Crazy like the WOLF.

**PLEASE READ THIS** for anyone looking at this model displayed in my showroom and wondering if I will sell it? PLEASE DON’T ASK!!! I get numerous requests from TC members wanting to buy cars displayed in my Tamiyaclub showroom, and to be honest I get very annoyed when people ask to buy something that is clearly NOT FOR SALE!! This car is part of MY COLLECTION and as such I want to KEEP IT!! So please don’t Email on the off chance that I might sell it to you, if I want to sell any of my cars I will put them up for sale in my TRADE ROOM, so look there to see what cars I am prepared to sell otherwise don’t bother asking cos the only answer you will get is NO!!! thanks for reading this disclaimer. Regards wldnas.

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Now this is a strange one, I managed to buy this from a guy I met at a local RC club, the full details of the car lot that I bought from this bloke will be detailed elsewhere, but this car was the main prize from this particular transaction, mind you it took me about a month from when I first met the guy and went around his house to view the cars, to actually completing the deal after I had been paid this months wages, but when I went around to see the stuff for the first time, I was expecting to find a totally different Mad Wolf to the one that actually greeted me?

You see, the Mad Wolf that I knew and had seen occasionally for sale on Ebay was in fact the only ready to assemble RC car kit that popular Japanese toy manufactures BANDAI had ever made, it was a 2WD buggy with an unusual design feature on the rear end, gear box and drive system, as I like cars with quirky and unusual designs I just had to get one of these cars, the Bandai car has a black cowl body and a red roll cage at the rear and this was the car I was expecting to find and the sellers house, but when I arrived I found it to be a totally different looking car and it was branded as being made by MONOGRAM a popular American model kit manufacturer.

But after a short while I realised that a Monogram version of the Bandai Mad Wolf was a totally feasible reality as I already own 3 Monogram RC cars and all of them were simply rebadged version of Japanese RC cars, and Bandai was one such supplier of these cars, but Monogram had made certain cosmetic alterations to the car to make it look more original, even though the chassis underneath was identical in design and carried branding stamps of “Bandai 1986 made in Japan” but I was still confused as to why I had not seen this version of the car before, all the previous Mad Wolfs I had seen were all the Bandai version and I had no indication from the literature from the other Monogram kits that they had produced this model as well.

Anyway after lengthy discussions with the seller we agreed a price of £100 for the MIB kit which I think is a very good price given it rarity but it would be a further 4 weeks before I would actually have the money to buy the kit from him, but as a bonus to go with the MIB he also had a virtually complete Mad Wolf chassis with fitted radio gear, it was missing the body and roll cage, it also had a small hole cut into the top of the chassis so as to gain access for changing the radio crystals and it also had a elongated body mount fitted up front but this chassis would give me an excellent opportunity to drive the car without actually building the MIB kit, as I was buying the kit he only wanted £30 for the chassis as it was which was another good deal.

4 weeks past and I drove over to the RC club were I had arranged to meet him and do the deal for the kit, the money and goods finally changed hands and I was now the proud owner of a MIB Monogram Mad Wolf, I had actually bought the running chassis two weeks previous along with the other 3 cars from the lot (PB Maxima, Mugen Bulldog 2 chassis and Playtron Lynx chassis with Marui Big Bear body) anyway after I had got the kit home I did a thorough check on the box contents to make sure it was all present and correct, and apparently it seems to be all intact, as with so many old MIB kits I’ve had before the damper oil bottle had leaked slightly but most of the spillage was either contained within the separate bag or soaked away into the cardboard insert it was placed on.

The box itself has seen better days, it gone a little saggy and soggy over the years but seeing as the kit dates from about 86’ and has probably spent most of that time lying around in the sellers loft then it’s hardly surprising that it has developed a few creases, the blister pack is intact as are all the separate bags containing all the other parts, the tires too are in good shape still sealed up tight in their plastic bag and show no signs of ageing or perishing, the paper work is pretty rudimentary and the parts list is standard Monogram kit, the decal sheet looks a little wrinkly though and I’ve known from past experience that Monogram decals lose their stickiness over time, the Lexan shell and wing moulding are still good as new though.

However I don’t really need to build this kit? As I have another pre assembled and ready to run chassis that I can use instead, however I’m toying with the idea of fitting the missing parts from the MIB kit to complete it, that would be the Body kit and the rear roll cage, but then again, why spoil a MIB? What I really want to do is try to locate the necessary spares and turn it into a Bandai Mad Wolf instead of the Monogram one, that way I would have both versions of the same car, but I think that finding a Body set and rear cage for the car will be a practically impossible task, most Mad Wolfs you see are MIB kits, and I doubt anyone would break one up just to sell off a few of the spares as the kits are so rare there would be no demand for spares.

What can I say about the car itself? Well as I said before it has an unusual rear end design which is what interested me in the car to begin with, it’s a 2WD RWD buggy with double wishbone suspension up front and trailing arm at the rear, it has independent metal oil shocks all round, adjustable front anti-roll bar and a 2 piece monocoque chassis, nothing very special so far, but it’s the way that the drive is transferred from the gearbox to the wheels that’s so unusual and ingenious, the motor and gearbox bolt on the back of the chassis with cast metal sides and the diff shafts stick out the front of this assembly on either side, onto this attach the trailing arm pivots which are hollow and allow the shaft to pass through, the inside of the suspension arm is hollow too, a sprocket is fixed to the diff out drive shaft and the wheel half shaft drive inside the arms and a chain runs between them.

Yep you heard right this puppy has a duel chain drive arrangement which are housed inside the rear suspension arms, there are ball races used on all the major pivoting joints and the drive is surprisingly smooth as a result, and you should see the suspension travel ; ) the front suspension is also fairly clever, the shocks fit inside the front wishbone recesses and the top shock mounts pivots with the travel of the arms, the steering to is unusual in that the main servo saver lives in the hollow between the front arm pivots and the servo attachment crack pokes through a hole in the top and is secures with a bracket, there is a long push rod that goes back to the servo which pokes through the top of the chassis along with the speedo servo just in front of the battery compartment, the speedo sits over there and the resistor is on top of the gearbox.

With so many interesting and novel designs, how does it drive? Well as the spare chassis is equipped with a radio this task was easier than expected, cue the requisite test drive ; ) it’s pretty fast, for a standard car, and the handling is fairly supple and responsive but then that’s of no rear surprise to me, as with so many of the serious RC cars that have been made by leading “TOY” manufacturers it’s extremely well made and engineered, the attention to detail really shines through and I’d say that it’s easily a match for any Tamiya car of the period, but as the Monogram “KIT” seems a little basic, I can’t help wondering what the Bandai original was like.