Rounding
out both my collection of cars on the Thunder Shot chassis (kind of)
and my collection of "Dragon" bodied cars (kind of), I present the Saint
Dragon. Let me explain those parentheticals. The original
Saint Dragon was released as set 58083
in 1990 on the 2WD Madcap chassis, itself a simplified derivative of
the Astute. I've never owned either of those vintage chassis, but
I've been lead to believe that they are rather fragile and on that basis
somewhat unlikely to ever be re-released. So how did the Saint
Dragon show up? By completely changing it. Tamiya had
already re-released four other models on the Thunder Shot chassis in
just a few years, so I imagine it was pretty inexpensive to just port
the Saint Dragon body over. They changed the name to "Saint Dragon
4WD" as though that explained everything, switched the stickers from
red to blue (the original livery is shown on the left), and released it
as 47459
in 2022. So why even bother? This goofy looking body was
never very popular in the first place. Probably to complete the
range of "Dragon" bodies which were originally a marketing crossover
with a
manga company called CoroCoro Comic. This comic had a character
called Radicon (R/C) Boy who raced Tamiya Mini4WD models. There
were 4 CoroCoro themed "Dragon" bodies that came out over the course of a
couple of years starting in the late 1980's, first as Mini4WD models
then as larger scale R/C counterparts. The 58073 Thunder Dragon and 58078 Fire Dragon came out in 1988 and 1989 on the Thunder Shot chassis. The 58083
Saint Dragon came out in 1990 on the Madcap chassis. The final
body type, the Super Dragon, was not released on a chassis and was only
available as the 50364
body kit. This final body became the 47438 Storm Dragon (now called the Super Storm Dragon) available as a kit with the Grasshopper chassis.
So I'm still missing one of the Dragons, but it was never originally a
kit so I have an excuse for not getting it. For now. By the
time you read this I will probably have caved and got one.This model has four wheel double wishbone suspension. The main chassis is a bathtub type with front and rear modular gearboxes which assemble to it. The suspension arms are made from a softer blue plastic to absorb impacts. The shocks are early plastic CVA oil filled type. There is a front sway bar supplied as stock, but no ball bearings. Like most early buggies, there is a driver included.
Because I already have so many other models on this chassis which are basically the same thing, I decided to go all out and bling up this chassis with a bunch of aluminum parts which probably made it worse. Enjoy.
Update: This model was destroyed in the 2022 fire. It has not been replaced.
 Page 1: Assembly |
 Page 2: Upgrades! |
 Page 3: Final Photos |