{"id":8714,"date":"2026-09-29T11:26:56","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T11:26:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rcpress.com\/wp\/?p=8714"},"modified":"2026-09-29T11:26:56","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T11:26:56","slug":"the-tamiya-fast-attack-vehicle-vs-the-wild-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rcpress.com\/wp\/?p=8714","title":{"rendered":"The Tamiya Fast Attack Vehicle vs. The Wild One"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Tale of Two Military Buggies<\/span><\/h1>\n

If you grew up in the 1980s, you remember the golden age of Tamiya RC cars. The catalogues were like pornography for eleven-year-olds, filled with exotic off-road machines that looked like they could conquer Mars. Two of the most iconic from that era were the Fast Attack Vehicle and the Wild One. They shared the same chassis platform, but they offered completely different experiences. Let me tell you why these two are still worth arguing about forty years later.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The Fast Attack Vehicle: The Movie Star<\/span><\/h2>\n

The FAV came first, released in 1984. It was designed to look like a military desert patrol buggy, and it absolutely nailed that aesthetic. The hard ABS plastic body was covered in moulded details, the roll cage looked like it could survive a direct hit, and the driver figure sat there looking like he was about to assault a compound in some unnamed desert nation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tamiya even gave it a machine gun. An actual moulded M60 mounted on the roll cage. You couldn’t ask for more badassery in a toy car.<\/span><\/p>\n

The FAV became famous for a different reason entirely. A modified version appeared in the 1985 film\u00a0<\/span>The Terminator<\/span><\/em>, where it was used by the resistance fighters in the future war sequences. That alone cemented its place in pop culture history. If you owned a FAV as a kid, you probably pretended you were fighting Skynet in your backyard.<\/span><\/p>\n

The driving experience was pure 1980s Tamiya. Independent trailing arm suspension front and rear, friction dampers that did approximately nothing, and a drivetrain that was tough enough for casual bashing but would strip its differential gears if you looked at it wrong. It was not a race car. It was a toy meant to be thrown around, flipped over, and driven until the battery died.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Wild One: The Performer<\/span><\/h2>\n

The Wild One arrived a year later, in 1985. It used the same chassis as the FAV, but Tamiya made some crucial upgrades. The most significant was the switch from friction dampers to oil-filled shock absorbers. That single change transformed the handling. The Wild One could actually absorb bumps instead of bouncing off them like a pogo stick.<\/span><\/p>\n

The body was different too. Instead of hard ABS plastic, the Wild One used a polycarbonate shell over its roll cage. This made it lighter, which helped with performance but gave it a slightly less premium feel. Some enthusiasts complained that the Lexan body lacked the scale realism of the FAV’s hard shell. The driver figure was also made of Lexan, which meant it looked like a vaguely human-shaped blob rather than an actual person.<\/span><\/p>\n

But here is the thing. The Wild One was the better driver’s car. That oil-filled suspension made it genuinely capable off-road. It could handle jumps that would send the FAV into a fit of uncontrolled bouncing. It was still not a racing buggy in the traditional sense, but it was a significant step up from its predecessor.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Verdict: Which One Should You Choose?<\/span><\/h2>\n

This is where it gets complicated, because the answer depends entirely on what you want from the hobby.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you are a collector who values scale realism and iconic status, the Fast Attack Vehicle is the obvious choice. It looks better on a shelf. It has the Terminator connection. It has that hard plastic body that feels substantial in your hands. The Shark Mouth edition, with its warplane-inspired nose art, is one of the coolest-looking RC cars Tamiya ever produced.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you actually plan to drive the thing, the Wild One is the better tool. The oil-filled shocks make a genuine difference. It handles better, jumps better, and is less likely to bounce itself into a ditch. The lighter body also means slightly better acceleration and longer run times.<\/span><\/p>\n

But here is the uncomfortable truth that neither camp likes to admit. Both of these buggies are compromised by modern standards. The chassis design is from 1984. The plastics can be brittle. The differential gears on the FAV are a known weak point. The Wild One’s chassis tub has been reported to crack if you overtighten the screws. These are vintage designs, and they drive like vintage designs.<\/span><\/p>\n

That is part of the charm, of course. You are not buying a modern racing buggy. You are buying a piece of history. You are buying the experience of building a kit the way people built kits in the 1980s, with all the frustrations and triumphs that entails.<\/span><\/p>\n

So here is my advice. If you can only have one, get the Fast Attack Vehicle. It is the more iconic of the two. It looks better. It has the better story. And honestly, if you are going to deal with forty-year-old chassis limitations, you might as well do it in the coolest-looking body Tamiya ever made.<\/span><\/p>\n

But if you find a Wild One for a good price, buy that too. Because you are going to want to drive one of these things, and the Wild One is the one that will actually let you have fun doing it.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Tale of Two Military Buggies If you grew up in the 1980s, you remember the golden age of Tamiya…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8715,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[146],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rcpress.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rcpress.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rcpress.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rcpress.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rcpress.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8714"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/rcpress.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8717,"href":"http:\/\/rcpress.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8714\/revisions\/8717"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rcpress.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rcpress.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rcpress.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rcpress.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}