Micro Tamiya Terra Scorcher JR Review

Whist travelling for work I managed to stumble upon a little piece of Tamiya RC related coolness. So I thought I would do a quick piece about it whilst sitting in my hotel room suffering from jet lag at 3.am!

What's this?

It is a micro version of a miniature version of a Tamiya Terra Scorcher. As you can see it has rollers on the outside (Like a mini 4WD). However this is much smaller than a mini 4WD, roughly 1/64 scale. 

These cars were released in 2007 by Subarudo (Part of Tomy) under licence from Tamiya. It is part of a series of 10 mini replicas of Tamiya rc classics including a Topforce Evo, Avante and Hotshot.

Whats in the Box?

As you can see the box contains a part painted body shell, instructions, stickers and a mysterious bag of sweets. 

When taking a closer look you can see that the attention to detail is actually very good and that the decals are accurate to help achieve a very small replica of a Tamiya rc car.

Building the car

As you can see there is very little to do, although once you start to try to apply the miniature stickers then it soon takes some time! 

Sitting in my hotel room at 4.AM jet lagged and a little numb after trying the hard liquor route to getting a good nights sleep, does not make me particularly precise when using my sausage fingers to stick 2mm stickers in the right place. However after a bit of perseverance I managed to get them all on.

Once the shell is finished its time to mount it to the chassis. The car is powered by the popular Tomy wind spring system pioneered in the Penny Racers of old (Or Choro-Q to give them their proper Japanese name). They have developed the motor further now and this chassis actually can allow you to change motor types (well I managed to clip this one out and again)

Here is the final result. Once the stickers are on it does look really good for a car that is around 4cm long. 

Track test

Well it wouldn't be a review without a track test. So I hastily created a small track on desk in my hotel room. 

http://youtu.be/QXq98zdaPkY

As you can see from the video, the car is able to take jumps with ease, a smooth and quick acceleration curve is produced once you wind up the motor and the high grip rubber tyres are excellent to hold grip on both he smooth glass surface and the laminated card ramp. The brakes are not so good. 

I would do a range test on the motor but it's the middle of the night and a hungover, jet-lagged Englishman roaming the hotel pushing a miniature toy car would not go down very well with the hotel  clientele.

Last but not least it's time to taste the sweets... After popping one in my mouth I can confirm its a sugary zesty taste.. Although after munching through them all, it dawned on me that they are 8 years old! So I'm now off to bed, let's hope will have no adverse effects... Wish me luck!