Tramp wrote
Nice, is it a Tamiya? I like RC cars and have always fancied a tank, the Tamiya ones are so expensive though!
No this one was a Taigen Panzer IV, very nice piece of kit, well made, ready to run out of the box (well you need to get some AA's for the remote), lovely air-brush finish as standard, lots of metal components. In some ways they are a steal as they sell for a fraction of the cost of a Tamiya yet have as many functions.
Just to give you a brief list of features;
2.4Ghz Digital remote control system
Metal lower hull, wheels, sprockets, idlers, suspension, tracks, gun barrel
Full remote control - forward/back/left/right/spin, turret rotation, barrel lift/lower, machine gun (lights LED and makes gun noise), cannon fire (shoots BB's up to 25m), recoil on gun fire.
Full sound, including start up, engine, turret rotation, firing etc... engine stop.
Working Headlights
Working Smoke generator to simulate engine exhaust
Now that for me is pretty much all you need. You can even get infra-red battle models (not the Panzer IV) which have an IR fire function, barrel recoil and an IR receiver you plug into the hatch so you can take part in indoor battles.
Best part is the price - the Taigen Panzer IV sells in the UK for ~ £149, compare that with the cost of the Tamiya equivalent which for a full feature kit is £850 and then you have to build it, paint it, add a good remote £150 I should think. To me its a no brainer I can have a battalion of Taigens for the price of the Tamiya and even then there is a good 3rd party market of add-ons like photo-etch and metal components so you can upgrade the Taigens if you really have to 🙂
You can also get Heng Long which are cheaper, but generally don't have the paint jobs and metal components (but are even cheaper - £90 for a Panzer IV), or Torro which are like Taigen based on the Heng Long basic kit but upgraded and air-brushed, they tend to be more expensive at anything up to £500 for a fully featured full metal model)
Here's a listing of the Taigen Panzer IV to whet your appetite and to show I'm not kidding about the price (btw: I paid £89 for mine as it was a store special being a customer return, hence why I had it apart to fix it 🙂)
Taigen Pamzer IV
P.S. Guys - apologies for going off topic, but I had to give Tramp a good reply 🙂
