New Mini R/C at Walmart

[Havok]

I went to walmart today to get some attachments for my dremel, and decided to see what they had in the R/C section.

Besides the usual stuff, I found a new mini-r/c. Its made by Awesome RC and marketed by Universal Studios.
They call it Fast and Furious, all 5 of the cars are modeled after the first and second movies....Green Eclipse, Gold 350Z, Reddish Orange Supra...etc.
heres the specs from the package:

First, the package looks like a bottle of NOS, cylinder with a fake knob on the end.

1/64 scale
2 speed with "Turbo" button
30 ft range in open areas
2 frequencies....49 or 27mhz
6-way controller
6 minute charge/20 minute run time

It claims to have the longest run time of all mini rcs.

It takes 3 batteries in the controller and has a seperate charging base which also takes 3 batteries( cant remember if they're AA or AAA)

The wheels look like crap, small and possibly plastic...they look a little smaller than fronts on a BCG.
Inside the car it looks like it has a dual cell already in the car, which would make sense given the 6min charge/20min run.
Has anyone else seen these?

I was going to get one just to take it apart, but they cost $17.44 +tax...and I didnt have enough $$ with me.
I'm thinking I'll get one just to find out what the dual cell is, and if its useable....

[payaso]

I saw those at Walmart today also... They look like crap to me..


silla

[Havok]

I just talked to a guy I work with...hes helping me fix one of my real cars.
He told me he got 2 of those mini rcs like mine for his kids, one Eclipse and one 350z.I saw them today and only told you guys about it...weird..... He has seen me play with my Zip with the 2f2f 34,000rpm and my BCG Impreza with a 2.2 and 9.86:1 gears.
He says his are faster than mine, and his daughter played with it while watching a movie a couple nights ago. Says she had it spinning around and around on a paper plate and shooting it off of the plate. Says it went like 5-6 feet from the plate before landing.

I agree they look like crap....but I gotta know what those batteries are and check out the motor....

[sessiz10]

There's a thread by azimov about these cars in the zip zap forums.

[Demon666]

i read this in the zip thread about a week ago and the pic over there show that these cars have duell cells stock i can wait till my local wal mart gets them in i need to see if there any new mods becouse the bits and zip have gotton quite boring.

[nrmcj]

=\ imho, poo on F&F... if anyone does up a nice, metallic green car with a bodykit and big wing, they're gonna get labelled as an F&F wannabe... time to get an F&F decal, cut it in half, and stick it upside down in my car's window..

however, i kinda wanna see these things... do they have nice bodies? (haha)

[AJFoot]

Originally posted by Pie

however, i kinda wanna see these things... do they have nice bodies? (haha)

I got one of these, a Lancer EVO. I don't remember what other body styles they had. This one was the coolest IMHO.

[nrmcj]

hmm how does it run? looks.. .ehhhh =\, i'll take bits over that... although the decal job and bodykit are something new... any body experts wanna try grafting that front bodykit to the front of a bit evo?

[AJFoot]

These things run great!(at least this one does) I would say this car stock, would beat any stock Bit or clone and even some 2.8-3.8 swapped/boosted Bits.
Comes with dual cells and a fast motor, but I haven't taken the body off yet. It has a tiny screw holding the back and a tab in front. It's pretty close to being actual scale, however I think this particular body is strectched to fit the chassis and from what I can tell the body fits the pan-like chassis very tight all around, so it feels solid- maybe a bit heavy though. body detail is pretty good and the grafix are pretty good looking too. The head and tailights are painted, but it has clear windows.
Fast, and turns well. Speed is great - it goes from fast to alot faster with the turbo/boost button.
The only real drawback is the wheels - they're too small and with the torquey motor they tend to spin real easy. Also I don't think any of the parts are directly compatible with Bits, although it looks like the same type of components as far as how everything is laid out.

Bottom Line: A dang fine micro RC car that's in a class of its own. Lets just hope they come out with something besides Fast and Furious cars.

[AJFoot]

Oh yeah, I don't think you would be able to take the front clip/body kit off this and mount it on a Bit Lancer without alot of work- its too narrow.
And I should mention that even though this thing is real fast and the back wheels spin alot its still very controlable , but still pretty easy to flip. Range seems good on this 49Mhz, but it does't get as much as the packaging claims. Also doesn't get the 20 min run time they claim either, but I can run it boosted for atleast 5minutes. Haven't tried double charging it.

[BabyKiller]

is the motor changable thats my main concern

[jerm781]

I have the eclipse and this is by far the worst micro I own its fast with the turbo but the back of the car keeps hopping up and down and it gets no good traction. Maybe mine has bad tires or something plus I couldnt get it to go straight. Its nice for a collector but other than that I would leave it in the store.

[Buzzbait]

So I got a couple of those Wal-Mart Awesome RC cars last night. The play is pretty disappointing straight out of the box. The small size of the wheels makes them a giant limitation. The cars tend to spin and turn uncontrollably, even on short pile carpet. The wild amount of understeer just adds to the problem. Linoleum is out of the question with these cars. The controller doesn’t help either. I never appreciated how much work went into the positioning of the turbo button on a booster bit until I tried one of these Awesome RC cars. My hands are incapable of steering the Awesome car and pushing the turbo button at the same time.

The charger is also hard to use if you have grown-up sized hands. Trying to get the car in and out of the canister is a real hassle. Unfortunately, the charging contacts on the Awesome make it impossible to use it with a Bit or ZZ charger. If that weren’t enough, the sticky tires and low riding chassis make the car a magnet for hair. Both my wife and I spent most of the evening trying to pick hair out of the non-removable wheels. What a pain.

On the plus side, my 27MHz car has mind boggling range to it. The range is even better than my Epoch, and tons better than my Bits, clones and Zips. The 49MHz Awesome car, oddly enough, has lousy range. It only goes about 6 feet before stuttering. If you get a good one, you get …….. awesome range.

Another plus is the wicked speed. These little cars actually compete with my dual cell hybrid MSPro/ZZ. The Awesome cars are true dual cell with the speed to prove it. If the cars were capable of getting enough traction to handle the speed, the cars would be pretty amazing. If you think your single cell Bit with a 3.8 motor is fast, you’ve got another thing coming. An Awesome car will smoke anything less than a dual cell Bit, and by a large margin.

All in all, the Awesome cars appear to be a bad deal some someone who wants to get a car and just use it. But they are a dream come true for those of us who love to modify our rides. You get HO scale interchangeability, a turbo button, and dual cell power out of the box. You just have to rip apart the charger to make the charging base more accessible, pop the controller parts into a better designed controller box, and massively overhaul the wheels on the car. With that done, I bet the Awesome would be fantastic. Personally, I prefer my hybrid MSPro/ZZ to what the Awesome is even capable of being, but the hybrid is the more expensive option. Still……. The are an awful lot of cool HO scale bodies out there, that just may make the effort worthwhile.

[nrmcj]

hmmm.. sounds like these things are pretty good on speed... o.O"

im still waaayyy against F&F, but maybe, just maybe, they'll ship these up to canada, and if their supra body doesnt look nasty (like the ZZ supra) then i might buy one...

but if it doesnt come here, well then,, less money spent for me
(i also wanna see how this thing can stack up to someone's 4 cell ZZ...)

and thanks for the info everyone!

* 1 thing to note tho.. the wing on that evo looks like it was made out of play-dough! haha

[AJFoot]

I'm going too put some bigger wheels on the rears, so I hope that fixes the wheels spinning loose. I'm just going to leave the tiny front wheels stock. It won't be pretty.