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Since no one here has even put up a picture I guess this is a very rare car?
I wonder why it is that rare though: both the Hot Trick brand and the Raider vehicle were pretty well distributed, and in my eyes this is the most senseful upgrade kit HT made?

Probably the rarest of the rare now that I've seen an A-Main Bullet chassis.

Only parts I've seen pictures of for the California Raider are the arms and top deck. I've actually tried drawing a mock up of the arms....which are the same for the Front and Rear. They'd be the same length of the stock Raider rears but swept back like (but not as much) the stock fronts. The result would increase the Raiders front track and wheelbase.

Hot Trick kits really made a lot of design sense but they also really messed up a lot of key elements that ruined their usefulness.

Phin wrote:Hot Trick kits really made a lot of design sense but they also really messed up a lot of key elements that ruined their usefulness.

Such as how the outer hinge pins were captured in half-grooves by screws holding down little washers on top of the half-grooves. That was an afterthought more than a design element. It would've made much more sense to simply drill holes through the middle of the aluminum and nylon-sleeve them to fit 3mm pins.

Coelacanth wrote:

Phin wrote:Hot Trick kits really made a lot of design sense but they also really messed up a lot of key elements that ruined their usefulness.

Such as how the outer hinge pins were captured in half-grooves by screws holding down little washers on top of the half-grooves. That was an afterthought more than a design element. It would've made much more sense to simply drill holes through the middle of the aluminum and nylon-sleeve them to fit 3mm pins.

Yup the captured hinge pins weren't great but they were designed that way to keep the aluminum arms only 2mm thick and light weight. Weight savings were a major concern back then and the arms would've had to be about four times as thick, and heavy, to surround a 3mm pin and nylon sleeve. Where they messed up with that plan though is at 2mm thick arms not being strong enough for an off-road RC buggy.


Hot Trick could essentially be summed up using the Top Gear motto: Ambitious but rubbish.

The hinge pin situation has always both bugged and interested me. Its an easy way to make hinge pin location without having to use extra fixturing for a slow and in accurate drilling process.

Ive wondered how well the slot with washers idea really worked. Pretty good untill it crashed?

honestly, I have never seen a hinge pin pull the screw out, but I have seen bent hinge pins still held in place. It's definitely not the greatest system ever, but it seemed to work for them

Thanks for contributing guys, but does anybody have a clue as to why this specific conversion seems so much rarer than their other ones?
I'd love to see some more pics, or perhaps read a review?

I don't know of a single one that has been discovered, nor have I heard of anyone that has ever owned one.... So yeah, rare! I suspect those with Raiders didn't see the potential lol

There is very little outside that ad and listings for the California Raider in old Tower Hobbies catalogs that prove the car existed. The only guess as to why it wasn't as popular as the other Hot Trick conversions is that 1988 was pretty close to the end of the company's existence. '88 was also about when RC design started to get solidly defined by what worked for racing....so people would more likely choose to buy an RC10, JRX2 or Ultima rather than spend the money trying to upgrade an entry level car with weak hop-up parts.

That makes sense. Pitty though because (altough just based on the picture above) it looks like HT was learning from the design evolution too and started heading in a better direction.

Any way, maybe thought for a future project: double deck chassis for a raider. Might be a better idea than the double deck falcon I've had in the back for so many years already

http://www.tamiyaclub.com/pictureframe.asp?t=n&id=img3729_05122007043244_1.jpg http://www.tamiyaclub.com/pictureframe.asp?t=n&id=img3729_05122007043244_3.jpg found these on the tamiya club site

I've tried a few ways to get in contact with the owner of those parts but never got a response. He's got a membership here too but it's been 4 years since his last activity.


The weak point on the HT Raider design is probably the front piece that the top deck mounts to. I'm thinking it's a C or Z shaped bracket that's screwed onto the front kickup, and, given the alum HT used, it probably didn't hold up well to a crash, or hard landing. That bracket looks like it is also a mounting point for the front arms...so when it did bend that was for the front suspension.

Here is my post from 4 years ago at Tamiyaclub:

http://www.tamiyaclub.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=56094&hl=%2Bcalifornia+%2Braider

I got the sound of crickets in response .

The pics you linked are great.

I think the real story is the Hot Trick timeline. The Raider was probably near the end of Hot Trick & there useful existence. Not near as many parts made for the Raider as the others. Same could be said for Thorp Mfg. parts for the Raider.

Thanks for the contributions guys!