there are many different types of driving experiences to be had. So what style or feel do you like or dislike? I love the looks of a Wild Willy but am not into the wheelie thing. There is a definite amount of skill in piloting one of these types of vehicles, but I find just trying to get it to go roughly where you want it becomes irritating after a while. Conversely, buggies that are too perfect, become boring to me. I like a good blast around the dirt or yard with a Fox or Super Shot myself. They kinda go where you want but their quirks (and, let's face it, outdated chassis') make the drive interesting for me. Part of it is the whole "soul" aspect, but a lot of it is learning what you can and can't do with these buggies and how to drive "around" their deficiencies. For many years, my Lunch Box was my favorite monster (with some weight up front to quell the wheelies) but nowadays, I prefer the Monster Beetle. Its by no means an RC10T or even a Stampede, but it has just enough control to let you play around within its limits. So what driving experience suits you?

[Juggular]

Good question. 

When I was younger 4WD was so exciting.  But now I find "perfect" boring.  Wild Dagger just goes where I tell it to go.  Sometimes it just feels like a video game... I like how you must "tame" a 2WD.  I like Wild Willy 2.  It's fun.  But I can see how one couldn't drive it for too long.  The novelty of wheelieing does wear out.  Maybe I should try tinkering with dual rates or something. So the acceleration would take a second, to take the edge off of the "punch."  I don't know if that's possible...    

I drive whatever I'm working on.  In that sense, "driving" is a side-effect of "restoring/building."  The excitement is in seeing how it runs for the first time, or seeing the difference after some mods.  Since I prefer 2WD, all of my 2WD cars get a "sticky-limited-slip-differential" treatment.  LSD can move a 2WD almost as well as 4WD.  (According to British army reports, German army's lightweight 2WD VW with a limited slip differential, a flat bottom pan, and portal gears made it equally capable as the 4x4 Jeep)  Seeing some improvement like that, is what tickles me.  

I've got a front suspension kit for the Lunchbox last week.  (Yes, I got it after @smirk-racing posted about his. By now, it should be well known that I have a sad amount of will to resist influence...resistance is futile!).  It will be interesting to see the difference.  

Recently, I've been thinking crawling would be fun too.  I did a crawler upgrade to my TLT-1, but the Monster Beetle tires just can't grab onto any surface.  

So, my driving is "testing out what I've done" kind of driving (with a 2WD buggy preference).  

 

[Saito2]

1 hour ago, Juggular said:

The novelty of wheelieing does wear out.

That's about how I feel.

 

1 hour ago, Juggular said:

I've got a front suspension kit for the Lunchbox last week.  (Yes, I got it after @smirk-racing posted about his. By now, it should be well known that I have a sad amount of will to resist influence...resistance is futile!).  It will be interesting to see the difference.  

It does make a nice difference. I put this kit on the front of my 4-linked Lunchie. I feel the chassis is about at its best at the moment without totally changing its character by adding IRS or something. Oh, and don't feel bad about influence. I never liked the Boomerang much until I read one of Kontemax's threads on it and became inspired enough to pick one up. I'm glad I did.

1 hour ago, Juggular said:

So, my driving is "testing out what I've done" kind of driving (with a 2WD buggy preference).  

This is an aspect I must return to. It was fun. I got hung up on originality the past few years. Tinkering can be so rewarding.

[smirk-racing]

Saito can you share pics of your 4-link setup?

 

[speedy_w_beans]

The weather is getting more comfortable here so I've been taking an expendable touring car out in the street for some playing. Mostly just driving arbitrary layouts, overdriving and playing with limits, and doing some speed run testing.  It's nice to get some fresh air as the sun starts to set.  Ten minutes is enough at a time.

[Juggular]

43 minutes ago, speedy_w_beans said:

... I've been taking an expendable touring car out...

 

lol... 'expendable'...  

Because of "untouchable new car aura," I've been thinking about getting a beat-up touring car.  

 

[TurnipJF]

For me, the question of which car I would like to drive is usually answered by another question, namely "What terrain am I going to drive it on?"

If I am heading to an indoor track, my go-to car is my F103. However when I am feeling like a more light-hearted race experience, an M chassis car is good for a laugh. I am also dipping my toe gently in the waters of touring car racing with my TB-03.

