April 20
Budget Blazer
Before anybody gets the idea that this model is a serious but unsuccessful attempt at making a Blazing Blazer copy, I’d like to point out that the model was built just as a bit of fun and with the intension of capturing just a little of the Blazing Blazer’s visual expression, a “Budget Blazer”, like the title implies. Also, as the Blazing Blazer is rather fragile, parts rare and expensive and handling and speed rather inferior when considering that it actually depicts a “fast” desert/baja racer and not a “slow” off-road vehicle, I just wanted to make something that looks a little like the Blazing Blazer, but handles better and has problemfree and cheap parts availability. As such, I’m pretty comfortable with the result.
The body is a Proline ’80 Chevy Blazer Pick-Up and I originally intended to mount a roof wing on it similar to the roof wing on the Blazing Blazer, but then decided not to for simplicity and durability reasons. Similarly, I intended to mount Tamiya Frog-type headlights in holes in the grill, but then decided just to put Daylighter stickers on the outside of the body. Yes, I was simply too lazy, and wanted a quickly built and robust body! The rest of the body was cut and painted within short time and with little effort. Windscreen was cut to resemble the look of a typical baja truck, side windows cut out and Hotshot window nets mounted. The figure is a Sand Scorcher driver, painted in Blazing Blazer driver boxart colours. Most of the stickers are moderate quality Sand Scorcher repro stickers, so no old original Tamiya stickers were sacrificed. After all it’s just a cheap lexan body with pretty vague details, which doesn’t justify using vintage stickers. The silver and orange stripes and white number square were simply painted. To add a little of the “top-heavy” look of the Blazing Blazer, number plates were cut from scrap lexan, painted silver and added behind the cab. The front bumper is a HPI Savage bumper. Not much like the Blazing Blazer bumper, but goodlooking, cheap and robust and more appropriate for a desert racer. Blazing Blazer logos will be added on the rear panels as soon as my local copyshop has cut them in vinyl for me.
As for the chassis, it’s really a no-brainer. It’s a Twin Dagger chassis with TL01 suspension arms, drive shafts, steering rods and bumper. The bumper might be replaced with a cut down TL01B bumper later. Wheel axles are the slightly longer TG10 rear axle type, with thicker hexes. Apart from that, the only other modifications were full ballbearings, replacing the front gear diff internals with at TGX oneway (# 53200) to make it possible to switch from rear wheel drive to four wheel drive. This is done by running each motor on each own ESC, and switching the front motor ESC on and off by mixing the 3rd channel of my Futaba 3PJ with the throttle channel. In 2WD mode, the front axle is freewheeling, just like the old Tamiya 3-speeders. Tires and wheels are from the Tamiya Hilux Hilift, with black anodized wheelnuts to mimic the wheelhub covers of the old 3-speeders. Planned improvements are oilshocks and possibly a racing rollcage behind the cab. I still hope Tamiya will release the Hilift chassis with the Blazing Blazer body though!
