Things to Consider When Buying an Off-Road Remote Control Car

As you may already know, you have 3 choices when it comes to RC Cars: electric (battery powered), nitro (special fuel) and petrol (unleaded fuel with 2-stroke oil) cars.

Just to give you an idea of how popular each power source is, I've presented some statistics of what our data shows over the course of the last 12 months of trading.

1. Electric made up 90% of all RC cars sold over this period
   • 56% of these were brushed
   • 44% of these were brushless
2. Petrol made up 8% of all RC cars sold over this period
3. Nitro made up for 2% of all RC cars sold over this period

Clearly, electric RC cars are the most popular and we feel like this trend will continue to grow in the coming years. For more information, take a look at our blog post 'Electric, Nitro or Petrol - Which One's The Best?'.

Now that you have a good idea on what powers your model let's take a look at the drivetrain, or more specifically if the drivetrain drives all four wheels (4WD) or just two wheels (typically just the rear wheels).

Benefits of 2WD Off-Road Cars

• Longer run times
• Cheaper
• Typically stronger, especially in the front end (less moving parts)
• Higher top speeds

Benefits of 4WD Off-Road Cars

• Better handling
• Faster acceleration

Both 2WD and 4WD off-road RC cars are similar in terms of popularity with 2WD making up for 53% (and 4WD making up 47%) of off-road remote-controlled cars sold in the last year.

This does come down to personal preference. However, my advice is if you're going for a fast off-road RC car like a brushless setup with a LiPo battery you may find it hard to control with a 2WD car (unless you have some sort of stability system like Traxxas Stability Management (TSM)) so a 4WD car would be the better option in this case. If you're looking for an off-road remote control car that's not going to break speed records like a brushed setup with a NiMH battery, 2WD might be the better option as it will give you the benefits of the 2WD cars listed above.

To explore all our styles (as there are more than mentioned above) go to our RC Trucks category.

We've found RC buggies and monster trucks are the two most common styles followed by rock crawlers and short course trucks.

Although most of the differences between the off-road chassis are visual/cosmetic (with the exception of rock crawlers) there are some elements that affect handling and strength.

Monster Trucks

Monster trucks typically have the highest ground clearance so they are a good option for getting over rougher terrain and taller grass and are aided by having large wheels. A down-side is that they have a higher centre-of-gravity which makes them more likely to roll over, especially on high traction surfaces such as tarmac and concrete.

Buggies

Off-road buggies are typically lower to the ground and have a rather 'tight' fitting body shell which is good for low wind resistance compared to monster trucks which makes them the better option for on-road use whilst maintaining off-road capability. Being quite low to the ground they are more likely to get stuck in the grass easier than monster trucks would.

Short Course Trucks

SCT (Short Course Trucks) are common as many people love the look of them and are a good all-rounder in terms of handling. They have large bumpers which protect against crashes and roll-overs. Their main downside is their body shells are typically quite large compared to their chassis, this means (especially in smaller scales) they are more prone to being blown around by the wind.

Rock Crawlers

The popularity of rock crawlers is steadily increasing due to manufacturers releasing more capable rock crawling chassis like the Traxxas TRX-4 and the proven Axial SCX-10 II. The range of scaled accessories and parts is following this trend which allows rock crawling enthusiasts to hop up their trucks like never before. Rock crawlers typically have a massive runtime with most off-road crawlers being able to last longer than 1 hour on a single battery. Rock crawlers aren't for everyone, though, as their top-speed is typically around about 8kph. If you're wanting to do jumps and go fast, rock-crawling is not for you.

Stadium Trucks

Some of the most popular off-road remote control cars are stadium trucks, take a look a the Traxxas Rustler for example. I like to think of stadium trucks as fitting nicely between monster trucks and buggies in terms of handling and chassis layout. They have larger wheels than buggies and are lower to the ground compared to monster trucks.

Truggies

Last but not least, we come to truggies. Truggies are generally very low to the ground whilst also having a super wide track (width wheel-to-wheel) and large grippy wheels compared to most other styles. This gives truggies superior handling over most other styles - if I was trying to get around a track in the shortest amount of time I'd be looking at buying a truggy. Keep in mind, having such low ground clearance reduces their capabilities on some terrains (especially grass).