RC4WD Toyota SR5 XtraCab Project

If you were alive in 1985 then you saw Back to the Future, probably multiple times.  And there's a good chance you left that theater coveting the new black Toyota SR5 XtraCab pickup truck that Marty ends up with at the end.  I know I did.  It's actually amazing that it took so long for someone to come out with an RC scale model of that iconic truck.  Mind you, this model is only partially licensed.  It is a genuine licensed Toyota truck, technically from 1987, but it not licensed by Universal and therefore says nothing about Back to the Future on the packaging.  Yet, everyone knows exactly what it is supposed to be.  In fact, one of the rear license plate options is OUTATIME.

I knew I wanted this as soon as it was announced, but it also had a couple of strikes against it.  It rides on the Trail Finder II chassis and I already have two samples of that particular chassis so this one didn't offer anything new in that regard.  Strike one.  It was also only available as an RTR which means I can't build it.  Strike Two.  Finally, like most RC4WD products, it was crazy expensive.  Strike three.  So I bought one.

This is a solid axle, leaf sprung, scale truck which means it handles a lot like the real thing and not like a rock crawler.  It is great on the trails and in reasonable scale terrain.  The articulation is not very large, though the locked differentials help prevent it from getting stuck if a tire comes off the ground.  I found the performance to be entirely reasonable apart from the stock electronics which just plain suck.  The ESC is completely unacceptable for a crawler.  I replaced the ESC and motor with much nicer options which had a major impact on driving enjoyment.  Although the stock radio is perfectly fine, I still changed out the receiver so I can use the same Spektrum transmitter I always use.  I can't recommend this model for pure performance, but for scale realism it is about as good as it gets.

Update:  Like all Trail Finder II chassis, the suspension on this truck is so stiff that it basically does nothing.  I came back later and swapped the first leaf of the leaf spring stack with the super soft version from RC4WD.  I also removed the internal springs from the shocks and put in my thinnest shock oil.  This combination of modifications greatly softened the suspension and made the truck handle 10x better.  This is how the truck should have been set up out of the box.

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