RC4WD Land Rover Defender 90 Project

The Land Rover Defender is as much an icon in the history of off road driving as the Jeep Wrangler.  I always knew I needed one in my collection.  For a while I had the Tamiya CC-01 version which was fine, but I really craved a hard bodied version for scale realism so I sold it.  I knew that RC4WD had a nice hard body D90 and, coincidentally, you could get that body on a Gelande II chassis which is one I wanted anyway so it went on my wanted list and sat there for years.  Finally RC4WD came out with a pair of special editions with finished bodies.  One was a Heritage Edition in light green with a bed in the back, and the other was an Autobiography Edition in striking red and black.  This is a model of a real special edition of the Land Rover Defender 90.  I would normally much prefer a kit to an RTR, but I just couldn't pass up this body so into the shopping cart it went.

I already have a couple of Trail Finder II chassis from RC4WD.  These are all metal, super realistic ladder frame chassis with leaf springs and solid axles.  The Gelande II is basically the same frame, transmission, and axles but with 4-link suspension instead of leaf springs.  This gives it better articulation at the expense of scale realism (since hardly anything actually has 4-link).  The real prize is the body though.  This is a full hard body with opening hood, doors, rear door, and full interior.  It even has right hand drive which makes sense for a Defender which hadn't been sold in North America in decades.  One of the best things about this chassis and body combination, in my opinion, is that it doesn't look like a crazy jacked up super modified 4x4.  The scale wheels and tires make this look like something you could see on the road at any time.

I can't ever just have an unmodified RTR though.  It needs to be distinctive to me.  I started by gutting the plain black interior and painstakingly painting it to match the interior of the real Autobiography Edition.  I then added upgrade after upgrade until the model weighed 30% more than when it started.  I added a roof rack, roll cage, spare tire rack, front and rear bumpers, bull bar, winch, diamond plate accents, a ladder, and even a steering guard.  I'm very happy with all of it even though some of the upgrades did not play together nicely.  I also added a fully lighting system.  What I now have is a very distinctive D90 which performs wonderfully on and off road.

The electronics of an RTR are very limited of course.  There is a 45T brushed motor, a cheap ESC, and an aspirationally titled "high torque" servo.  Still, all of it is good enough that I see no reason to replace any of it right now.  I did change out the radio system so I could use my standard Spektrum radio.

Update:  This model was destroyed in the 2022 fire.  It has not been replaced.