Unless you're averse to building a kit I'd recommend you go with a Tamiya Kit. It'll be fun for you two to build it together, and it's a good fit for your price range along witha basic$50 controller/servo setup from a Co. like Futaba. Tamiya's run great, look great, and can handle almost anything. From my experience they are CRAZY tough, easy to fix and hop up, and most instances where people think a Tamiya could be tougher are extreme cases where someone is driving them off ramps fromtheir garage roofs or something really stupid like that. A Tamiya DF-02 would probably be perfect.