Monster Truck Madness – Tundra Tires on the FMS Smasher

Hey all and Happy Thursday!

One of the coolest things about the solid axle monster truck genre within the world of RC are all the small builders that are building custom products for the variety of platforms out there. The Clod, Axial SMT10 and Losi LMT hog their share of the limelight, but today I wanted to show off a small batch builder that’s building something, well, for a small truck.

Diaz Designs RC has been working on several 3d printed part kits to turn your FMS Smasher into a 1/24 scale version of BIGFOOT #5, which has been recognized as the biggest pick-up truck in the world for most of the last few decades. The most defining feature of which are the colossal 10 foot tall tundra tires that were originally designed for the Overland Train in the mid 20th century.

The DDRC Tundra Tire retrofit kit is still in the prototyping phase, but it will hopefully be released sometime this year. The tundra tires are currently 3d printed, but I’m told a flexible rubber option is being looked into.

It will be available to set your Smasher up in two different configurations.

The first is “BIGFOOT #1 style” where the axles are extended outwards letting the body ride exactly where it is stock, keeping it low and between the tires. This is how the full size Firestones were mounted to the earliest BIGFOOT trucks before the purpose-built development of BIGFOOT #5.

The second configuration is, you guessed it, “BIGFOOT #5 style”. This is where the chassis has an extension to make it taller, allowing the body to ride above the tires and keeping everything with a thinner track width. The full size BIGFOOT #5 features a similar layout, having two truck frames stacked on top of each other with large spacers in between.

The beauty of doing this on 1/24 truck is that everything is lightweight, so you don’t have to worry about wonky weight distribution or axle stress like that of a larger scale (which says nothing of the full size truck, I’ve been in BIGFOOT #5 and just the climb to get into it is terrifying!), so it would appear to be the perfect platform for it.

I cannot wait for the kit to release and the moment it does, I’ve got my name on the list to get one so I can write about it here! This whole kit looks ingenious!

For more info on Diaz Designs RC, you can check them out on Facebook here.

Until next week, keep it on all 4’s!