My brushless DT-03T is great fun outdoors in wide open spaces, however on rougher terrain, my CC-01 or MF-01X are great for the trails.

Then there is also the question of who I am driving with. If I am introducing the hobby to friends and other newcomers example,  I prefer something simple and tough like a Rising Fighter, Madbull or similar virtually indestructible car.

[TwistedxSlayer]

I think i prefer the build and tinkering more than the actual driving part

[Fabia130vRS]

40 minutes ago, TurnipJF said:

For me, the question of which car I would like to drive is usually answered by another question, namely "What terrain am I going to drive it on?"

If I am heading to an indoor track, my go-to car is my F103. However when I am feeling like a more light-hearted race experience, and M chassis car is good for a laugh. I am also dipping my toe gently in the waters of touring car racing with my TB-03.

My brushless DT-03T is great fun outdoors in wide open spaces, however on rougher terrain, my CC-01 or MF-01X are great for the trails.

Then there is also the question of who I am driving with. If I am introducing the hobby to friends and other newcomers example,  I prefer something simple and tough like a Rising Fighter, Madbull or similar virtually Indestructible car.

Signed!

F103, M03, TA05 ifs and DT01

in this order how I like them. 

But for me 2wd buggys are probably most un, but I dont have a nice combo for it now.

 

[Jonathon Gillham]

My running is either in my backyard with my son or at a track.

In the backyard the racecars are just too good - crazy fast in the small space so not really any faster than a basic buggy. Fpr me its the Monster Beetle, Boomerang or Novafox. If I had to choose the Boomerang, because that was my first RC (and the pinnacle of RC) but really any car is fun.

On the track it depends what is behaving. I never have all my cars on form at the same time, there is always something wrong with at least one of them, but really it has to be the 2wd when they are on song. They seem to float over the track compared to the 4wd which get around with brute force. Or they spin in circles and won't go anywhere they should. If the 2wd won't behave then the 4wd because they are sensible and go where you tell them.

So really, my answer is all of my cars, even the TT02B's, if they are doint what theybwere bought for. I only have 12 cars (and some are my sons) with a good mix of everything so pretty happy driving anythign

[Jason1145]

I’d love to comment here but I don’t really get too much driving time except at weekends if I’m lucky, yesterday I was so busy prepping my daughters balance bike and safety pads/helmet that I clean forgot to bring my Team Associated Trophy Rat Truck - Pity as the park was perfect for a quick drive.

As Turnip said it depends on the terrain... I’ve a few Touring Cars for carpark running but I still need to get used to 4wd handling with those super sharp brakes, it’s very unrealistic!

The only off road car really is the Trophy Rat. 

Once I get my Lunchbox built with its taller ground clearance I’ll be able to bring that down the park a bit more off road fun.... luckily my driving attention span is about 15 minutes tops anyway.

Not as many people drive their cars as much as they do building, modding, fettling, I’m trying to get back to the driving side and I definitely prefer off road as it’s essier to find grassy areas to drive unhindered than tarmac.

[Badcrumble]

3 hours ago, Juggular said:

lol... 'expendable'...  

Because of "untouchable new car aura," I've been thinking about getting a beat-up touring car.  

 

I thought like that for a while...ended up with a garage full of bits!

1 hour ago, TwistedxSlayer said:

I think i prefer the build and tinkering more than the actual driving part

I rarely get out running but I really enjoy the thinking process of what I’m going to build, downloading the manual, reading up on build threads.

As for what driving experience suits, I’m still learning. As mainly a backyard basher, vehicles have to suit uneven terrain and unkempt lawn so WW2, Hornet, Dual Hunter and TL01 (w/ long damper, big wheels, kinda TL01T). XV-01T and CR-01 to follow.

My driving skills are so poor my M04 lasted all of five minutes before a collision broke the steering...

[Pablo68]

It would be one of my vintage design Tamiya buggies for sure. Hard to choose. The Wild One sticks out atm because I find it so surprisingly good for what it is.

