Friday 25th December 2015

Tamiya Monster Beetle: Driven

PH's Christmas review is ... an electric Volkswagen Beetle? Bear with us!

---

If you've been a good PHer this year you may be setting out the beautifully bagged and tagged parts of a Tamiya kit on the kitchen table and limbering up for a long night with a bottle of whisky and craft tools for company. Let's face it, the rest of the family will long since have lost interest and dozed off in front of the telly.

If Santa didn't deliver you a Monster Beetle let us instead provide you with some inspiration for how to spend those crisp tenners you hopefully found tucked into the Christmas cards from long-lost Auntie Ethel.

Well if you have two Macs spare...

Back in September we reported on the re-issue of the iconic Monster Beetle to the Tamiya R/C range; not long after PH visited the Tamiya Plamodel store in Tokyo and got a little over-geeked by the sheer quantity of products and potential for a luggage allowance/bank balance straining spending spree. Apparently Mr Tamiya himself saw the story and was delighted. So when a Monster Beetle turned up ready built for a test we were, frankly, well chuffed.

That this coincided with our office move and some adjacent floorspace being cleared of desks with room to put the Beetle through its paces did no harm. Those in proper jobs probably have an image of media types like us spending all day doing stuff like jumping Tamiya radio-controlled cars over old Apple Macs ... and for once this was absolutely true. As you'll see from the video below the Monster Beetle's leaping abilities are pretty impressive, the artist formerly known as Racing Pete proving himself rather adept at piloting the car over our improvised stunt course. Mainly. In a classic 'one more go' scenario we may have pushed things a bit hard and one of the driveshafts kind of fell out. Oh, and we slightly decapitated the driver. Only a flesh wound and all that...

Last jump didn't go so well

So for the semi-serious roadtest bit. The Monster Beetle is a likeable kit for its combination of amusing speed and knockabout fun. The 'proper' buggies are all very well but need space and a half-decent surface to really demonstrate their abilities. The Beetle's balloon tyres, meanwhile, are amusingly slidy on wet tarmac, meaning it'll happily drift and doughnut to your heart's content, though you learn you need to lift off and back it into the turn to really let the back end break loose. The rear-wheel drive chassis limits the hardcore off-road potential a little but the wide track stability of the fully independent suspension and sheer speed opens up terrain race buggies wouldn't dare tread. We tried a variety of surfaces and can report bumpy gravel car parks seem to suit it best. Chuck in a couple of ramps for good measure and you're sorted.

While pretty much true to the original 1986 kit there are certain concessions to modernity, such as an electronic speed controller. Remember when they were the height of sophistication? Standard kit these days it seems! Tamiya's requires a double tap for reverse, the first being a braking action. Takes a little getting used to but the ability to slow it down after landing a jump is handy. Bear in mind those big tyres can put a bit of leverage through the steering mechanism too - while tough the Monster Beetle isn't entirely indestructible.

For not taking itself too seriously but delivering seriously bucketfuls of fun the Monster Beetle is a welcome return and regression therapy well worth signing up for. Video games are all very well. But from the hands-on satisfaction of building it to the fun from seeing it spray gravel out there in the real world this is novelty value with real staying power. Now, is that battery charged up yet?

Watch the slo-mo video here.

 

Photos: Sim Mainey/Dan; video by Dafydd Wood

[Lowtimer]

It's a long time since I had a Tamiya electric buggy but they are excellent fun.

[Lowtimer]

Indeed, you need a LiPo charger for that.

There's nothing terribly wrong with brushed can motors for cars but I would have thought it's probably worth upgrading to a brushless motor and ESC these days.