Childhood dream: The Tamiya Wild One EV you can drive
It was summer, I was eight-years-old and I’d recently been given a Tamiya Wild One for my birthday. This radio-controlled dune buggy was my life during those hot school holidays. The way that thing could take sweet jumps, clear rivers or do painful knobbly-tyre burnouts on my little brother’s ankles was life-changing.
Now I’m told I can own a real, life-size one? One I can actually climb inside and replicate those childhood RC heroics? The Little Car Company in the UK – famed for beautiful, scaled electric cars for kids – is producing 8/10th scale, climb-on-in versions under license from Tamiya, and order books are open now.
READ MORE: Aston Martin DB5 recreated as a kid’s EV
Rather brilliantly, just like the original 1/10th scale model of 1985, this drivable Wild One MAX with battery and electric motor will come in a box and you can assemble it at home.
Prices are expected to cost from £6,000 in the UK, or roughly $11,000 in our money. Far cheaper than The Little Car Company’s £45,000 ($81,000) electric Aston Martin DB5 Vantage Junior we featured last year.
The £6,000 is sure to increase if you want a turn-key version you don’t have to build yourself, or if you want some trick accessories that are sure to be part of the options and upgrades list.
Low power but light weight
There’s sure to be higher power ones too as the spec for the first examples looks a dash tame. Peak power is from 4kW (5.5hp) offering a top speed of just 48km/h. That said, it only needs to shift 250kg plus the driver’s weight.
I’m struggling to think of an electric car that would be as much fun as this rear-wheel-drive Wild One MAX. It’s approximately 3.5m long and 1.8m wide – roughly Kia Picanto size – and you clamber into the sole racing seat through the exoskeleton metalwork.
Its 15-inch off-road tyres look perfect large-scale facsimiles of the radio-controlled Tamiya Wild One’s rubber, and behind are hydraulic Brembo disc brakes with regenerative braking. There’s a racing steering wheel, digital gauges and “multiple driving modes to suit all types of drivers”.
Also, rather wonderfully, you get a massive sticker pack as you would with your build-at-home radio controlled Tamiyas. Cue much frustration trying to stick them on straight.
Road legal buggy?
The Little Car Company is promising “lots of Hop-Ups” which include faster top speeds and more power. There’s even the potential, it says, for the Wild One MAX to be road legal in some countries.
In the EU, for instance, the quadricycle category is for four-wheeled microcars that don’t need the same strict design and crash testing requirements as normal cars.
For electric cars, to qualify as a quadricycle, power must not exceeded 4kW (15kW in the case of Heavy Quadricycles), unladen weight must be under 425kg and top speed no more than 45km/h. The Renault Twizy and Citroen Ami are just two examples of these electric quadricycles.
Clearly, this basic entry-level Wild One Max has been specified with quadricycle rules in mind. And really, can you imagine anything quite as cool to nip down to the shops in once proper lights and license plates were fitted?
Even if one couldn’t be legally road registered in Australia, here’s a potential paddock basher that will attract more attention than anything from the Lamborghini factory.
