A tidy veteran

This is my very well-used but recently tidied-up TT-01. It started life as a 58339 Raybrig Honda NSX which was raced regularly in informal parking-lot races. It did so in almost-stock form, with just bearings, oil shocks and a steel pinion. Even the motor was a standard silver can back then.

The shell lasted well, but eventually needed replacing, so the chassis was fitted with a Bittydesign Alfa 156 race blob. Around this time, the informal parking lot races became a bit more competitive so the motor was upgraded to a TZ, the plastic propshaft was replaced with alloy and the high-speed spur set was added along with the carbon top deck and toe-in rear uprights.

The next round of upgrades came when I decided to dip my toe into the brushless scene with a very cheap Chinese 13.5t silver can and TBLE-02 ESC. It was at this point that the car finally got a ballraced steering rack and TT-01E bulkheads. I had also grown tired of replacing cracked plastic upper suspension mounts by this point, so they were upgraded to alloy. The shell was also replaced again, this time with a Killerbody race blob depicting no real-world car I am aware of.

The car continued in this form for a while, seeing use on carpet a few times, but not racing all that often as by this point a TB-03 had joined the fleet. It was also looking and feeling rather tired, with a very well-worn tub that had started to lose screws every so often due to worn-out threads. So when funds permitted, I decided to give it a well-deserved refresh complete with a new tub and shell.

The car was once again good as new, with all worn parts replaced, a few more alloy bits thrown in for good measure, a nicely-finished display shell and a new wheelset to match. It has been used for the occasional run on carpet wearing its race blob, but spends most of its time in semi-retirement, leaving the more arduous race duties to its TB-03 and TT-02 Type S stablemates. More recently it has also been used for postal racing.

Even more recently it received another new display shell, in white this time, passing the Petronas one onto its twin, another TT-01 restomodded to the same spec but using blue alloy instead of silver. Why two virtually identical cars that differ only in colour? Well, it doesn't hurt to have a backup to the backup for one's backup 13.5t TC. :D