It has been a long time since I've built an RC car of any sort, so I figured I'd take a few minutes to document this build. Perhaps someone might glean some useful information from this text.
A quick background... I started playing around with remote control cars in the early 80s. You know, the Radio Shack types that ate batteries and required a clean flat parking lot in order to drive. I had a pretty cool Audi that had proportional speed and steering, but it could be high centered on a pebble! Moving on to 1985, my brother bought a Tamiya Fox... what a great car... a HUGE improvement over anything I had ever seen. A friend of ours had a Tamiya Frog... another great car for those days. Well, my younger brother and I had to have one... he chose the Tamiya Hornet while I had my heart set on the Tamiya Wild One (mod. # 58050) and a Magnum Junior radio... I think we ordered both from Sheldon's Hobbies in California. This thing was a beast… I'll just summarize by saying that I drove it for over a year, but I had a bit of trouble with the hex drive axles and the old mechanical style speed control. It met its demise one day when my speed control stuck in the on position and proceeded to melt things down (literally) before I could get to it and get the covers of or disconnect the battery. I had a lot of fun with it, but after many months of abuse it was beyond reasonable repair in my eyes... besides, I had my sights set on a Kyosho Ultima that I eventually bought in late 86. This was a whole new machine, and it was, as we would say back then, RAD! Moving on, my brothers and I got in to RC aircraft and for the next 25 years we had very limited exposure to the RC car scene. We still admired the hobby, but airplanes were the ticket (still are). A few years ago I bought a Traxxas 3.3 T-Maxx... wow wee! That thing was a blast except for the fact that I was twisting drive axles continuously, but that's a story for another time. Fast forwarding to today... my son, who is 8 years old and a competent pilot with his RC airplanes, wants to build something. Since his building skills are not up to aircraft levels, I decided to get him a car. I knew that he would love the Tamiya Fast Attack Vehicle, so I ordered him one for Christmas. Knowing that RC hobbies are twice as fun when you have someone to enjoy it with, I decided that I’d just order myself one too. So that I don’t leave him in the dust, I figured I’d better get something of a similar class… the best choice (for several reasons) appeared to be my old childhood friend, the re-released Tamiya Wild One. With all this being said, I am not a newcomer to the hobby, but I have been away from the RC car scene for quite a while, so forgive me if I miss a point that a more experienced builder may have discussed, or if I goof the terminology here and there. On with the build…
Day 1
When I received the package (this time from Tower Hobbies) the box was exactly as I remembered it. Since my son will probably want me to help him build his car on Christmas day, I figured I better get mine built up and ready to go :-)
2012 Tamiya Wild One
Contents include multiple parts bags, clear lexan body parts, several molded plastic parts sheets, wheels, tires, ESC/BEC, manual, decals, etc… all were nicely packaged. I read another review on this buggy where the builder stated that it could be built in an hour... I didn’t find this to be the case. It could be the fact that I enjoy the building process and was therefore taking my time to do it as well as I could, but even if I were shooting for a quick build, I’d be hard pressed to complete this kit in less than a few hours, and that would be a very aggressive build.
Manual
The first steps instructed how to build the front end.
With the front end completed it was time to build the front shocks. When describing this type of RC car to someone who has never built one, this has always been one of my selling points. I usually say something like, “This isn’t some off the shelf toy… you actually have to build the shocks and drive train!” Most people look at me a bit puzzled, but it was never my intent to confuse… I was usually just trying to point out how detailed and serviceable these things are, which makes them a LOT more fun that those disposable department store models. Back to the shocks… just as I remember, a 3-piece aluminum body with various components requiring assembly in order to build them up.
The piston installed on the rods.
O-ring and rod guides.
With all the components assembled, I filled them with oil and capped them off. Always neat to squish a freshly assembled shock absorber… like, wow, that works pretty good!
With assembly complete, they were installed.
Next assembly was the gearbox… here are the components… pretty simple. I chose to outfit my model with a full set of ball bearings in place of the stock bushings. Ball bearings in the gearbox and wheel hubs… the first upgrade!
Differential installed… a simple planetary gear system.
Counter gear installed. These components require a liberal application of ceramic grease (included). Back in the 80s we were supplied with molybdenum grease… not sure what the difference is from ceramic grease, but none the less it is supplied in the kit.
