Category Archives: Customized Builds

Willys new ride – the Volkswagen Type2 (T1) Wheelie

Here it is, the newest addition to Tamiyas range of fun and stunt cars after the Mitsubishi Montero. A true classic, the Volkswagen Type 2, also simply called the T1.

The team of Tamiyablog was very happy when Tamiya announced that car in 2011. Wild Willy was waiting too long for a new vehicle. And i knew, i had to have this kit, as soon as possible.

It´s very nice to see the VW body sitting on the famous WR-02 chassis. A chassis i really like. The Wild Willy 2 is still one of my favourite runners.

It can be a great performer with some slightly modifications like oilfilled shocks, ball bearings and a 20T pinion.

Tamiya did a fantastic job on the lexan body. Masking the body and doing the two tone paintjob takes a while, but in the end you will be rewarded with one of the coolest looking Lexan bodies Tamiya ever made.

I chose a nice metallic orange for my T1 which i think suits the old VW very well. The Wild Willy driver figure is well known from one of Willys old cars, the superb “Willies Wheeler”.

All in all i would like to thank the Tamiya Company for still producing such nice and funny cars like the VW Bus. The world of RC Cars is actual dominated from mostly boring and bad looking products which are mainly speed and bashing oriented. Tamiya is nearly the only manufacturer who breaks this rule. I would also like to mention the beautiful box art picture of the VW kit. One of the very best ones Tamiya ever did. I really like to see such a piece of handmade art in our computer dominated world.

Go for the Type2, it will take a smile on your face. On the shelf and on the track !

Tamiya 58527 1/10 RC The Hornet by Jun Watanabe (updated 17.02.2012)

Kit No. 58527, Japanese release date late March and list price 13800 Yen.
Color ring decorated with black polka dots on a white base can be finished easily with a large sticker.
The chassis employs a color molding of purple, pink design that combines black wheels and tires is characteristic. Moreover, it is also set black white wheels and tires for traveling.
The item that was stuck to the wheel nuts and upright design, adjusters, etc., to detail which is integrated in the spring of white or pink.
Adopt a high-impact design of the original image while also followed the package, emphasized the design.

Tamiya 2012 RC Modelers Work Contest

As always, astonishing Japanese creativity and quality of execution.

Dark Side of the Boom – Tamiya RC Boomerang Black Special

This is a project that has been in my head since the re-release of the Boomerang as I always liked the different coloured Mini 4WD Special versions of Tamiya classic buggies, Boomerang was my third Tamiya RC in my childhood and I like building the re-releases in alternative paintshemes which I wouldn’t dare on originals. Unfortunately this time I waited too long as Tamiya just released the first RC version of such a special, the Avante Black. Anyway, this is a 2008 re-release kit painted black and with blue plastic dampers to match the rest of blue parts (blue anodized dampers would perform better but not match so well), as well as a Black Motor Endurance with its black casing and blue endbell and quite rare vintage white tires. Unfortunately the weather is poor so photos could be better, still I hope it gives an idea of my plan.

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.