I'm going to side with John on the whole basher thing. Tamiya makes great buggies and if that's what's wanted then they are a great choice. But for a small kid and pure bashing I'd have to choose a Traxxas MT or slash/rustler/stampede for the cost/performance.

I have 3 tamiya buggies and while I really enjoyed building them and they are very tough for buggies they won't survive the type of construction yard bashing that a MT will. The biggest issues are the low ground clearance and exposed front shocks.

I can't remember the thread but someone on here jumped a buggy off a 6' jump, landed wrong, broke it, then asked "what did I do wrong?". Well... you jumped a buggy off a 6' jump onto hard, flat ground....