Losing grip – Living in ute country
One cool thing with living in Queensland, Australia, is that RCs have become real. 4WD is a big thing here, and street racing is real. Not so back home. Only here have I been able to start to fully relate to the scale bug that now totally dominates the RC world. I enjoy it.
Previously, names like Dick Cepek, Mickey Thompson, Raceline and Tuff were all just names to me. Now, keeping my eyes open, I see them every day. Not being an expert I can’t say for certain, but it sure does look like a pair of Dick Cepek wheels on the ute above. “Ute”, that’s what they call a 4WD over here, as in “utility vehicle”. Easier to say than pickup, and way easier than what my English teacher in Mississippi called them: pick-em-up-trucks. Boy, did the rednecks laugh at her for that one.
Being marinated in 4WDs – hey, we live just by a busy road, sometimes it sounds as if I have them in my bedroom at 5 a.m. – is a new experience. Well, I have been here before, but back in 2019 I wasn’t really aware of it. I know this is something most of you take for granted, but for me it is still pretty cool to see in real life things that I had previously only known as RC scale parts. And not being fully aware of the real life counterparts makes licensed scale parts a bit of a moot point, really.
Now I pretty much feel compelled to one day build a TRX-4 with Killerbody’s Toyota Landcruiser LC70 hardbody kit, because how popular the Landcruiser is here. Everyone wants a Landcruiser. Also a very popular car in Tanzania, which holds a special place in my heart.
That one, with a warn winch, and some licensed wheels and tires. It would be just like home. Not gonna happen anytime soon, but it’s a build that I definitively have filed away in the back of my head for sometime in 2024.
While Landcruisers are popular, the Holden Ute (sort of a rebranded Chevrolet, I think) is probably the iconic Australian pick up. Problem is that it’s so terribly ugly I could never bear to build one. Honestly, if someone was to design a car using a pound of room temperature butter and a spatula, the Holden Ute would be the end result. It tries to be both sports car and blue-collar working car and spectacularly fails at both, design wise. I mean, honestly:
Truly no loss that they are no longer made.
To all you scale fanatics out there: mates, I feel you. Keep up the good work!
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