I have a few racing standard buggies, none of them terribly recent but racing chassis all the same. For the majority of the driving I do, bashing really, they are pretty boring in a way, and not really robust enough for bashing. They are designed for on track abuse.
I get in to the design side of things with my RC cars which is why I have as many as I do. TBH, I feel a bit guilty about that.

I also enjoy restoring these things where I can and upgrading the performance a tad, e.g: and old TF-03 I got for not much that barely ran when I got it. Some TLC and new bearings and bits and bobs and it works really well now. Similar with an old Boomerang.

To this day I'm still fond of driving my original Hornet too. It's just fun even though it's horrible.

[taffer]

From 2004-2014 I had so many tamiya's, either parts, new builds and restores I hardly drove anything for an amount of time.

I slowly decided to focus on a few chassis that I liked, initially, the reasons were design, ease of maintenance and parts availability.

Then I felt I needed to drive the smaller group of cars much more often to sort through duplicate driving experiences and to understand the chassis better, for example...

Between the hotshot/boomerang series and the Thundershot series I found the driving experience to be similar initially...so I chose the thundershot to keep because of better chassis design, easier maintenance and slighter better parts availability......even though the majority of the hotshot series looks slightly better.

If I found I still enjoyed the chassis after 50+ hours of driving then I definitely kept it within my group....

The group only contains Thundershot, Rising Fighter and CC-01 at the moment, other chassis like the Konghead G6-01 are contenders but are not definites until the driving hours is increased and maintenance/issues are encountered.

This method has worked very well for me and brings more focus to the cars I have 

[TwistedxSlayer]

When I do actually get out to use mine. I prefer 4wd. But 10 times out of 10 Im happy just to be out running them. I'm not fussed about big speed or big jumps. I enjoy just running them around for 20mins or so and having them last the full 20 mins without breaking. Lol. I'm not running anything at the moment due to killing my Tx LiPo pack 😭

[Grotty Otty]

Great question really made me think. Its got to be the more vintage 4wd (Super Hot Shot, Cat XLS) or the 2wd buggies whether vintage (Hornet) or modern (DT-03with brushless and Lipo). The 4wd for their quirks and the 2wd for the extra skill trying to tame them, the Hornet bouncing and skipping about or the Dt-03 trying to backflip with over zealous throttle application! Agree with the other comments about the wheelie chassis getting a little tedious after a while, reminds me that I should put some weight in the front of the Lunchbox. However the one I seem to run the most recently is the Dancing Rider, it's brilliant and you can actually drift it a little on a slippery surface. 

[nowinaminute]

I don't really have a specific thing apart from tending to heavily lean toward off road stuff.

I try to avoid ruling anything out though because I find you can end up letting one experience taint your view of certain vehicle but if you take time to get used it, you sometimes realise that you just need to learn it's strengths and weaknesses and keep it within the limits.

I understand the wheelie thing though, it can definitely get old.

My Heavy Dump Truck has been surprisingly versatile but I glued the tyres yesterday and regretted it instantly.

It went from a fun but usable all rounder to a one trick pony that required so much restrained to keep it in check that it got boring. Saying that, it was enormous fun at the beach so horses for courses and all that.

I'm definitely learning to adapt my style to suit each vehicle though which helps a lot. I think being into the nicer vintage toy grades helped in that department because they can be hard work to keep upright, a lot of the ones I have sort of blur the line between toy and hobby grade but only in basic 'hopper/Lunchbox way. 

I don't really have anything I would call strictly on-road but I wouldn't rule it out in the future.

[Theibault]

All of them.  I do find I spend more time on the rocks and trails these days with my scale 4x4s but nothing compares to blasting with say a Nero or other 6s bash machine. Also, I guess I'm in the minority where the wheelie type vehicles never get boring for me.

[taffer]

Wheelie chassis are great (off the tarmac!) , on tarmac major roadrash! :-) 

[nowinaminute]

2 hours ago, taffer said:

Wheelie chassis are great (off the tarmac!) , on tarmac major roadrash! :-) 

Yeah that's the main downside for me lol. I had great fun at the beach yesterday with my brushless Dump Truck but earlier in the day when I had just glued the tyres and tried it on the street outside I gave up after about a dozen cringes inside 3 minutes! I will be ungluing them again lol

It's not so bad with the Lunchbox, I can get a new body for my black one for £10. You can't buy the body for the dump truck anywhere in the UK, I've only seen a couple of people selling them anywhere in the world! 

