I really enjoy my $500 Asiatam Heng Longs, but must see for myself what all the fuss is over the Tamiyas. I'm very tempted to just drop the $275 for Tamiya electronics in my KV, but it would be nice to build a kit from scratch. Make my $$$ go a bit further.

So is the only metal on a Tam Panther the bathtub? My biggest hangup is dropping $700 to throw away anything plastic below the fenders and then replacing it with really expensive metal parts. Why are 3rd party metal parts so much more for the same dang thing that you buy for an HL?