Can't say I crashed the brushed car (sport tuned motor) into anything hard enough the foam bumper couldn't cope with. It took a bit of playing with gearing to do the same with a brushless combo. Thankfully it went into the plastic car first as alloy doesn't bend & CF is rather brittle on hard impact. The wife had a Mugen Seiki MBX6 Eco which was an awesome buggy but didn't do well crashing. You're right to stick with the plastic for obvious reason when well versed in common sense like surensm. Save the money for a decent brushless combo & lipo/balance charger that isn't cheap/nasty Chineese rubbish. I started off with that too, thought it was alright - until I invested in something else wisely.