The best RC cars of 2023
No real intro – I’m Aaron at Hobbies Direct, and this is the best RC cars released in 2023.
In no particular order, lets do this!
Arrma Granite Grom – First off, “Grom” is a good name, especially if you’re Australian. And it’s cool to have Arrma enter the battle of 1/18th-ish scale cars. Arrma could have cheaped out on this car, and just sold it as a cheap thing with a premium name, but they didn’t. The transmission is fully metal geared for durability, and even the waterproof servo has metal gears. It comes with a 2s battery and charger, and the body is clipless, so no losing clips. It’s also really cool having an Arrma priced at $230 (AUSTRALIAN DOLLARS) – when the most successful part of their lineup, the 1/8th scale cars, are easily $900 Australian Dollars. It’s a perfect car to start with, and a great addition to your fleet if you want an RC car to bring everywhere.
Arrma Gorgon - There's a lot to like about the gorgon: it looks cool, it's tough, and the squishy tyres and suspension make it pretty forgiving to drive. It comes with a 7-cell nimh battery and charger, and though the 14 turn brushed 550 size motor gives it enough power for jumps at the skate park, the drivetrain is strong enough to be brushless-ready. The reason it's on this list though, is because of the best thing it has - a personality, a character. The license plate is "Medusa" who was a Gorgon, that's the kind of mythological creature she was. The whole thing stays on theme, with the snake motif repeated across the whole design. The driver's name is even S.L. Jackson - amazing. It reminds me of seeing a Lunch Box or a Midnight Pumpkin for the first time when i was a kid, and playing out all the crazy storylines and adventures in my head, even when i wasn't driving one. That imagination and spirit of fun runs right through the Gorgon, and Arrma make all the custom colour matched parts so you can tweak the truck’s look to your liking.
Tamiya BBX – The newest chassis from Tamiya, the BB-01, isn’t just on this list because it looks like an old school off road buggy like the Fighting Buggy or Buggy Champ, or because it handles really well or it’s a great build. It isn’t on the list because it’s a beautiful mix of old school looks and modern materials. It’s on this list because it is the first Tamiya kit ever to be depicted with a Brushless Motor on its box art. That’s huge for them, and might signal a faster, more powerful future. With bearings included, hopefully.
Just as a quick aside, I’d like to give a special shout out to this Tamiya Thundershot I built this year. I bought it because it’s from 1987 and so am I, and it has a monoshock and they’re always fun. I threw in a brushless motor and threw on some Hornet stickers to stray from the box art a bit, and I thoroughly enjoyed the build. It’s not the best car released in 2023, but it is my favourite car I built in 2023.
Now, you might have noticed there is a big name missing from this list – Traxxas. And it’s not because they haven’t released anything good, far from it. There’s been a couple of new TRX-4’s, and the new BL-2s range that looks fantastic, and the Raptor R looks particularly sweet. I say looks because well, Australia hasn’t seen any of these yet. When we did the Kyosho TRD Tacoma video there were a few comments asking how it was compared to the Traxxas Raptor and… we don’t know. Because none of those Traxxas cars have made it to Australia, none of them make it onto the list. If they had been available for us to experience, it’s really likely that multiple Traxxas cars would be on this list. We’re told 2024 will be better, so who knows, in twelve month’s time, the next one of these videos could be very different.
What did make it to Australia nicely though, was Kyosho cars. We're going to call this the "Kyosho Section" because there's a lot here.
Fazers - this is a quick one, because i know, i know, they ain't new. But, kyosho deserves a real verbal pat on the back for the sheer number of these cars they have released this year, and just how scale-realistic they all look. Good job Kyosho, keep it up, and do more JDM please. *cough* Corolla *cough*
Optima Mid world's Spec – This is on our list because of the simple fact that this is a world championship racecar. And it looks cool. And it has turbo fan wheels. And it’s an optima mid, one of the most hype-inducing releases of 2023.
Fantom - This one is on the list for a few reasons: First, this was one of the most requested cars we had this year. Second, it has matching gold anodized parts, and it’s chain drive and just cool.
Now, we wouldn’t usually have re-releases in this list, but this year was a bit special.
