Nichimo Exceed Pro 443

I added this to my original showroom on December 18, 2009.
This is the first of two Exceeds that I purchased 10 years ago and it remains unrestored as I received it. l found it on Feebay (from Alaska) for the not-so-cheap price of $242.00 USD. It needs a front bumper but otherwise came complete with the box, manual, and a ton of original spare parts. While I probably overpaid a bit, the cost seemed to be fairly consistent with fair market value at the time considering that NIB kits were going for ~$500+ USD and used, unbroken/intact examples in good shape like this are rare. I have a nice box-art blue one in my showroom as well. I never really wanted one of these as a kid but have such fond memories of them displayed high on a shelf over the cash register at my LHS in the '80's where I got some of my other r/c models that I had to have one. They always seemed a bit weird-looking and obscure to me as a kid so I figured now that I'm an adult I should pick one up to satisfy my curiosity and I'm glad that I did. According to my informal research, next to the notorious Royal Ripper (also a part of my collection) these cars were infamous for their fragile plastic parts and a lot of the Nichimo cars I've seen for sale are broken and/or repaired in some way. However, comparing this to my Ripper it's obvious that it's a relatively higher quality kit overall given it's design features and numerous beefy metal parts. As most enthusiasts know, this car has a lot of interesting features like 4WD, 4WS and three diffs (hence the moniker 4-4-3), an asymmetrical chassis and corresponding off-set body, ram-air induction to provide cool air to the motor and a vented metal 'radiator' to pull hot air away. Similar to the Tamiya Astute, the over-engineered complexity of this car is probably its most famous trait and makes it fascinating to study. On the side of the box, Nichimo explains the reason behind the three separate differentials which is really interesting. I'm going to tear down both of my Exceeds simultaneously and assemble one solid runner with the most worn parts and keep the newest parts as spares. Thanks for looking and hope you enjoy.