THE Cub Report – Truck Of The Decade???
Well hello there fellow rc enthusiast, my name is Cubby, thanks for reading. We are BigSquidRC, made by bashers, for bashers. As BigSquidRC finishes celebrating our 15th Anniversary, 2020 is set to arrive in just a few days. I can not EVEN tell you how glad I will be to welcome in another Roaring 20s, as the teens have been one heck of a wild ride.
In the next few days, we will be announcing our annual “Bash Vehicle of the Year”, “Crawler of the Year”, as well as “Bash Product of the Year”. Wowwwzza there have been so many outstanding products released in 2019, I can’t wait to see who wins. However, there is one “bigger” fish to fry…
Before we christen in the new year, one HUGE question has been floating around the office. What was the best “Bash Truck” of the last decade? Or, in our opinion, was there some sort of equivalent to a “T-Maxx” released from 2010 to 2019? Here are our previous “Bash Vehicle of the Year” winners-
2010 N/A
2011 Thunder Tiger MT4
2012 ARRMA Granite
2013 ARRMA Granite BLX
2014 Pro-Line PRO-MT
2015 Losi Mini WRC 1/5
2016 ARRMA Nero
2017 Traxxas X-Maxx
2018 Traxxas UDR
2019 To Be Announced Shortly!!!
Dannngggg!!! Quite a few killers on that list, but… maybe that list does Not contain the most important truck from the last decade. Why?
Around our offices, just like yours, people are very opinionated. We have guys that very strongly believe a rock crawler like the Axial SCX10 is/was truck of the decade, and they can make several strong points for it. In this last decade, not only did “crawling” take-off, but it also changed the hobby as a whole. How? Well, it got the hobby back on track with scale realism. The guys over at Axial were at the very head of this movement. More specifically, it was their SCX10 that really put crawling, as well as scale realism, onto the mainstream rc map. Now days, all trucks that get released are expected to have at least some realistic features to them (that does not include race vehicles). Consumers have learned that they can have outrageous performance, as well as awesome good looks (UDR, SBR, etc), so they want it all (and I don’t blame them)!
However, there have been a slew of other backyard performers that have definitely changed the game. The Traxxas UDR was vehicle of the year in 2018 because it set an all new standard for scale realism mixed with backyard performance. Then there were trucks like the Pro-Line PRO-MT, basically a full factory works truck that was insanely fun, as well as set-up out of the box for extreme backyard bashing performance. And… I can go on and on with dozens of incredible trucks like those.
The quality of backyard bash trucks has truly skyrocketed in the last decade (try breaking a Traxxas E-Revo 2.0 lately?) to the point where people are now complaining on the forums when they tweak a chassis from a 2 story roof jump! In the previous decade, most trucks on the market would land that jump and suffer major breakage. Now days, most trucks can make several roof jumps without issue (if ya land on all 4 wheels that is, LOL). That is a huge jump in performance/durability, and one that very few people recognize. In fact, years ago, we used to worry about breaking trucks early in our review process. Now days, some of these trucks leave us no choice but to do incredibly stupid things to get them to break.
The reality to me is, there have been a bunch of great trucks from the last decade. But yes indeed, there has been one that is clearly above the rest. There has been one that has been more influential to the hobby as a whole, as well as having truly changed the game going forward. I will lobby my vote to our Bash Crew, just like they will lobby the truck they feel is the best pick. Find out in a few days which truck finally won out as being our pick as “Bash Vehicle of the Decade”! Just keep an eye on our main page… 🙂
So that’s it for this week ya bunch of freaks. Get out and support your local hobby shops and bash spots (if you aren’t too snowed in!!!) whenever ya can!
Your Cub Reporter
