Sand Rover
The Sand Rover came out around the 1982 time frame along with the Sand Rover. This was considered to be the very low end of R/C cars for Tamiya. It must have been a popular offering since it stirred up copies from toy manufactures. In the 80's you could find copy cat Sand Rover and Holiday buggy in department stores. They were were in ready build form, but the size was almost as large as the Tamiya sand rover, and they also have suspenison that mimick that of the Tamiya Sand Rover. I was even amused to find some small motorized non radio controlled Sand Rovers in those stores with fake Sand Rover like suspension that don't really operate. It was like a model of a model of a model of the real buggy.
The Sand Rover used the Sand Scorcher front bumper. The motor was a RS380. It used either the very old 6V or 7.2V battery. With the 380 motor, running times were reported to reach 20 minutes. The speed control was a rheostat type that dates back to the Tamiya Cheetah. The 7.2V battery with the optional RS540 motor would be pushing the limits of the speed control. I liked this speed control because it gave a variable forward and reverse speed with variable stopping force as well. Extened running in the variable range would cause the speed control to heat up considerably. When I tried to use it in the Porsche 959 with its competition black motor, the speed control was smoking after a brief run in the low range.
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