[Mad Ax]

For me I have to say "it depends".  It's actually a question I ask myself a lot.  And I think the 'depends' part is 'company', which I don't have a lot of.

If pushed, I'll tell you my favourite events are multi-surface bashes.  Like Iconic RC used to do, and Tamiya Junkies are now trying to revive (and struggling to get good enough numbers to actually run events).  I just love to fill my van with almost everything that runs, along with a pile of junk food, drive to some track two or three hours away, and spend all day bashing.  Someone might bring out a monster truck, so I get my King Blackfoot, and we bash those for 10 minutes.  Then someone gets a Boomerang, so I grab my HotShot and we have an impromptu vintage buggy race.  Then someone gets a Manta Ray, so I get my Top Force, then someone says "Wheelie Race!" and all badword breaks loose with 20-30 wheelie cars on track at once.

For those who get bored with wheelie cars - it's all about the racing.  The most fun part of any RC bash is the wheelie race.  We often do a race of attrition: run until there's only one left running.  Some people run with vintage NiCds so they drop out first, then others on high-power brushless will fall behind as things break.  With my basic Torque Tuned motor and my aging LiPos and my low-drag 2wd chassis, I'll usually be one of the last cars on track, even if I've lost an upper arm step screw and I'm flapping a wheel with every wheelie.  (The WR02 drives surprisingly well with a missing front suspension arm).

Monster truck racing is the same, for the same reason.  My King Blackfoot wheelies off the throttle, but the front-end is so poorly made that it's actually harder to steer than a WR02.  It also has a strange habit of losing body clips.  IIRC it's finished 1st and 2nd in the Iconic Revival's monster truck race a few times (not at the same time, though, that would be strange).  There's usually no trophy for the monster truck race so I can't remember for sure what positions I finished.  Not that it matters, it's just a fun race, and the fact that nobody takes it seriously or cares about who wins makes it more fun.  It doesn't matter to be stranded upside down for half a lap while the marshals are busy trying to cross a crowded track; it's about having fun, not winning races.  I wish we did more of that.

I'd say I love scale crawling, because there's some places a few minutes from home that I can go, but I usually get bored after I've given both trucks a shakedown.  It's no fun alone.  It's even less fun with non-RC people stand around gawping, asking questions or trying to use the same path as me.  Sometimes I find I'm sharing the space with mountain bikers or rock climbers and it's awkward not to get in each other's way.  I tend to feel that the awkward guy with the toy car has less claim to the land than the 5-6 forty-somethings with the full-suspension carbon MTBs or the 20-strong group with harnesses and helmets and belay devices, so I turn around and go home.  Which is annoying as some of the very best sites are an hour's drive away.

But crawling with other people is one of the best ways to spend a day.  Because the pace is slower, I can have a conversation with my fellow crawler drivers.  It might be a convo about how the light kit is installed or how much torque the winch has (or doesn't have!), or it might be about vintage Tamiyas, or it might be about last night's TV show.  I say crawling is about spending social time in the fresh air and having a good, tough walk up some gnarly hills and a nice picnic; the cars are almost inconsequential.

I've enjoyed racing, but in comparison to crawling, it's 5 minutes of 110% sheer concentration in the race followed by another 5 minutes trying not to ruin anyone's race while marshalling, followed by a frantic 40 minutes of changing batteries, cleaning chassis, repairing damage and ramming down some food.

I've loved going to lorry meets over the last 2 years - like crawling, there's no juggling of marshalling stint, battery management, repairs, racing and eating - just turn up, stick the rigs on the layout, have a chat to old friends or make new ones, browse the goodies in the shop, get some ideas for builds...  But unlike crawling, they're indoors, warm, dry, there are seats to sit on, hot drinks and snacks on offer, and they're run regularly at several venues nearby so no matter what's going on, I can usually get to one every month.

