oOple.com Forums - Tamiya Astute Replica

Sorry Mr Tamiya, but I got bored waiting for a re-release and figured there'd be a cheaper way of producing an Astute that you can bash with out too many concerns.

This replica is based on an Ansmann Mad Rat bought off ebay for around £25 fully ball raced and with full set of spares. The dampers are Ansmann ones for around £9 a pair and look a bit like Hi Caps. The wheels which are Thunder Tiger were chosen as the fit on to the standard 12mm hexes and use modern 2.2 inch tyres. Bodyshell is from Kamtech. Stickers are a replica set bought off Ebay.

This build did not require much modification to the base Ansmann Mad Rat. I filed down some of the edges on the chassis just to make the body shell fit better. I chose to put some spacers between the rear tower and the lower bracket just to bring the rear tower and wing forward by a few mm. This was really only for cosmetic reasons. For the Thunder Tiger wheels I bought thicker hexes (~7mm) for the rear as they did not have the same off set as the standard Ansmann wheels.