Losing grip – Phoenix to Phoenix, dust to dust

History and hobby both repeat themselves, right? Then we die, and then we’ll see. Or not. Anyway, I’ve got a new project coming up, the process being the standard one. Dreaming, choosing, planning, slowly accumulating, bargaining (with wife), building, painting, upgrading. Have done it before, will do it again. Ours is a great hobby!

Contrary to what last week alluded to, I am not going to build a Losi LMT. Not this time. The wheels I have procured will have to wait a bit longer before they find a chassis attached to them.

I was never an early adopter, always preferring to wait and see rather than being first in line. Same thing this time. The Vanquish VS4-10 Phoenix was released almost two years ago and it’s due time I get on the train. While I don’t have access to any sales data, my impression was that it took a long time before that kit took off, but now it certainly has.

The crawler market has expanded a lot in the past years, now offering a staggering amount of rigs to choose from. Remember when BigSquid did a 1.9″ crawler shootout maybe six years ago? The line up featured the six prominent crawlers of the time, from Vaterra, RC4WD, Traxxas, Redcat, HPI and Axial. Back then Vanquish was only producing upgrades, no cars of their own. FMS and Cross RC were both pretty obscure. Things have changed, for the better.

Why then the VS4-10? As much as I would like to build something from RC4WD, that’s really Jeremy’s territory, while the Losi LMT definitely is Doug’s turf. Hence, none of those. But what it really comes down to is the VFD Twin transmission, that’s something different from what I’ve done before. I love building gearboxes, and the VFD is one of a kind with selectable overdrive and 3-position dig. Also, it should provide a different driving experience compared to the SCX10 and TRX-4. Third, if I really like it I could do a second build with straight axles and see how that compares with the portal version which I am getting. And fourth, there’s plenty of cool option parts from RC4WD. For a starter, I’m getting their classic front steel bumper. Then we’ll see.

One last thing. Didn’t I say that history repeats itself? What then could be more appropriate than a Phoenix!

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