2023 was Kyosho's 60th anniversary, and both the Fantom and the championship winning Optima Mid were re-re'd as part of those celebrations. For any company to have been around for 60 years is impressive in and of itself - but to be at the forefront and still massively popular? That's amazing.
Special mention goes out to the mighty TRD Tacoma KB10 – the reception the unboxing videos got was fantastic, so thanks to you for watching, and thanks to the Taco for being such a good car.
Team Associated RC10 Clear thing – I’m not usually one for shelf queen builds, but. The original RC10 is iconic, it was dominant in the 80’s and they still drive really well today, and this is a celebration of the 40th anniversary of the remarkable RC10 chassis from Team Associated. I like that it’s a build kit, that’s what a race car should be, and I like that it’s clearly intended to be a display piece to be looked at, and I reaaaallly like that if you want to just ignore the limited edition nature of this thing, you can whack in some electronics and take it for a run. It’s a functional piece of art.
Also, the pro2 sc10. This isn’t a new car either, but I had to mention this. In November we went to the Geelong Revival Motoring festival, and brought a few cars to run on our portable track. Out of everything we brought, we all fought over driving this one. The tyres, the shocks, the springs, the overall handling is just so, so good, the drivetrain is smooth and quiet, and the car is impressively tough. Seriously, some of the crashes this car has survived were actually loud. Basically, we love it – even though we were kinda horrible to it. *pat pat* Sorry, bud.
Let’s slow it down and go crawling for a moment, with the FMS – Land Cruiser FJ40 – FMS just came along and set the new gold standard for scale realism in RC. It’s not just the officially licensed Toyota shell or the leds or the chassis, it’s that everything opens and when you do open the doors, there’s a staggering attention to detail. Like, the seats are actually soft and the steering wheel actually moves. It’s just awesome.
Changing gears completely for the next one: the Xray X4 24.
It feels a bit weird having a $1000 full competition slab of carbon fibre on this list, but its for very good reason. See, when you buy a race car, you aren’t necessarily paying for the materials, or even the name. Most of the time, you don’t even get electronics, or wheels, or a body. What you’re paying for is hundreds of hours of research and development to squeeze the absolute maximum handling potential out of a 1/10 scale car. And the X4 ’24 edition has an incredible shock setup. First, they are in closer to the centre of the car for greater stability and balance, and they are also easier to adjust, have more adjustment, lower the whole car’s centre of gravity, and the rear can be set up to have active or fixed dampening. I don’t really know how that works, but it does give you more steering and rotation on high grip tracks.
Plus, it’s a 2024 model we got in 2023, so it’s kind of a time machine.
Just like last time, the rest weren’t in an order, but whatever thing is mentioned at the end of the video is clearly the winner, yeah?
So, what is number 1 in our list of best cars of 2023? Well, the video title was intentionally misleading because the best car isn't even a car - it's a bike. If you've seen any other youtube top ten best cars of the year videos, this one won't have surprised you – it’s the Losi Promoto MX motorbike.
This thing was so incredibly popular - if you could get one. They sold out basically as quickly as they came in stock. It prompted even more interest and hype than the Kyosho Fantom.
Where is the ProMoto? When are you going to get the ProMoto? Why aren't you getting the ProMoto now? And so on.
It’s not just how good the bike looks (and the rider too), it’s how well it drives. The Promoto is super stable, to the point that a local track is going to start running them as a one make class.
How? It has two motors. One that drives the rear wheel like a real bike (and it uses an actual chain), and one that is always running – spinning a flywheel at 22,000rpm to maximize gyroscopic stabilization. Ooh, sciency.
The fact that there’s a pre-set wheelie mode shows just how well Losi executed this idea. Rc dirt bikes have been done before, but never this well.
So what did we get right? What did we get wrong? Sound off in the comments and let us know if you have any predictions for what’s to come and shake up the rc world in 2024 and beyond.
Mine? Based on absolutely nothing: Arrma will give a burnout mode to the infraction or felony. Kyosho will release a beetle body on the Mad Van chassis. Traxxas will release a new 12S X-Maxx, which will be worse in every way. And Tamiya will start putting bearings in all their new kits. Or none of those things. Or all of them! Anyway.
Like and subscribe and do whatever else you want, I’m not ya mum.
Thank you so much for watching, bye!
