ZooRacing GOAT bodyshell Review

In tenth scale touring cars the bodyshell has come a long way from the scale Tamiya creations that initially made us all attracted to it.. We moved on to a range of blobby jelly moulds and it seemed like the classic Mazda 6 shape hung around for a good decade.. Then things started to change.. high grip black carpet arrived, along with better tyres, more speed and a big jump in chassis designs. 

ZooRacing were one of the pioneers of the new wave of shells and the DBX was a game changer. So much so that many other manufacturers literally copied it and made small alterations to sell it as their own. 

I'm a big fan of this new style of shell. I've written about it before. I think they have a lot more identity than the blobs that we raced post Tamiya shells. Many of the new shells have a distinct style that gives the class a good identity, and the quality of the ZooRacing and Bittydesign moulds are very high, with nice clean lines and details that actually have a 'scale' look.


I was keen to try the GOAT as it is shorter than most of the aero shells around at the moment, and my local track is small and narrow.. (They call it Manchester's Monaco).


I decided to buy the 0.5mm Ultralight shell. I find 0.5mm shells are less likely to split around the arches, and I always reinforce all of my shells in a few places, so starting off with a light shell negates the extra weight of my strengthening.  Painted, with my extra strengthening the shell weighed 63g

As this is a test shell I gave it a quick two colour paint job in my test colours. 


Here you can see the shorter front. the rear boot is not much shorter but the roofline blends into it quite smoothly to shorten the actual length of the boot. The boot itself is also quite low

The front design has a Tesla model S inspired look, and overall its quite a good looking shell, although not a patch on the Baybee in my opinion.

So let's go racing. 

I mounted the shell onto my Tamiya TA07ms.. I seem to be addicted to running this car at my local clubs. I have written before about it's surprising turn of speed, and I am still tinkering with it. 

The first qualifier was difficult for everyone as the grip was really low. I had no initial steering and despite thinking it could be the shell, I noticed that everyone else was complaining about the same lack of grip. Despite this I managed to be P1 in the first round. 

The second qualifier was short lived, the grip was better, but I forgot to change my battery so had to retire.. 


A new battery installed for Q3 and the car was great. The grip was good and the GOAT was performing really well. It just felt very neutral. The initial turn in was positive, but mild compared to the Wolverine. This works well on our lower grip carpet and it ensured the front was not going to throw the rear of the car into disarray.  Despite running an old 17.5 SMC motor in the car, which is underpowered compared to the latest Surpass and Hobbywings in the other cars, I managed to take fastest in round again thanks to a great level of consistency.. Only 0.04 seconds between my fastest lap and average 10 laps.. On a tight fast track this level of consistency is hard to achieve. 

The final qualifier quickly came around and I was really feeling locked in with the car. The GOAT really felt good. The grip was really getting high now so I could push harder. I manged P1 again and shaved nearly a tenth  of my best lap. Consistency was great again, this time with  a 0.05 range between my best lap and my best 10

I was looking forward to the final. I had made no changes to the car all night. It felt neutral from the first qualifier and it just got better as the grip came up. As we run on grey carpet, the grip really rises throughout the night.. In some  of the lower heats some cars were grip rolling in their finals so I was prepared for the higher grip. 

The start was nice and clean.. I grabbed a good half a lap advantage after the first minute. With this lead I didn't push too hard and drove a clean race. Everything was going well until around the fourth minute. I then started to notice that the car was just loosing a little bit of punch out of the corner.. I'd forgotten to change the battery again (Too much talking).. Luckily I then leaned on the GOAT a little more and took more speed into some of the corners, hoping that the higher grip and the neutral shell would hold me on the track so I wouldn't have to rely on punching out of the corners. It worked and I was coasting to the win. Unfortuantely 15 seconds from the end I was clipped by a backmarker and that span we around in the wrong direction.. I had to wait for second place to pass me before I could pass as it wasn't safe. I crossed the line in P2. The joys of racing. My best 10 was 0.04 seconds of my best lap in the final.. again another showing of the GOAT's excellent consistency.


Overall I was really happy with the ZooRacing GOAT. I haven't really read much information about it from other racers, so I was a little pensive about trying it. Luckily it paid off and I think I have found another shell to add to my collection. In fact this might be my go to shell for my local clubs that race on Grey carpet. I will save the Baybee and Wolverine for larger, high grip tracks.