RC Car Action - July 2017

On the trail with one of James’s many scale trucks. He builds ’em to run, not just display.

Master modeler James Knight has graced the pages of RC Car Action before, with his impressive Beach Buggy and movie-themed Star Wars and Road Warrior builds, not to mention winning our Reader’s Ride of the Year award in 2015. For this issue’s “project” theme, James cooked up a two-door Defender D90 that’s as polished as other off-roaders and delivers James’s signature 3D-printed flair. Says James,

I had been wanting to build Defender D90 pickup for a while, and planned on cutting down the RC4WD D90 body. But then Team Raffee released their new D90 pickup hard body. It has a ton of cool details, including functional doors that reveal a full interior. To show it off, I created tube doors that used the stock hinge points. For extra realism, I even added a driver figure with a micro servo to operate the steering wheel and move the figure’s arms. Between CAD time and assembly and painting, I probably have about 40 hours in this build to date.