VW Beetle baja nitro 4 wheel drive

[the13bats]

Today started okay, then heading into the Toxic Hell drive thru so Tina could get her quesadilla fix a good sam says "hey buddy, you got a flat."
So it had enough air to get home and do surgery, a big old bolt right in the tread.
A new tire is out of budget so I hit the bats cave, a 2k ft of organized chaos to hunt tire plugs, tools and cement, hour of hunting for 10 min repair.

But a bit of a perk, I find another unopened box of RC junk from the move, and in it was the kyosho baja beetle (field)

Beetle01

Beetle02

Beetle03

Beetle04

Beetle05

I left the patina (dust) right on it for the photo shoot.
Its in pretty good overall shape and ran very little, the front wheel hexes are wallowed a little.
One front bumper mount has a crap repair with contact glue looking like chewing gum where JB could have made the repair far better and not been an eyesore hackjob.

The paint is okay but like many early detailed bodies thin places cracked, bummer.

These were a bit odd, nitro powered (this one has replacement non stock engine) yet they had reverse, and to be more eccentric it has an engine spun belt (rubber band) engine cooling fan, (might help to clock head with air flow)

Forgot to mention, this one has an era correct tower hobbies radio.

I will likely place this one on the trading block, but its pretty cool.

[XLR8]

Yes it is very cool.
And yet another Kyosho model I never knew existed.
You must have one impressive bat cave
The cooling fan is very neat but it seems extra special that it also has reverse.
Approximately what year do you think this car was made and is the body original to this model

[the13bats]

Yes, the body is original kyosho for it but I cant say it came on it.
There was I believe a truck body that went on this same base.
I've ran into a lot of the old really crisp detailed bodies being just too thin in places.

Seems it came out early 80s they stopped a year or two and came back out.
I am guessing that a lot of these were trashed slamming from forward to reverse and back.

Thanks for the kind words about my bat cave.
I was always drawn to the weird stuff.

Covid19 pretty much put a stand still to both my wife's and my professions so I'm killing time with hobby stuff I can putz with for free.

[Lowgear]

You're way off on the time frame. There was never anything like that in the 80s. This version, and it's variants are from the mid to late 90s! It's from the Kyosho QRC (Quick Reverse Clutch) series. They were sold with various bodies such as a Dodge pickup truck called the Wild Dodge Ram or a Snake Bite monster truck body for example.

[the13bats]

Times and dates are not my high point and sure mid 80s does seem too early for a buggy of this engineering,

By 85 my music, band club work had exploded, we booked pretty much all the 80s bands, by the early 90s things had gone insane, i had bought an AYK buggy, to avoid the sand scorcher, rough rider "me too" lemmings, i guess with the exacting amount of loctite fabbing and valium AYK wasnt too bad.

I recall when rc10 came out, i thought the gold was just gross and never warmed up to it, the bone colored parts just accented the ugly to me, and the arms looked unfinished, but i did want to build one and the engineering drew me in, however the aftermarket parts world is what really made rc10s my favs, a box stock gold pan 10, big yawn.

What year did all that happen? Idk mid late 80s....My umbrella reply,

So if someone asked me when did you first book NIN or when did you put Santana out at the tupperware center im likely gonna give you my deer in headlights look and say, idk, like late 80s early 90s
Same thing with what year did you buy this or R&D for that,
Nope, dates not my high point.