This crawler has some very good features: front wheels turning 45 degrees and oil filled shocks from the factory. The fms fcx24 has o-rings included, so you can make the shocks oil filled, but it took some time to do that. The picture of the shocks on this traxxas looked very good, I think they’re not gonna leak. And traxxas say that the electronics are waterproof, and the esc/rx really looks like that also! From the few pics I looked at yesterday, quality looks good. The price is affordable too.
The problem with these small crawlers is that especially with hard bodies they crawl terribly out of the box. Scx24 stock c10 body weighs over 40 grams. Fcx24 the body was 74 grams if I remember correctly. Yeah, they might look good (fcx24 don’t, body way too big). My scx24 has a Proline power wagon body without the fenders, and it weighs 13 grams. It has a jeep rear bumper that I have cut to be as small as possible, and I have drilled holes in it to keep the weight low. Can’t remember how much it weighs.
I bought another Proline power wagon body for the fcx24, and with it it’s gonna look scale also. I haven’t installed it yet. I started shaving the original body, and now the body weighs 49 grams, and performance is much better! I prefer pickup bodies, because of COG.
I wish the manufacturers would make light bodies also, for those who want a good performing crawler, and don’t mind about looks. Specially the fcx24 is gonna require a lot of tinkering because of the way the original body is attached.
1/10 scx10 III base camp has a light body. Yeah I know it’s because of they want to keep the price low, but it affects performance also in a positive way.
Regarding this traxxas, it looks as if they have thought about COG looking at where they have fitted the battery, esc/rx and motor. Will I buy one? Possibly in the future, it’s small and easy to put in a backpack. And as it’s a bit bigger, it’s gonna handle places that my 1/24 don’t.
Regarding those hard bodies: a lot of manufacturers are starting to make small crawlers, because they have seen how popular they are. Everybody wants a piece of the pie. So I’m not too worried, I hope manufacturers understand there is a demand for these small crawlers that perform good out of the box. If it costs more, I don’t mind. That means less time modifying, and more time crawling "thumbsup"