It is a Tamiya Saint Dragon (58083). It has the same chassis as the Tamiya Madcap (58082) and shares a lot of components with the Nissan King Cab (58081) and Toyota HiLux (58086). The chassis is actually based on the Tamiya Astute (58080), but much more low end. Still, it has a good gearbox design and accepted many of the Astute hop-up parts, which we'll see later. I do not believe it was a very popular model, as the body style was very polarizing. The Madcap was much more popular here in the US since it was a traditional 2WD buggy. Here is the box top picture from the original auction to show what I mean. The body was based on a Japanese manga comic.
This was "new built" which means it was put together but never ran, according to the seller. When I got it, it was obvious that it was never run, however the previous owner had made some major changes to the front suspension arms in order to fit some longer shocks. They had also used some interesting parts to act as wheel bearings. Basically, one front wheel had "bearings" made from a hex-shaped nut with no threads and the other front wheel had a Tamiya plastic bearing and a 5x10mm Kyosho bearing which was too small (Tamiya bearings are 5x11mm). Quite odd.
The front shocks were sort of a hybrid between the stock friction bodies and longer shock shafts to reach out to the ends of the arms. A hinge pin made out of another shock shaft was used on both front arms to mount the shocks and the hub carrier.
The front suspension arms were cut in order to make room for the longer shocks, which effectively ruined the arms and prevented their use in the restoration.
In the back, black oil shocks were mounted instead of the stock red friction shocks.
The wheels and tires are brand new. Rear tires are still available from Tamiya, however the front tires are hard to find. I am lucky to have these in perfect condition.
The ball diff was extremely tight and did not feel good at all. After taking it apart and cleaning all of the parts, I discovered the cause of the tightness.
This ball race was deformed, probably from heat. I'm not sure exactly how it happened since the car has never been run, but most likely someone held one rear wheel while the other spun under power from the motor, and the friction inside the ball diff melted the race.
I wasn't planning on using the stock gearing anyway, so I didn't care much about it.
The body is actually in good shape. It is untrimmed, and has damage to some parts, but none of the damage is located on the body itself, just the pieces that will get cut off. Very lucky! The decals, however, were wrinkled, bent, punched-through, and not really in good enough shape to be useable, so I bought a new set. I also bought a new set of front suspension arms, a rear shock X parts tree to replace some missing rear shock parts, the rod bag to replace some missing shock springs, the hinge pin bag to place missing shock shafts and the front outer hinge pins, some missing screws, and some hop-up parts.
I also got a set of front (50519) and rear (50520) CVA oil shocks in order to provide better performance than the stock red friction shocks.
For the restoration, I'm going to completely disassemble this chassis down to the individual screws and parts, give everything a thorough cleaning, and then build from the manual like new, but using the hop-up parts shown above, plus full ball bearings, a Tamiya TEU-104BK electronic speed control, and an Epic Paradox 27T motor with a 19T 48P pinion. For now, I'll use the stock red shocks in order to give it the box art look, and when I run it I'll switch over to the CVA oil shocks.
I am planning on painting this box art, so the body will be all white with the stock decals. I may also get a reproduction Madcap body and wing in order to have an alternative body style, but I'm not really sure about that just yet.
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