Raman

iTrader: (91)

Agree... There is a way to save a little bit when buying Tamiya bodies!

Tamiya sells bodies as sets (body, decals/masking, h parts (grill mirrors etc) or just body by itself.

Tamiya body sets usually cost more because of royalty to the brand and royalty to sponsor decals. If you don't care much for the decals, you can avoid buying the body sets and just buy the body by itself.

monkeyracing

iTrader: (10)

I suppose this points out the split between two of the reasons to buy a particular brand of body. There's a line between style and function and, for me, that lines moves around based on price. I love the looks of the Tamiya Alfa Giulia. It is, in my opinion, just about the best looking mini shell ever produced. But, I've got to look at it from a strictly racing perspective, heavily skewed by how many bodies I'll go through in a season.

The way I drive (read: crash) I can't spend $45 a pop for a shell, no matter how great it looks. I might be able to talk myself into it, if I wanted to make one a shelf queen, but even my shelf queen came in at under $15. (Blitz Jazz. Club buy. Full pop would've been $20-ish)

Anyway, my concerns are shells that are affordable, work well and don't look completely ridiculous. EG: Tamiya shells looks great and work well, but are pricey. Colt shells (many of them) look silly, don't work but are cheap. HPI shells look pretty good, work well, were cheap, but are now unobtanium. Blitz shells look good, work well and are cheap.

Besides all of that, it's a tiny car whizzing by very quickly. Who's looking at mold lines and livery?

Raman, where can I buy just the shells? Tamiya USA can't sell to us Canucks and the Canadian distributor is useless.

Raman

iTrader: (91)

I'd be willing help you with TamiyaUSA and forward them to you. Let me know.

Otherwise, your best bet would be one of the shops in Far East like Banzaihobbies, Stella or RCMart. Unfortunately the shipping of bodies is not cheap either.

By the way that Alfa Guilia grill works well to as a bumper and saves the body. Lol. My present body looks like a season vintage racer. Prior to last race I shoe gooed a piece of lexan to right front fender / front clip.. Was basically missing. It's ready for battle again.

Something odd though happened when I cleaned the body with simple green. The side windows developed cracks. I must have mixed some two cleaning products I should not have.

Raman

iTrader: (91)

Also have you checked http://www.tqrcracing.com to see if they ship to Canada?

They have great prices and service

Qatmix

Hi guys, quick question.

Do the rear hubs of a M03 fit the M05?

Thanks

monkeyracing

iTrader: (10)

Yes. Also, lower control arms, rear uppers, axles, gears, diff, rear body mounts, front C hubs and uprights.

Qatmix

Brilliant, thanks for that. I want to use the Plastic rear hubs with 2 degrees not the blue aluminium ones for the M05, as I cant see the point at putting the weight out on the arms unless necessary.

eR1c

iTrader: (2)

Raman,

I agree with you on almost every point.

I bought two I loved them so much. Ended up selling one that was still in the kit, sold for 2x what I paid for it! This was my first HPI purchase and my last. I loved the Cup Racer for its scale looks (bodies, wheels, and accessories ...even disc brakes!). The chassis's were really nice too in my opinion, much nice than the Tamiya chassis's.

However, they only produced the CR'r line for like 3 years. That is horrible customer service in my opinion. The kits continually sold out from all the online retailers, as do the bodies ...in fact the Porsche body's regularly sell for upwards of $60 on ebay and even more on Amazon. So not sure why they discontinued the line? Maybe sales weren't that great??? HPI discontinued all support parts for the CR soon after they discontined the kits. As a customer I don't like that. For that reason i'll never purchase another HPI kit or RTR again.

Associated and Tamiya in comparison make parts compatible between vehicles in the same lineage and seem to continue to evolve cars rather than kill them. I love that a Tamiya M03-06 share many similar parts.

A huge reason why I buy a car is both for quality and performance, but also support from the manufacturer and 3rd party vendors.

niznai

I think you're one of very few people who liked the CR chassis. Most people thought it was rubbish. Which perhaps explains why it didn't last long in production.

Let me know if you want one, my LHS has one on the shelf. All up with postage to the US, will perhaps land around 300$.

KA2AEV

iTrader: (1)

Jim, where are the blitz bodies available?

monkeyracing

iTrader: (10)

Probably best to do a search for "Blitz RC Jazz". Should bring up some good results. RC Mushroom might be a good start.

EDIT: Just remembered you're in the US. If you have a local shop that sells Serpent, Arc or Novarossi, see what they can do. They use the same distributor, Desoto Racing. They're the US link for Team Titan. They don't list the Blitz bodies on their site, but of they can get everything else, these shouldn't be an issue.

KA2AEV

iTrader: (1)

Thanks Jim, will do

Raman

iTrader: (91)

The people that thought the CR was rubbish are the samones that think the m chassis is junk. Now that the m chassis is 3 generations in, they have take notice.

The CR was a pretty good racer out of the box, handled well. If it went onto a second generation, it would have done really well.

whitrzac

iTrader: (97)

The M-chassis is junk, that's the point of it though...

It's like taking your rot-box car to the autocross, you just don't care what happens, but your going to have fun ether way

niznai

That was the downunder mini mafia, a bunch of people with more expertise under their belt than all the CR kits sold worldwide. Gave it a rather scathing review. You might still find it on the interwebs.