Did Tamiya consider early tire compounds?

[Saito2]

I was messing around with some Stadium Blitzer tires the over day, marveling at how "plastic" they felt vs the typical rubber feeling of most Tamiya tires. I pondered why, out of the blue, Tamiya decided to make Blitzer tires out of this hard, rapid wearing compound. This brought the usual raft of questions to my mind about other Tamiya products...

The Bruiser had pretty stiff tires which I'm guessing was partially based on supporting the weight of the vehicle.

Blackfoot. Were these the same compound as the Bruiser? I heard claims in either direction. Regardless, I think the Blackfoot and Monster Beetle tires could have been a bit softer. Adapting the softer, wider tires of the Marui Big Bear was a popular practice back in the day to improve the performance of the truck.

Lunch Box/Clod Buster. Different tires, but both a nice and soft and squishy. I always felt, in this case, Tamiya was taking tire compounds into consideration. The trucks have less-than-sophisticated suspensions or high unsprung weight. I'm thinking Tamiya's compound choices here were to aid each truck's handling.

Juggernaut. Not sure what Tamiya was thinking other than looks. From what I gather, they were on the stiffer side. That, plus their rounded profile, couldn't have helped the top heavy Jugg in my mind, but I'll let the owner weight in on this one. Purely conjecture on my part.

The softer early spike and paddle tires seem to help the bouncier early buggies too.

[mongoose1983]

2 hours ago, Saito2 said:

The Bruiser had pretty stiff tires which I'm guessing was partially based on supporting the weight of the vehicle.

The only big tires produced before Tamiya set the 2.2 as worldwide standard with the Bruiser's were the Big Bear's, as you mentioned. Then they used the same tires made on a softer compound for the blackfoot.

I guess you just have to think and appreciate how things were back in context. The Big Bear tires are nice and soft, but oh so easy to rip. For the Bruiser I suppose Tamiya wanted something to support the weight first (as you said) and also something that would be usable for a longer time. They just did not foresee what the future held for this thing, oh and fortunately there were no such thing as rock crawling back then.

Blackfoot's were softer. But not as much as the Monster Beetle's. BF tires would crack over a long time, but the soft MB tires cracked so much easier. I don't like them, not only because of the looks (spikes, ugh) but they do break really easy. I gave up that kind of tires and use Imex GHawgs instead on my MB. I have BF tires that have lasted decades, but when running these cars the softer ones were... better. So I guess it's a cost you have to pay if you want to run the cars. Still to this day I've never had any tire problems with the blackfoot, and I love how the thing runs.

Also about old Tamiya tires, the original Sand Scorcher tires were much softer than today's. And I have noticed they have a height difference, too.

Back on the Bruiser's... try running one of these things with softer tires. Not a big help on a terrible runner that the old Yota is. For me it kind of takes a bit off the "magic feeling" out of the experience of running a vehicle from 1985.

[SuperChamp82]

Interesting question @Saito2

What about Diplos ? 

Brilliant idea for its time - but v expensive for modest performance improvement on all but properly prepared tracks 

[Saito2]

7 minutes ago, SuperChamp82 said:

What about Diplos ?

Good point. Tamiya was definitely looking for an edge with these. I don't know much about them, being an off road guy myself, but always found them interesting.