Author Archives: dunebuggy

Renault R5 Turbo – A French Sportscars Icon

Here we will present one of the newest additions to the Tamiya family of  M-05 Chassis cars.

The Renault R5 Turbo.  Tamiya enthusiasts and fans will know that this body isn’t really new, its only new for the M-chassis.  This body first appeared in October 1981, shorty after the release of its german “brother”, the Volkswagen Golf Racing Group 2.  At that time, both cars were based on the famous CS (Competition Special) chassis. Now its completely different. The R5 Turbo body now sits on the M-05Ra (Rally Layout) Chassis. Back in 1981 and now too, Tamiya presented the body as a rally version.  In this build I wanted to create a good looking street version of this famous car.  This silver black version was one of my childhood dreams. Every day on my way back from school I saw one of the first R5 Turbos standing there in shiny silver metallic.  Because of this the body  sits on a “normal” M-05 chassis and not on the M-05Ra. But you can do a street version on the M-05 Ra too, as the M-05 Ra allows to set up the chassis  to lower ground clearance.  I only chose the “normal” M-05, because I had one lying around.

The gold plated Mini Lite style wheels are  the bonus parts of the Renault kit. I think they match the silver colour of the body really well. One of the biggest drawbacks of the old Renault body is the rear width.  It is much too wide for the M-05 and doesn’t look really good.  So I had to search for a solution to make the rear wider . You need nearly 1cm on each side.  I tested various options.  Tamiya TL-01 wide wheel axles – Tech Racing M-chassis wide rear axles. But that wasn’t enough.  So I chose  the simplest method to make the rear wider,  Tamiya TL-01 rear upper and lower suspension arms. They are a direct fit to the M-05,  you only need some slightly longer dampers on the rear for this modification, because of the longer lower arms and accordingly wider damper mounting points.  I have used a set of leftover clear C.V.A. shocks from my M-05Pro chassis kit which I had replaced for Tamiya M-chassis aluminium shocks.

Although this body is now 30 years old and counts as one of the first polycarbonate bodies from Tamiya it still looks good, especially compared to more modern bodies of other manufacturers. All in all a great new/old release. Enjoy this 80s classic!

Mazda Savanna RX-7 – Rotary Power For The M-06

The new Tamiya Mazda Savanna RX-7 (SA22) body for the Rear Wheel Drive M-06L  has now been out for a little while.

But to our surprise, we have seen very little feedback for this nice new body, especially on the big Tamiya Fan and Club sites, where not a single example of the new old RX-7 could be found.

The team of  Tamiyablog likes the first generation RX-7 a lot, so this body was the first choice for my M-06 Pro chassis kit which was waiting to be built for too long now.

Tamiya recommends the classic black Minilite style wheels for the RX-7 which  I think don’t suit the car so well.  So we chose the Tamiya wheels which were known from the Tamiya Honda S800 kit.

Combined with the black anodized wheel nuts to imitate the fullsize car’s black hubs, they give the car a very authentic look.

The body is painted in a classic light green metallic which was seen very often on the original Mazda RX-7 in the late 1970’s.

It’s good to have another long wheelbase body for the M-06 chassis in addition to the Tamiya classic Volkswagen Beetle.

Thank you very much for your interest and…

Enjoy Rotary Power!

The Fast Attack Vehicle 2011 – Return of a warrior

As the Tamiya Fast Attack Vehicle 2011 kit has been out for a while now and to honour the historical importance of this 1980´s icon, the team of Tamiyablog decided to give the FAV a short review of the 2011 release kit.

I personally have to say that i never owned a Fast Attack Vehicle back in the so called “good old days”.  So this was a special moment, and the build of the car a great experience.

Tamiya did some small changes to the car as on most re-release versions of old classics.  When you open the kit box, you see no blister packs like on the classic FAV kit.  The whole rollcage is molded in black now, which i think the car benefits from. It´s now  easier  to build “civilian” versions of the buggy and the black cage looks good in every way. The E-Parts are changed to Wild One specification, which mainly means gearbox and front trailing arms. Drive shafts and wheel axles are the same dogbone style type as used on the Tamiya Frog and Subaru Brat re-releases before.

Something really new are the decals on this FAV 2011 kit.

Now everyone can do  a nice camouflage paint scheme, even without owning an airbrush.