Gearbox installed in the chassis. One of the major improvements with the 2012 kit is the use of dogbone drive axles. These shouldn’t give any problems.
The standard issue 540 motor is ok. I know there are much better offerings, but for now I’ll be driving the stock motor. The kit includes 15T and 18T pinion gears to choose from.
Rather than showing all of the internals of the rear shocks, which are very similar to the front shocks, I’ll just say… rear shocks built.
Rear shocks installed.
This was the end of the first evening of building. I would have loved to stay up later and continued building like a teenager whose biggest decisions were Cookie Crisp or Captain Crunch? The reality was that it was a work night and at midnight it was a good point to stop. I worked on the build for 4 hours up to this point.
Day 2
The next day I picked up at step 25 in the manual, which was the installation of the radio gear and electronics. I chose to use the simple Futaba T2PH pistol grip radio, which was the replacement for the Magnum Sport. If the Magnum Junior were still available I would have bought one… oh well, the Sport is ok too. I bought the model that came with two servos, not realizing how the ESCs work… yeah, it’s been a while.
As per the instructions, this is the best time to center the servos.
Here you can see the electronic speed control (ESC)/battery eliminator circuit (BEC). For those that may be unfamiliar, that is the thing with the blue and yellow wires connected and the cooling fins on top. I never had an RC car with an electronic speed control. Oh, they had them back in the day, but I could not afford one. What a great improvement over the old mechanical speed controls. And a BEC too! We used to have to charge and carry a 4.8V battery pack in order to supply power to the receiver and servos… but after a while we got crafty and wired our own BECs using 5V/1.5A voltage regulators. That was a nice addition, but it’s even better that they are integrated with the speed control nowadays. Speaking of the speed control… another feature that I’m finding pretty neat is the ability to brake! Back in the 80s we only had forward or reverse. In other words, to slow down or stop generally meant applying reverse polarity to the motor, which usually resulted in a skid or spin out. The braking action of the speed control offers much better control when entering turns or when simply wanting to stop.
Electronics and radio gear installed.
Here is a shot of the bottom of the chassis, which shows the battery compartment.
I failed to get a photo of the lexan parts as they were received in the package, but here they are after I cut them out. These are the driver and body panels.
Starting to paint the driver. Using water based paint and a paint brush to apply.
Painting the body. I used water based paints with my airbrush to apply the black and then a small heat gun to accelerate the drying time. The paint jobs on these lexan bodies always looks stellar once the protective film is peeled away… painting the inside gives it a deep gloss look and protects the paint from scrapes and dings.
Driver installed.
Body panels with decals applied.
Shot from the rear.
Shot from the front.
Overall I was really impressed with the quality of the components and I thoroughly enjoyed the build. The manual was just as I remembered, very clear with highly detailed illustrations and parts lists. I left out a couple of construction topics, like building the wheels, but they are pretty uneventful. Total build time was 11 hours. I’m sure that some could have done it faster, but as I stated earlier… I was enjoying the process. I think a first time builder would require at least 10 hours to do it well, and maybe more, but building, tuning and maintaining is part of the fun. These cars are great not only for the hours of fun that they provide in the dirt, but for the mechanical and electrical principals that they teach. For someone that is interested in their first RC car, I would fully recommend the Wild One. There are tons of cars to choose from, and while many of them can run circles around this car, some are much more complicated and expensive. There are several others in this class that are probably of the same skill and experience level, but this is the one that I can vouch for since it is one that I have experience with. The straightforward construction and fun operation give the Wild One high marks in my book. Again, I’m not comparing this to the high end stadium or street racers… apples and oranges. This is simply a great looking and fun to drive RC buggy for the beginner to intermediate modeler.
Performance notes… steering and handling are good. The stock tires will skid somewhat easily on asphalt or concrete, but lock up pretty good on grass and dirt. Using the Duratrax 6 cell, 7.2V/2500mA battery pack, the 540 motor pushes this buggy along at maybe 20mph using the 18T pinion gear. I prefer to drive mostly on grass and dirt, so I like the torque and power of the 15T pinion. The Wild One is a blast to drive.
Hope you enjoyed my write up!
