RC cars - Crawler or Truggy?

[Prawo Jazdy]

I'm looking for a car for a 6yr old. I'm trying to decide which is more entertaining for a child; zooming about/ jumping off things with something like an FTX Tracer, or clambering over bumps and rocks etc with a crawler. We're not blessed with a large garden or loads of public space around us that would make a particularly interesting place to put a Tracer through its paces, but I wonder if the faster car is likely to have appeal for longer.

Experiences or advice welcome!

[Jim Spencer]

Depends what the local scene is like.

Find your local RC Car Clubs - brca.org/clubs - go along to a few, pick the one you like the look of the most, you'll want to buy 2 cars... one each!

[fat80b]

Faced with a similar challenge a few years ago, I went with an FTX comet for the boy. (My requirements were replaceable parts as my lasting memory of an RC car as a kid was it breaking and superglue never managing to quite fix it)


He loved it but it was too quick for him to start with and the battery life is pants. We would go to Office car parks on the weekend which are about the only place it can really zoom around. It isn't great on grass on anything other than a super baked summers day.

Now he's a few years older, it has really come into its own and it gets used nearly every weekend.

The week before last, they were in the street and jumping it off ramps and kerbs and having a great time until the chassis snapped after a heavy impact. No worries - £11 for a new on on eBay and it's back up and running in 3 days time.

(We also have 3 batteries now).

I was tempted to buy another one so that we can run them together.

[Roastie ITR]

Personally I would go for something like the Tracer.

I bought a couple about 18 months ago & they were great cars, especially the ability to limit the speed just by turning a little knob on the controller.

They have seen lots of use and never really broken anything as they are so tough. My 5 year old loves his RC cars so I also bought him a second hand brushed FTX Carnage & he was breaking bits on that nearly every outing.

[Prawo Jazdy]

Thanks for the replies. I realised that the crawlers for the same money as a tracer were all mini ones, and reviews of them were unimpressed. So I’ve ordered a Tracer from Time Tunnel models who seemed to be doing the biggest discount combined with free delivery.

[russy01]

Tracer is what you want, but not from time tunnel

Give me a message next time you want an RC model.

If you go crawler, save for the new TRX4M, anything below it is quite poor imo.