Honestly,once you drive a 4wd gasser you'll have a big smile on your face, forget the BS that 2wd are more fun cos they're more demanding to drive, I've had both and totally disagree with that line, oops here comes the hornets nest
. For 1 bashing 4wd opens up way more useable terrain and 2 on the track it requires just as much input and concentration to get round fast, and that'll be faster than your 5b/5t.
The thing is 2wd gassers were all we had really up until 2-3 yrs ago or so, bar MCD who were extortionately expensive (roller to boot) and who were the really the only player in 4wd. FG were king of the 2wd mainly due to Europe where it all started (they've sold a gazillion units since they started 25yrs ago and are by far the biggest 1/5 scale seller on the planet) and then came the HPIbaja...hugely popular in N. America due to HPI's dealer/LHS network but designed when 2wd was still the norm.
The Chinese manufacturers, starting with the FS MCD clone started the mainstream 4wd market making it affordable, they've sold more units globally than the HPI 5B/T, and then 4wd balloned with Chinese manufacturers producing affordable 4wd cars. now we have MCD, Smartech/nutech, FS/CEN (admittedly MCD clones), SY, kaylee, FG, lauterbacher, hurrax, ferox (coming soon), redcat/HSP and kamitiro(not many of these around) .
i remember many many moons ago my mardave marder nitro...2wd, basic as it gets running a irvine .25 plane motor..it was the bomb back then until kyosho bought out the 4wd turbo burns buggy...rest is history 4wd exploded in the nitro world...4wd nitros sell 100 to 1 to 2wd.
So after all that rambling what I'm saying is for offroad, IMO of course, 4wd is the dogs bollocks..yep 2wd is fun but 4wd is more fun, for $600 the rampage is probably your best buy right now as far as durabilty, support and fun factor....still got mine after 2 yrs...i still like my pig but maybe hold out for the new XT5 from redcat...looks promising and still in your $600 budget
