As you can see the car comes in a box with the classic artwork, instantly making me remember staring at them sitting on the shelves of my local hobby shop. Once you take a look inside the fantastic looking VW shell will jump out at you, along with the gold rims and spiked tyres. So after 30 years I was now finally able to build one :) This updated version promises to be great fun for both beginners and Tamiya R/C kit veterans alike! Next up it's time to fit the steering servo and esc. The kit included esc is the excellent TBLE-02s. It is able to run the included brushed motor, and importantly it can also run a sensored brushless motor if you want to add more speed. When fitting the servo you want it to be straight. I found that my servo lug was catching the bottom part of the frame. I just trimmed it a little and then it slotted in perfectly.

Where possible, the markings from the original model design have been recreated and combined with some newly designed markings. Just got to fit the massive rear bumper and the gold rims and tyres. The tyres are made from a medium stiffness rubber and they have spikes for that extra bite on rough surfaces. The front wheels fit on the axles via some 1150 bearings. The rear wheels are not a standard 12mm hex fitting, but they feel secure on their plastic wheel mounts.

The other plate is attached and you use the long machine threaded screws to bolt it together. This gearbox is then strengthened even more with the rear bumper. The rear axles are next, and I was surprised to find that the kit comes with rear universal drive shafts. This is a great thing as they are much more efficient at putting the power down through the whole suspension range. The monster beetle is a joy to build. Once you've got past the first stage in placing a buch of bits inbetween the chassis sides, the build is a matter of bolting a few parts on in each step. Everything goes together easily, and there is hardly any slop in the moving parts. This is a quality little kit! Aside from all the obviously excellent body details, right down to the silver VW badge on the bonnet, one of the most noticeable features of the Monster Beetle are it’s gold wheels and the introduction of the large, pin spike tyres that it uses. It was the first Tamiya model to use these particular tyres and wheels. They’re quite tall and soft, which means they are quite flabby under hard cornering and a bit bouncy as well. But this is part of the joy of old 1980s R/C cars – big, soft tyres that look great and work best when digging through sand dunes.

I tried to carefully recreate this exact look, when building this model. So I hope it looks pretty close. Replace the rear suspension spring with a slightly softer, or shorter, spring option. This will remove bounce and stiffness from the rear. Make sure the gearbox is as good as you can get it, ask if the diff is working properly, if it crunches, its worn. try to get one with the original shell. blitzer beetle shells are the same, but the nose cone at the front is different. monster beetle shells tend to get battered, and are not the easiest to restore. Dont worry about tyres, new ones are still available as tamiya still makes them. These old videos often used to appear on TV sets in Hobby Shops, as in-store promotion to help tempt customers.

MOTORS

Left: Take a closer look at the complex drivetrain, shown here in this profile view of the chassis. This R/C model assembly kit creates a vehicle which offers an excellent off-road drive. Molded in detailed ABS plastic, its racy body is inspired by customized Volkswagen Beetles, and features exaggerated fenders, a simplified rear end, triple auxiliary lights and more. Metal-plated parts recreate headlights, auxiliary lights and the rear depiction of the engine. The GF-01TR chassis provides a dynamic off-road drive. You can find it in my showroom here: (There are some more posts for it while making progresses, was my beginning here, and I forgot to make a nice build thread out of it)

Every angle of the chassis has something that looks interesting and unconventional. This is one of the great charms of older designs. At the time no one knew what would make a great RC car so all of the designers were trying new things to help pioneer the types of cars that we currently use.

AERO ACCESSORIES

Time to place the plastic core section onto the metal half. Here you have to place the differential spur on top of the steel bevel gear and wiggle it around a little bit, but you do not have to be too precise.