Category Archives: Customized Builds

California Dreamin´ – The Tamiya Sand Rover 2011

Here it is, the Tamiya Sand Rover 2011.  A car, or I better call it a dune buggy (because it is the real dune buggy!) Tamiya fans waited so long for. After the Holiday Buggy 2010, Tamiya does the next step and releases one of the most popular Tamiya off road cars ever on the famous and solid DT-02 Chassis.

As mentioned before, the  modified Sand Rover body sits  now on the modern DT-02 chassis which is well known from the Tamiya Desert Gator ,  Sand Viper ,  Neo Falcon and of course the Holiday Buggy 2010. The car is meant as a real beginners car.  So it comes with a classic RS380S Motor as standard which is perfect to do the first steps into this wonderful hobby.  But you can easily change that to a 540 sized motor.  Our car is equipped with full ball bearings – Tamiya CVA oil filled shocks – high torque servo saver – Desert Gator wheels and front tires and Tamiya pin spike tires on the rear for that extra piece of traction on the track. Also a mild brushless system is used which is comparable to a 27 turn brushed motor but much more efficient.

For the body we chose a warm Tamiya TS-34 Camel Yellow, a colour I love, because it transforms the Sand Rover directly back into the 70’s.

When the weather gets better, we will see how the new Sand Rover can perform. 🙂

Enjoy!!

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!

Tamiya Mud Blaster 2.1


The Tamiya Subaru Brat has a very important place in my heart as it was the first Tamiya I ever wanted. It all started in 1984 when my dad accidentally brought a Behringer (the German Tamiya importer till 1986) catalogue which a toy shop put in a shopping bag. I had seen already some nitro RC cars but the Tamiyas fascinated me immediately with their realistic look and superb action photos. On the cover of the catalogue there was a box-art Brat which looked so impressive to me, I imagined so often driving through mud and paddles with its block pattern tires. Unfortunately my local hobby shop had only a Holiday Buggy at stock so I got it on my 10th birthday. Later when I got older and visited more hobby shops the Brat was already out of stock, so I was very happy when I read in a magazine with the 1989 Nuremberg fair news that the Mud Blaster would be released. In June ’89 I finally got one of the first batch that came to Europe and really loved it. Later in the 2000s when I started collecting I also got a new build original Brat and later a NIB re-releas.

Seeing the upcoming Mud Blaster II I remembered that I have already its WT-01 chassis (Mighty Bull) so I got a lexan Brat body (like the Mud Blaster II has) and added it to it. I chose a bit more modern look with whole bumpers and sides painted in a second colour, also the window stickers weren’t used but windows were masked and stayed transparent. Chassis-wise full ball bearings, King Blackfoot wheels (front suspension needs to be modified as its normally for 4WD wheels), Super Stock TZ motor and longer (small instead of mini) CVA dampers were added as they give a better look and much better performance. The wheelbase problem needs still to be solved though, although for a runner I think it looks nicer then all previous WT-01 versions, but as said I am biased.

5 years tamiyablog.com – 300 posts & 1.000.000 page visits – win an RC Tamiya Sand Rover 2011

Update 14.11.2011: Competition results posted

Update 1.11.2011: Competition is closed now, results will be posted on 14th November.

Exactly 5 years and 299 posts ago this blog was started by a small group of Tamiya fans to gather interesting information about our favourite company in one place, but we never thought it would be such a success with over one million page views in this time. Therefore we would like to thank you for your continuous and growing support, Tamiya INC. for keeping up releasing an enormous amount of superb new models and thus keeping us busy building and reporting about them as well as all other sites who sent or allowed us to use their material. In the past years we have received several offers to get sponsors and add advertisements, but we declined and decided to pay all the running costs ourselves to guarantee being as neutral and objective as possible. Something we hope you appreciate.

For the celebration of the 5 first years, we decided to give a new Sand Rover kit (also paid by ourselves) as the original version was released almost exactly 30 years ago (22nd August 1981) and also 5 years after Tamiya’s first RC-car and also because of being kit number 58500. To participate, please send only one of your own made Tamiya related photos or drawings (maximum size 300 kilobytes) together with your full name, age and country to the address shown in the below picture until the 31st October 2011. The team of tamiyablog will choose and present the entries they liked the most on 14th November 2011 and one of them will win the 58500 Sand Rover kit. The kit will be shipped to the winner’s address from Japan or Hong Kong at tamiyablog’s cost, but the receiver may have to pay for customs or taxes depending on his/her country’s import laws.