I always thought if there was one thing I could really get into, it's drifting - but drifting seems a bit of a black box to me.  I can't get my head around how much it seems to cost.  While I can see the difference between a TT01 and the lastest TRF touring chassis, I can't see the difference between a Sakura D4CS with a Quicrun speedo and a £20 hi-speed servo, and the top-end Yokomo loaded up with Overdose, OMG, Savox and Sanyo wizardry.  I also can't get the hang of it, which annoys me as I feel like I should be good at it.  I don't know why I feel this, I just do.  I need to befriend some other D4CS drivers at the drift club to learn technique and setup advice from.

I've got the option of taking my off-road trucks and buggies out fairly regularly, especially in the summer when the evenings are light, but I don't have the option of going out with friends that often.  A recent surge in local crawling clubs on Facebook means I can usually find some crawler friends to play with during an evening, which is why I'm blowing the last of my spare cash to outfit both my crawlers with basic lights.  Last time we went out the journey down was done in the dark and I had to strap my torch to the front of my SCX10 so I could see to drive it.  That meant I didn't have a torch for myself, which made for a rather scary descent of a very steep, rocky incline.

But like some others on here, I enjoy tinkering too.  It's just a shame that my tinkering goes unshared.  I really want to get into blogging or vlogging so that I don't feel like I'm on my own.  I'm not the most gifted or experienced or dedicated builder / customiser / painter, but I do tend to work out ways of doing things myself and I think that would make for interesting viewing.  But I'm also a perfectionist: if I'm going to have a Youtube channel then it's got to be classy, pro-looking and add value to the market: there's a lot of people already making half-baked videos that I give up on 2 minutes in because of bad lighting, excessive waffling on behalf of the self-narrated commentary, incorrect, misleading or incomplete advice, etc...  And I fear that while the desire to do a professional channel is a noble thing, I have neither the skills, experience, time nor budget to do it properly.  That, and I won't have the time to keep it up, or I'll stop enjoying going to events because I'll see them all from the other side of a camera.  Been there, done that.  Or it could get expensive trying to find somewhere to host all those high-res photos and keep them linked to the myriad different sites I'll have to post on to keep people interested...

I'm thinking of having some build-offs with friends - my workshop is big enough (or it should be, when cleaned) to have a few people in working on something.  I think we could have a fun morning prepping some cars and a fun afternoon arsing around in the nearby fields.  Most of my RC friends live over an hour's drive away, so it's hard to really make that work regularly.  But I'll do my best, I think.

Top thread - given me a lot to think about.

(I actually use threads like this as a sounding board to work out stuff in my head.  I don't really know what I like best.  Sometimes I wonder if I like it at all )

[markbt73]

What's funny is that, these days, I don't like to drive, much. I spend a lot more time scratch-building than anything. And not even focusing on a specific project; I just putter around with the material, practicing techniques, failing, trying again. I have the luxury of a lot of scraps of plastic and other stuff to play with, so I take advantage of it.

When I do drive, it's slower and slower. It's like I got all my "need for speed" out of my system when I was younger. I think part of it is that stupid-fast speeds with RC cars are so easy that there's no point anymore. And this applies to 1:1 cars as well. When any idiot with money can buy an RC car that can go 100 mph out of the box, or drive off the lot and go turn in a 12 second quarter mile, why bother? There's nothing to work for.

So between these two factors, the scale crawler scene has become my stomping ground. Nice slow speeds, lots of details, and an expectation that you need to put in some effort to make it yours or it doesn't really count.

[Baddon]

I have most fun when I am out with the family. On interesting surfaces where the trucks bounce and jump. So we run Madbulls for the littles and WT-01's for the adults / teens. I am getting cheesed of fixing them so I have just got a Stampede and will see how that goes on the next family bash.

[berman]

I have a stampede (monster jam type, not the ugly original bodied/wheeled one) a brushless konghead and a lunchbox in the back of my truck incase I get a free moment. I miss my dump truck though, which is in storage.

[njmlondon]

Have to admit to doing 99% building and tinkering vs 1% driving, but my son's GF01 Dump Truck has got me back out there. I have the brake set up to soft so it does not nose over and although it now has a Torque Tuned in it, I have put soft dampers on the rear and that has tamed the wheelies. 4wd really works for this chassis and you can blast it or crawl it. It really is a blast and I also enjoyed weathering it so it looks nice and dirty!