Monster Truck Madness – Ho Ho Ho

Hey gang, it’s that time of year again to give (or receive!) the gift of r/c! This section of the internet focuses pretty much on the hardcore monster truck crowd, so I’m going to dial it back a notch and give a recommendation for the total noob in your life this holiday season.

Many hobbyists, especially those who are younger, start off with a toy grade r/c monster truck. That’s how I did back in the early ’90’s. After eventually breaking these vehicles, many are ready to graduate to their first hobby grade r/c.  That’s where it can be tricky for many folks.

If you’ve got someone you are buying for this Christmas that is in need of a good beginner monster truck that won’t break the bank…or break your ankles as they learn to drive it, I would recommend an ECX Amp Crush. I headed up the review of the truck, which you can read right here.

For $150 you are getting everything you need in the box to get started. The Amp Crush is a fun little 2WD monster truck that looks great and is also easy to work on. The included remote control is also smaller than a standard one; great for little hands.

After finishing that review, I actually gave the vehicle to a friend of mine’s son, who is 9 years old. It was his first ever “real” r/c, and it’s held up great. His mom even really likes it and spends a good amount of time wheeling it herself.

The noob in your life will surely be happy with it. It’s a great introduction to the world of r/c monster trucks!

Now, to the mailbag.

I have twin boys who are 8yrs old. They have had a Traxxas mini Revo for a few years but I want to get one a Losi Grave Digger and the other boy a Son of Digger (yes Im going broke for Christmas). I cant find these in stock anywhere. I have even looked over seas. Most places state restock will happen in January. Can you be of any help with locating tow of these at save Christmas?

Thank you for contributing to the RC world!!
Jud

 

Hey Jud,

The good news is that you didn’t miss out on anything yet, as January 2021 is the first available ship date for both versions of the LMT. The bad news is that January 2021 is not in time for Christmas. Can you show them a video of the truck online and say that they are coming? I know that typically that would be pretty lame, however given how sweet these rigs are I would hope your kids would be OK with waiting a couple weeks! Kudos to you for shelling out the cash for not one but two!

Good luck! Would love to hear from you after they do wind up getting them.

Hey Doug,

Just had a couple questions about the LMT…

Do you think it would be possible to run 8 shocks? I was thinking internal spring shocks along with the stock ones just for looks.

Also I just saw someone post an unboxing video by somerandom person on YouTube, is the truck shipping early?

I love your column and look forward to it every week, keep up the great work!

Thanks,

Steve

Hey Steve, thank you for reading!

Methinks you’ll see a lot of folks mounting up 8 shocks on them for scale cosmetic reasons. And like you plan to do it, many of them will probably have some internal spring ones acting more or less like dummy shocks. Once they are released in about a month from now, the aftermarket is going to be ablaze with various setups like this.

As for the truck shipping early, to my knowledge no, they are not. You are seeing a lot of videos of them out there though because Losi went very heavy with sending early release kits out to a lot of folks with YouTube/social media channels to really get the word of mouth of this thing out there. TLR is very proud of this release and the initial marketing blitz shows that.

You’ll have to wait until January to get your hands on one, most likely. The wait seems long, but it’ll be here before you know it!

If you have a monster truck related question that you’d like me to answer here, please e-mail me at doug@bigsquidrc.com.

Thanks for reading and keep it on all 4’s!