We are looking forward to your continuous support also during the next 5 years!

The team of tamiyablog.com

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!

Fun Activity Vehicle


When I was a kid in the 1980s when the FAV was released my opinion about it was very mixed. On one side I didn’t like it as it was a military vehicle, on the other I loved it scale looks, much more then the Wild One with its lexan body, large front dampers and low profile tires. Then I got the idea of painting a “civil” FAV, but unfortunately never got one. In the early 2000s I got finally a FAV but as they were quite rare and expensive I painted it in boxart. Now with the great re-release from Tamiya I finally got the chance to execute a 25 year old plan. I got my kit yesterday and since I couldn’t wait any longer I immediately started the painting and built. This time no parts were modified and no hopus where used, just a different paint scheme and decals. I really like the FAV and in my humble opinion its one of the most scale buggies ever made, especially its chassis, hope to run it soon carefully.

Tamiya Hornet 2014 ?

As Tamiya made a new version of my first Tamiya RC car (Holiday Buggy) on a newer and improved chassis 30 years later, I decided to do the same for my second Tamiya RC car, The Hornet, also to tribute the Tamiya’s most sold RC car with 700.000 pieces, not counting the recent re-release! Since its basic chassis and gearbox design still is used on a current kit (Rising Fighter), the base choice was obvious, as in my humble opinion, the reliable, light and fast rear solid axle gives the Hornet its “personality”. I tried to adapt the re-release Hornet decals as well as possible on the different body which I painted black.

Only hop-ups used were ball bearings as well as yellow CVA dampers and yellow Super Fighter G wheels as I think they match the colour concept better then the original white wheels, something which Tamiya also did on the Super Hornet. In times of modern ready-to-run high-tech buggies, the Grasshopper/DT-01 chassis seems an extreme anachronism, but it brings great memories to many hobbyists and with its great robustness and simplicity is still a good choice for young beginners, not to forget that on a straight line it is faster then any modern “weapon”.

Hope the simple and successful solid axles will stay even longer in the Tamiya program, lets not forget that also Midnight Pumpkin/Lunchbox and Clod Buster are some of the most and longest produced RC cars ever and maybe Tamiya will come up with something similar in 2014 to celebrate 30 years of Hornet, who knows, maybe in the future power efficiency will be important combined with solar or hydrogen drive concepts and then this primitive chassis will be modern again…

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 !

Holiday’s Out

“Holiday’s out for winter, holiday’s out forever”
in similarity to Alice Coopers 1972 “School’s Out” song. Why is Holiday out? Because now at the end of summer 2010 the Holiday Buggy is out again to get more young kids into this marvellous hobby like it took me in 1983. Because I decided to make my first HB 2010 not an innocent buggy for holidays but a capable performer, something I always wanted as a kid when other buggies were faster and better performing (being a big HB fan I have more HB 2010 projects in the pipeline, so stay tuned).

Actually I had different plans with this “racing HB”, but as 3 different primers I tested didn’t hold acceptably for a powerful runner , I stayed on the original blue colour, matched with pink decals, in similarity to the blue/pink TRF car paint schemes. To give it a more racing look and to reduce weight and especially centre of gravity, a lighter driver cockpit and lexan roof in carbon fibre look were adapted to the body. Race wheels and tires, aluminium oil dampers and uprights, universal shafts, ball differential and hotter motor with metal mount were added for better chassis performance and to match the body colour with their blue anodizing.

Initially there were quite a lot of negative voices to this release as many people took or expected it more as a classic re-release. Looking at its simple but genius construction and manual you realize its not just a re-release but more a great and nice-priced beginners car which performs tons better then the old one and can be easily improved even further but still looks nice and isn’t just a generic lexan blob. When I was taking photos of it for this article sometimes the automatic face detection was activated with its front 2 headlights. I think this tells a lot about its personality. When I was a kid the 2 front headlights with the blue-yellow front stripes reminded me of a smiling face. I can’t wait to run my new one now and being a kid again, 27 summers after.