i say if you're goin to go cheap....then go real cheap lol. i started out with a 1/10th red cat tornado for about $150. probably spent another $80-$100 on upgrades and fixing broken parts, but it was a great experience for my FIRST nitro. i had never ran a nitro car before muchless tried to tune 1. i agree the car was utter crap but at the end of the day i gained a lot of knowledge on nitro RCs and spent less than $300. now im ready to move onto bigger and better things! hyper 9, D8 or ZO1 are in my sights!!