Everybody’s Scalin’ – I Shall Call Him “Mini Me”

Hopefully everyone enjoyed reading our review of the RC4WD Trail Finder 2 that went up a couple days ago.

As luck would have it the winter weather broke and the last two weeks had lots of high 60’s weather – perfect for scaling. And what a time was had! I think the review spells it out pretty well, but it was a lot of fun to drive and is a heck of a lot of fun to scale. I’ve already started hopping it up so you’ll see more on the truck very soon.

Using that as a thinly veiled segway, one of the big pieces of news this past week has been the 1/18 scale Gelande 2! We are looking forward to receiving one in the office and promptly giving it the business.

I think there is an untapped market for a really nice 1/18 scaler. Not everyone has immediate access to the gnarly terrain it takes to properly enjoy a 1/10 truck….as well as the budget to go with said enjoyment.

I can only remember one truly successful mini-crawler- the Tamiya TLT-1 of the aughts. Even then, I don’t know how big it really was with the mainstream. The odd look of it certainly didn’t help it catch on. That being said, it definitely had a cult following…even if much of it was for gutting the vehicle and using the parts on homebrew creations during crawling/scaling’s infancy.

Anyways, the 1/18 Gelande II certainly looks the part, sharing the appearance of it’s bigger 1/10 brother. The chassis layout also looks very simple & scale. Weighing in at around 1 lbs, the lil’ G2 should also scoot a long pretty well.

Here’s to hoping the little rig turns out to be a winner. If nothing else it will be a lot of fun to setup a miniature crawling course in the office!