They have been trying to release this tank for years now. I'm sure it will get delayed like the Crommy and the Merkava.

https://www.hooben-shop.com/collections/1-16-rc-tanks/products/hooen-1-16-german-leopard2a4-l2a4-main-battle-tank-rtr-6608

Their Abrams and Leopard 2A4 were shown more than 5 years ago. As it has been with the rest of their products, seeing it on their webpage, perched on their factory roof, or displayed in hobby trade shows aren’t guarantees that they would hit the market anytime soon.

I'm just as skeptical of Hooben as you are, but they do seem to be putting out product lately. Whether they are good or bad is in the eye of the beholder.

That being said, I would love for them to prove me wrong and deliver the Cromwell, Merkava and 2A4 in the next year or two. (or decade. Sorry, couldn't resist!).

As my sig shows, I have a Hooben T-55, and with some work its one of the tanks in my collection I like the most that I'd just take it off the shelves and put it next to my work desk so I can look at it as I work from home, but its also one of my most expensive tanks as I had bought both Clark and eventually Tamiya electronics for it, in order to get it running in a way I was familiar with. However the patchy spare parts support means I run it very sparingly.





The gearbox shaft failed, and I rummaged in my tomb of deceased transmissions to find a Tamiya shaft that would fit, before I even tried contacting Hooben.

My T-55A is in pieces right now as I figure out how to fix the boggled mess it was when I bought it. Worked on it a little this weekend. It came with an IBU2 Pro in it when I bought it, but I'm not sure I'm going to stay with that as I don't have any other IBU controlled tanks.

If you're not going to use the IBU I'll take it off your hands if it's a reasonable price. But first I need to know if the board is blue or green. If it's blue I don't want it.

I'm honestly curious how they make it affordable at this price point and with this set of features. it seems the metal hull is the style that Heng Long is using for their "metal hull" tanks you can get through folks like toucan-hobby: CNC machined side hull plates and then those are joined together with what practically feels like a sheet metal lower tub. I'm not sure how I feel about that design - it doesn't really create the weight I'd hope for and doesn't seem as rigid as I'd ideally like. hopefully the torsion bar system is better than what HL is using for their metal hull tanks too, because the HL system is absolutely junk and has left me with a T-90 I just can't even use lol. still haven't figured out what to really do about that.

I'd like to see Hooben succeed especially since they are giving us hulls and variety no one else is producing, but they seem to be missing the mark on a few quality metrics that I think would be important to focus on (like gearboxes). seeing them add bushings to the wheels is good, seeing them actually trying to make the hulls at least somewhat metal is good, and seeing them producing realistic suspension systems is great. but gosh i'm paranoid. even with the recent improvements to the T-55A compared to earlier edition kits (which I remember as especially gnarly 5-8 years ago now?). it would also be nice if they had spare parts availability like Heng Long - which has become one of their strengths, since there are so many places and so much stock of spares to use when things inevitably break on these machines.

what a complex and messy hobby we have, lol

Why would you not like the henglong torsion suspension. It has two settings and I think is quite good. Their Abrams is way better riding then the buckboard Tamiya Abrams.

yes we can hold out hope for a better product from hooben, I ordered a Merkava so I have my fingers crossed.
but what they need to do is sell parts. And so far they say to contact your dealer. Try to go through them they just don’t want to deal with it.

I have the HL metal hull on my T-72 and love it, but mine also has metal tracks, metal wheels, metal idlers, and metal sprockets. It definitely isn't light and mine has been the best handling tank in my collection so far. I'm running it with the TK-6.0 electronics at the moment. I did have to add a few washers to the front idlers to get them to line up exactly, but that was no big deal. If it isn't as rigid as you like you can always add bracing to it, but I haven't seen a need for that on mine. And yes I am derailing my own thread...

Sent you a PM.

the HL torsion bars for me have collapsed and given in, so that on one side of my tanks chassis if you apply any pressure to the wheels it "pops" loose and now that side of the vehicle sits at a lower height than the other. the suspension arms screw into the bit that holds the actual end of the torsion bar, and it's the torsion-bar-holder bit that "pops" on the arm because the threading isn't good enough to hold it still. i'm wondering if i can just metal epoxy them together, but if it goes wrong again i'm really up a creek without a paddle. maybe whatever you have is different or actually works, but mine has been outright broken from the start :/ (this is getting into thread derail zone, though...)

agree otherwise on parts though. being rebuffed is never fun. i really do hope these new tanks stick the landing, because it could revitalize the market for hooben parts. i wanted to find some upgrades for my future T-55A build, like a metal lower hull stiffening plate from DKLM, but it's out of manufacture now so I'm effectively out of luck.

that's what mine is as well. i even ordered better dual-link tracks to replace the single link, but the broken suspension arms / torsion bar holders means i just can't actually drive or use the darn thing. it's rather unfortunate. otherwise the parts on the vehicle are very high quality, and mine even has that cool "red eye" system and the nicest gearboxes that HL makes (not the dual flow drive though). it appears that hooben is using cnc machined gearboxes like those HL ones now though, and if so that'll be a SIGNIFICANT increase in quality that i think will help them a lot. especially if we can find drive axle support bearings to avoid the tragic bent drive axle problem....

Ah I got ya, I did not catch that was a metal hull henglong that the torsion bars failed on. That makes sense.

