Tamiya Neo Scorcher (TT-02B)

When Tamiya announced the Neo Scorcher (58568) in early 2013, I fell in love with the shape and styling of the body and the blue and white colors of the paint and decals.

Tamiya Neo Scorcher (Picture from TamiyaUSA. © Tamiya, Inc.)

I later learned (from Tamiya's own description) that the Neo Scorcher was inspired from the vintage Terra Scorcher (58075) and the decals were based on that kit's design.

The Neo Scorcher is based on the new TT-02 chassis platform from Tamiya, specifically the TT-02B (Buggy) variant.  The "B" version has longer suspension arms, long CVA dampers and larger bumpers than the TT-02, plus buggy-specific off road wheels and tires and a buggy body and wing to match.

The TT-02 chassis is designed for entry-level bashing and racing, not competition.  It has plastic, non-adjustable suspension links, plastic dogbones and drive hubs (with metal shafts molded into them), plastic (glass filled) diff gears, and a plastic center driveshaft to send power to the front wheels.  All of this plastic makes it sound "cheap", but honestly the quality and strength of the plastic is higher than you'd expect and the molding quality is excellent.  Sure, it's still a low-end chassis, but made to take abuse and keep going.  It also supports many hop-ups to increase performance.  All accounts so far from people that have built it say that it's a solid chassis, fun to build and drive, and it's tough.

The box does not have the traditional styling with the big size and large colorful artist's rendition of the vehicle on the cover like you might expect.  Instead, it's similar in design to the DF-03RA box.  The basic box styling is of a generic TT-02B chassis (no body shown anywhere) with a sticker on the box top displaying a photograph of the actual model contained inside.  This makes it easy for Tamiya to release another TT-02B-based buggy by simply swapping the picture and putting a different body/wing/decals/body instruction sheet in the box (more about that later).

The picture of the Neo Scorcher is actually a sticker applied to the box top.

One interesting thing about the Neo Scorcher is that it includes the Mabuchi RS-540 Torque Tuned motor instead of the regular silver can RS-540 (Mabuchi or Johnson).  This 25 turn motor gives 306 g-cm of torque @ 16000 rpm compared to the stock 27 turn RS-540 that gives around 200 g-cm of torque @ 15000 rpm.  That's 50% more torque and a slightly higher speed at the cost of higher current usage.  These days with high capacity NiMH and LiPo batteries, however, run time is almost never an issue any more.

The TT-02 chassis is a shaft driven 4WD design.

Some of the hop-ups supported by the TT-02B chassis are shown on one of the side panels.

Opening the box reveals a standard assortment of parts bags, plastic trees, wheels and tires, plus the body and wing.

In the US, the kit includes a TEU-105BK electronic speed control (ESC).  The TEU-105BK replaces the TEU-104BK as the current model of speed control (as of Oct 2013) shipping with US Tamiya kits.  It adds a voltage regulation circuit (BEC) so power supplied to the receiver will not exceed 6V, which is a welcome feature that was missing from previous Tamiya ESC models (101BK and 104BK).  Unfortunately, Tamiya still refuses to acknowledge the existence and dominance of LiPo batteries by only including voltage cutoff for LiFe batteries in the 105BK.  The cutoff voltage of LiFe batteries is too low for 2 cell (7.4V) LiPo packs and they will be ruined if you attempt to use it.   You'll still need to purchase a separate LiPo voltage alarm if you intend to use LiPo packs with the TEU-105BK.

In the next picture, you'll see the separate instruction manual for the body.  Normally, Tamiya kits include the instructions for the body (trimming, painting, etc.) right in the chassis instruction manual.  However, the TT-02B series instruction manual is generic in nature when referring to the body, instead telling you to refer to the body-specific manual for details on how to finish the body and wing.

The instruction manual is generic for all TT-02B models.  No body-specific information is included because a separate body instruction manual is included with each kit instead.

For some reason this kit took a long time to become available to purchase in the US.  It was many months after release that I was finally able to get one.  Not sure what caused the delay, but I'm glad to finally have a kit in my hands.