This I paid with blood, sweat and tears due to being the result of a long long restauration process. I'm finally pleased with how it came out even if the shell could have been done better. It took some time to get the best colour match for boxart paintscheme but in the end I think it looks great. Nice vintage colours, close as possible to boxart. The shell comes from Kamtec and surprisingly the quality is not as good as I expected: the shell is 4 - 5mm shorter than the original one, which makes it difficult to fit to the chassis. I almost suffered heart attack when I realized this (when the paintjob had already been done). I still have the original shell (already paint stripped), so it will get painted for display purposes later. The Kamtec one was meant to be a runner anyway.
The chassis is more a Turbo Optima with some extras: I got 2 cars from the bay, one a half descent shelfer with badly painted shell and the second a battered ex-racer with tons and tons of tuning parts. I disassembled both just to make the best out of it. It has belt drive conversion, special strong gears, steel final pinion, carbon shock towers, front universal joints, gold motor guard and most important: gold shocks! The front stabilizer is homemade as I don't have the original one, but it's mandatory for running. The motor equipped is a peak performance 13 turn (looks great with the gold endbell).
One of the cars came with original box, which is now loaded with spare parts which would make a second car (if not more). I got several sets of wheels, original motor, 240ST tuning motor, driver figure, original red shocks, some used chains, plenty of shock towers, etc, etc. One day I will assemble a second car to put it up for sale.
This one will be run from time to time, looking forward to the next vintage buggy race!!
More pics:
http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_m...=73680&id=3226
05-04-2008
Kyosho Optima restauration complete!
Threaded Mode