The included stickers give a very authentic look. The semigloss surface of the decals fits perfectly to the TS46 Light Sand colour, that Tamiya recommends for the FAV.

If you cut out the stickers nicely, without leaving too much clear, you won’t be disappointed with the result.

Our car is equipped with full ball bearings. (8 pieces of the standard Tamiya 1150 bearings are included as a bonus in the kits of the international first batch version). If you want a full set of bearings for your car, you will need additional two 1150 and three 850 bearings.

Furthermore we switched the rear standard friction dampers to custom made black anodized  oil dampers of the Tamiya Frog and Subaru Brat re-releases which helps the buggy a lot to perform better.

And the “old” Tamiya Black Sport Tuned motor powers the FAV to attack a little bit faster. It even looks good.

All in all, the team of Tamiyablog is very happy with this new Tamiya classic re-release. It brings this wonderful vintage buggy to a new life. Now everyone can own one again.

Stay tuned for more “variations” of the Tamiya FAV 2011 here on Tamiyablog.

Thanks for watching !

Rally Ready – Tamiyablog Suzuki Swift M-05Ra

Rally Up a M-chassis car. This was only a dream many years before.  But sometimes dreams come true, and now you can build your own Mini Rally Car from a kit. Two types, the Suzuki Swift Super 1600 and Alpine A110 are available at the moment. The Alpine also as an XB-Version.

To give the chassis more ride height, Tamiya uses new designed F-Parts for the M-05Ra.  It´s a big advantage that you can build the chassis also with the standard M-05 ride height.  So it´s no problem to use your M-05Ra machine also for normal M-Chassis  street racing without using extra parts. Different attaching points on the C-Hubs are making this possible. Our car is equipped with some of the most popular Hop-Ups used in the M-Chassis scene, like full ball bearings, universal shafts, oil filled shocks and a ball diff. I used the new M-05 Ball Diff in combination with the new M-05Ra reinforced Differential joint set. Although i´ve heard about some durability problems with the new M-05 ball diff.  But, time will tell. Another tip, if you want to use oil filled shocks on your M-05Ra,  the 54000 M-Chassis damper set isn´t recommended here. These are fantastic dampers, but they are too short for the M-05 Ra Rally Setup. They are only useable with the normal M-05 ride height. Standard sized touring car shocks are ideal  for this car, like the  Tamiya black Super Mini C.V.A. shocks or the classic Tamiya 53155 Aluminum damper set. If you use the super Mini C.V.A. Shocks you have to take note that the shock pistons are long enough, because on some cars, Tamiya uses shorter pistons for the Super Mini C.V.A. Shocks. Furthermore we used a Tamiya High Tourque servo saver + a strong metal geared digital servo in combination with the good and well priced 3Racing carbon steering set.  Gives a much more precicse steering mechanism.

Ok, that was on the technical side.  Now some words about the body.  As seen on the Tamiya M-05 Abarth 500 body before, Tamiya made some small but nice changes to the Suzuki Swift body parts.  You can now use LED´s on the front and back of the car. This adds a much more realistic look. As a regular reader you may know, we always like to use alternate paintschemes on our bodies. A normal and understated “Skyblue” was used for the little Suzuki. But looks great, using the Tamiya mascot sticker set.

Thank you very much for reading.

Enjoy M-05Ra !

Tamiya future releases shown at Nuremberg International Toy Fair 2011

Update 07.02.2011: Honda CR-Z body just arrived from Japan and better TG10-Mk.2 FX photos added

Update 05.02.2011: more photos added

Return of the Champ

Before Tamiya announced the return of the Buggy Champ in 2009, I never thought this would ever happen. But as we all know, Tamiya surprised us with fantastic re-releases over the last years. And finally after the release of the Sand Scorcher 2010 it seems that Tamiya is possible to make every dream come true.
For me it was a real experience to build such a historic car. I´ve restored a Super Champ in the past, but to build a SRB from new is another thing.
As a regular visitor on tamiyablog, you may know that we try to use different colours and paintschemes on most of the Tamiya re-releases. So this Buggy Champ is no  exception.
This time Tamiya “TS-39-Mika Red” was used.  The car is totally stock, except for the alloy wheel covers which give a more authentic look to the whole car. Sometimes, it seems unreal for me. You can really buy new SRBs ?
Again, a big “THANK YOU” to our favourite company.