MST CFX-W Project

I had been curious about MST for some time, but not quite curious enough to buy anything.  When they came out with the CFX-W chassis which included portal axles, I was doubly intrigued.  Then when I saw it sitting sadly on the shelf of my local hobby store waiting for a home I could wait no longer.

This is a trail/crawler chassis with metal rails, solid axles with locked differentials, portal axles, 4-link suspension, and a single speed transmission.  Except for the portal axles this is a similar list of features to the Axial SCX10, so I wanted to see how this would compare.  I was very pleased with the quality of everything in the kit.  Every single gear is metal from the ring and pinion to the portal gears to everything in the transmission.  The only place I thought the kit was lacking was the shocks which seemed a bit wimpy to me.  The stock tires are really nice and are still on the model even after blowing plenty of money on upgrades.

This was the first time I had ever bought a kit which not only did not come with a body, but did not really even have a recommended body.  I knew I wanted to do a hard body so I scoured the Internet.  I originally purchased the RC4WD Chevy Blazer for this chassis, but found out later that it doesn't really fit a 4-link chassis.  The shock hoops stick up and interfere with the bed.  I didn't want to cut holes in it, so back to square one.  I found a brand new release from Team Raffee: a Mercedes Benz G-class.  This super detailed body was fun to build but a challenge to mount.  I figured an outrageous vehicle like a Gelandewagen should have an outrageous paint job, so I chose metallic gold with red accents.  I imagined this as Tony Stark's car for driving around Dubai, so I made him the driver.

With the big, heavy body the CG of this truck is pretty high but the performance is quite incredible.  I love how it drives and it is one of my favorite trucks (along with all the others).

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