I wouldnt go with a touring car obviously as those cant handle the backyard work. They make Rally cars, basically touring cars with raised suspension and more shock travel, those will not be able to handle the grass however (very very short grass only), only packed dirt really (like a baseball diamond). Depending on the length of the grass, you might be able to get away with a buggy, but I would look into a 1/10 scale monster truck. What better than to chase and run over the neighborhoods kids cars right? The monster trucks out right now can really take a hell of a beating (you should see what my E-Maxx looks like now). It really depends if you want an electric or nitro however. Nitro as i stated above is a real pain in the butt to get into, but once you learn how to do it...its really not that bad. Nitro is loud and may disturb your neighbors. But for the monster trucks, they have a much larger 'fanbase' and market i guess you can say. Their is really only one electric monster truck out right now that is fast. The rest are mainly rock crawlers. Look into the Traxxas E-Maxx, its top-speed is about 24mph stock on a 6-cell battery pack. With 7-cells, it can run about 30mph. If you want more speed than that, be prepared to spend alot of money on it. Rule of thumb, nitro powered vehicles are faster out of the box, and are faster for less money. Electric powered cars have much more speed potential, but your wallet better be ready for the damage. For nitro powered MT's, i believe the slowest one out right now hits 35mph. Others like the T-Maxx (nitro brother of the E-Maxx) hit something like 45mph out of the box. The only problem with the MT's is that very few of them come in a kit form. Actually i believe the only one that does come in kit is the HPI Savage SS (which is a pretty good truck to boot). I would look into these trucks really...

Electric - Traxxas E-Maxx
Nitro - Traxxas T-Maxx, HPI Savage (either the RTR or the SS), Associated Monster GT, XTM Mammoth, Kyosho Mad Armor and Mad Force.

All of those trucks can be pretty expensive (minimum of $350 and up). If you want something a little cheaper, that is still just as good (though sligthly outdated), take a look at the Traxxas Stampede which comes in electric and nitro forms. The electric version can hit some pretty insane speeds with a brushless motor. You can use a similar setup to that i have in my touring car, i have read you can get over 40mph with that motor and speed controller combo. My friend had the Stampede, and i will vouch for its durability, as we really abused that thing and too my knowledge we only broke an a-arm once or twice. Actually now that i think about it, i think the Stampede would be a great starter into the hobby.

As for buying, the only two places online i would buy from are Tower Hobbies and Stormer Hobbies. Tower is usually cheaper because they have many coupon codes every month where you can save anywhere from $10-100 depending on how much you spend initially. Stormer has similar prices, and are very reputable.

www.towerhobbies.com
www.stormerhobbies.com

 

Yeah, I got mine on ebay last year for about $100. I got lucky though, the guy didn't list a lot of the stuff it actaully included. I just kind of stumbled upon it. All that came for the $100 was the chassis, some upgrades, a motor, and a body.

I am not very serious about the whole thing. It's just some fun on the side.

 

i bought a traxxas tmax about 6 months ago, played around with it about 5 times and its really really fast for a 4x4. But its a pain to tune. I spend about 700 on everything and now its just collecting dust in the garage.

 

Just a quick question,. What prevents these things from going past 60-70mph? Is it the tire size or just the overall size of the gearing and engine???

 

I think the main preventing factor is money. The Yokomo GT-4 for example, its advertised to be able to hit 60mph. Out of the box, its top speed is about ~54 mph. With proper gearing, it can hit 60mph. But when you gear it for speed like that...you will experience less than par acceleration, and youll need alot of room to hit that speed. Top speed isnt really important in competitions, its all about the cars setup (same with real racing). Nitro engines are much cheaper to make them go fast, but the electric setups are usually the ones making the speed records. For example, a guy using the same car as the one i have, the Associated TC3 set the car up with a brushless motor and some insane amount of cells, and he topped the car out at 111mph on a race track. I think it really becomes impractical to be going over 50mph, even if your bashing...unless you have a huge wideopen area.

 

I'll admit that going 50-60mph for something that small is crazy but wouldn't it be kick *** to have something that could hit 100 or higher?

 

We got a new Traxxas Stampede off ebay, a guy in SoCal has them there. About $140 shipped, new in box.

 

The primary restriction from the 1/10 guys going 100mph + is the gear ratio, as Techno mentioned. R/C CarAction got a 1/8 over 100mph with a custom made gear set-up. These little cars are require as much maintenance as a 944. At least they do with my buddies. You can bank on something breaking everytime you race.

Here are a couple shots of one of my bodies. Oh yeah, I did see a 1/10 944 body on ebay once. It closed at around $60. Any one know who made it?

 

Here is another