TOPIC:

Over the past few months, I've noticed a couple of R/C models on the market that suggest the retro buggy style is something other brands are exploring.

Amid all the usual boring shapes - cookie cutter buggies, truggies, trucks, the likes of which we have seen constantly for the past 20 years, I wonder if Carrera is taking a leaf out of Tamiya's book by releasing this rather nice RTR buggy, the "Dune Jumper".



www.carrera-rc....-buggy-55/

When I saw this, I nearly wrote Carrera a letter to thank them. I still might. I bought this model instantly, and it turns out it's quite a nice toy model. Not cheap, but it goes pretty quick. I just haven't seen a toy buggy that looks like this for many, many years. The vast majority of modern R/C toys, particularly off road, are just terrible-looking junk made by the likes of "Fast Lane".

What's more, Carrera is a German toy company that has been around for many years, and they actually used to make R/C toys like this one back in the 1980s (I have one simply called the "Off Road Buggy")

Their interest in retro also seems to extend to their Carrera Go! slot car range, and I also couldn't resist getting myself this set of slot cars, due to the gorgeous buggies (seen in my avatar also)...






Also, there is the Duratrax VW Baja Bug, a more hobby-grade but still RTR R/C buggy, that I'm sure you must all know about? If not...

www.duratrax.co...index.html



I think this is an impressively realistic effort from Duratrax.

cheers,

H.

That Carrera looks great. Reminds me of a Lotus Super Seven - but like an off roader.

Is it Carrera that are doing that 1/10 Audi Quattro rally car? (The one ModelsportUK want 40 quid for a shell for...). If that Duratrax bug is on their Evader chassis, I'll tell you now they're far from "Hobby" grade - everything's adjustable, has rebuildable oil shocks, slotted motor plate, front & rear suspension setups are quickly removable from the rest of the chassis as "Lumps" (So you could have several different setups ready to go & fit them complete to the car quickly), cassette gearbox (Same reason as above), fully ballraced out of the box, comes complete with special ESC with adjustable brakes, delays, ABS etc, & if my memory serves me correctly, a ball diff & slipper clutch. I'll have to have a dig about & see if I can find a pic of my old one...

...didn't take long! Haven't got a pic of the chassis though. Mine was the "ST" (Stadium truck) version. Paint (By me) was a really effective green-purple flip

Carisma, not Carrera (Got C on the brain...). Chassis is similar to TT01