“Why would you not like the hen long
torsion suspension. It has two settings and I think is quite good. Their Abrams is way better…”


HL Abrams with Tamiya DMD/MFU.

Same model with TBU mounted.

Number 2 HL.

Number 2 HL.

Number 3 HL.

Tamiya Abrams.

Tamiya Abrams.

Like the HL Abrams, it is good to go out of the box and fun to modify, paint and IR run. The Tamiya Abrams is a good runner, a little to fast in my opinion, but fun to build. Still HL has a winner with their Abrams. So far 3 HL Abrams and two Tamiya Abrams in my past and present motorpool.

Built the Hooben Elephant a number of years ago and what a crappy kit. It looked good though when finished. Sold it on immediately. I will wait and see as to the interesting Hooben RC tanks coming to market and what the reviewers say including Rich Johnson’s report(s).

John

Only issue with the Hooben CNC gearboxes is that they never list the shaft lengths or the speed of the gearbox on the sites to buy them. At least with the Heng Long version it's easy to find either the slow or fast versions with the right motor locations (HL or ML), and the shaft length.

As far as the T-55 parts go, Christin has the chassis braces you are looking for: https://www.ludwigs-hobby-seite.de/t-55.html.

Do your torsion bars on your T-90 metal chassis look like mine as shown below? Just curious.

Yeah, I do agree - it's a continued trend of not making the identification of spare or replacement parts easy, which has me a little wary. I wish it felt like there was an easier way to give feedback to Hooben, and that they listened a little better. I genuinely want them to succeed, and all vendors/manufacturers in this space to succeed - it's a niche hobby with not a lot of players in it, and each one has value! That being said

Tremendous thanks for that T-55 parts link! That's exactly the part I was looking for, among several others. Relieved to know it's still something I can find, because I was convinced I was just straight out of luck. Even better is to see that there's a whole-tub stiffening system that looks like it'll add a hefty chunk of weight alongside really making that thing rigid, if not even more difficult to fit everything inside (but hey, who doesn't like a good challenge?). I wish my German wasn't so rusty at this point, I would probably have had an easier time browsing Christin's site and finding those parts already...

Deleted the picture just to save some room but - yeah! That's what my setup is like. I actually looked back last night and only one of my remaining suspension arms is still exhibiting issues. I gave that some metal epoxy, but the threads are so stripped that I couldn't remove the torsion bar chuck/holder from the suspension arm.... so I had to mix up some metal epoxy, then use some hobby knives to press the epoxy goo into the joint as best as I could. I'm letting it cure for 24 hours before putting any weight on it, but I am not confident it'll hold. I think for the 2 others I also had exhibiting this behavior I was able to remove the chuck from the arm, exposing the threads - I then applied metal epoxy to those threads, quickly screwed things back together, and then aligned them properly so the suspension had the right amount of "lift". Those seem to be holding quite well still, which makes sense given that getting epoxy on the threads means a LOT of surface area to grab on (and it's proper metal epoxy, so it'll hold well assuming it's applied right and fully cured).

on the original topic - might try my luck with my work's reimbursement policy on hobby expenses (a yearly account of a set amount) and see if I can't throw a Hooben vehicle on backorder. problem is that I plan to move soon, so I'll have to find someone with a more permanent residence that I can have things shipped to. worst case scenario it takes a number of months or over a year to ship things, but it's much less of an issue for me when my job is effectively footing the bill, lol. otherwise I was just about to start using that account to try and buy more spare and upgrade parts! the hardest part now is deciding which of these 3 new ones is most worth it. the Merkava and Cromwell would both be fun, and getting the Cromwell would mean I could have a nice lineup of British vehicles if we include the Haya Chieftain and incoming Haya Centurion...

I've ordered from Ludwigs. He's a good guy. I just use Google Translate. Right click anywhere on the page and hit translate to English. He doesn't have a proper store, but speaks English very well. You pretty much have to contact him with what you want and pay for it with Paypal.

Like Tankme said Christian Ludwig is a good guy I've got a few of his kits I just email him about what I'm looking to buy and he emails the total cost with shipping .
Thanks
jimmy

Has anyone ordered this Leopard 2A4? Any input as I would like to get it. Pre-order deadline on Hooben website is 1/1/2022. Price will go up after that. Is this the only place to get it? Thank you! I kinda need to decide soon, lol.

Run away. As far as the eye can see & then some.

I see it now. Thank you on the advice for the newly joined member.

You should read up the Hooben Merkava thread and draw your own conclusions - at over $800 even RTR, there should be some expectations.

Aside from the mentioned Ludwig conversion, Carson of DKLM RC has put out a 2A4 turret kit intended for the Heng Long 2A6, but it lacks the requisite driver hatch conversion parts, or the correct side skirts, which are the major visual components of the conversion.

https://www.dklmrc.com/OKMO_116_Leop..._21499504.aspx

I know I haven't completed my Tamiya/Ludwig 2A4 conversion thread yet, and even then I am not tempted to "just" buy the Hooben, because its very likely to be an $800 shelf queen due to lack of durability. The Tamiya is ten years old and still goes without missing a beat.

He only tells you to run because we're still not sure whether or not you can fly. If you can fly, then fly, little bird, fly, fly away.

Seriously though, Hooben baaaad. No buy Booben.

Well I could not pass this up I've got the one from Cristian Ludwig but this looks very nice .
Thanks
Jimmy