HBX Rival Shaft Driven 4WD

This car was bought of ebay (like 90% of what I own) for $60. It was a complete car with transmitter etc and a spare body.

HBX Rival Shaft Driven 4WD

HBX Rival 4WD, cheap knock-off of a Tamiya TL-01

Even though they are cheap, they are still fine for a first car. The only drawback is that the plastic is more brittle than the Tamiya counterpart. Parts are usually interchangeable, but be careful, I broke the front end of mine and the internals didn’t fit the Tamiya replacement chassis I bought. Swing arms, body mounts etc were fine though.

almost exactly identical chassis to Tamiya TL-01

Cars came with an alternative body

I ended up putting a HPI Pantera body and alloy rims on this. Paint job and decals are based on the mid-70’s Panteras that raced in Europe. The motor was upgraded to an Ezrun brushless, and gives a lot more power.

Updated with new TL-01 chassis, HPI Pantera Body and alloy rims.

The plastic is more brittle!

I am currently working on installing a light system, including pop-up headlights. Both headlights are glued to a brass shaft. I use a micro servo from hobbyking to control the movement and just adjusted the length of the serv connector to get the distance right. I will have to re-think how I mount the hinge to the body though as the glue I used has affected the paint.

pop up lights for Pantera