What
the @#%& is a Midnight Pumpkin? Well, the reference to the
carriage made from a pumpkin in Cinderella is pretty obvious, but what
does that have to do with a 1950 Ford pickup truck? I don't know,
and neither do you. This is Tamiya we are talking about. The
flame design was apparently inspired by a truck the designer took with
him from California to Japan. I've seen pictures of that original. Nice truck: no pumpkin.The first wheelie chassis came with the 58035 Wild Willy way back in 1982. The 58070 Midnight Pumpkin showed up in 1987 with a different chassis, the CW-01 which was shared with several other vehicles. In 2006 Tamiya re-released the Midnight Pumpkin as 58365 which was a special metallic edition and then again as a 58547 black edition in 2013. Oddly, at the time I was buying the newer 2013 edition was not available but I was able to get the one from 2006.
This thing is fun but strange to drive. Within the first five minutes of driving it I shattered the servo saver. It turns out that when your front wheels are not on the ground (which is a lot), you have no steering. This makes it really easy for those big front tires to run into something. I guess the servo was saved, but I'm surprised the saver wasn't more flexible. I didn't have another one so I just glued it. No more protection so I guess I have to be a better driver now. The model is not very fast but has plenty of torque for pulling wheelies off the line. This is really only possible from a dead stop; the application of throttle once moving is like any other vehicle. The performance in grass is actually pretty good due to the big tires and high ground clearance, even with 2WD and an open differential. The trailing arm rear suspension, swing arm front suspension, and friction dampers make for really terrible handling, but I don't think carving through the corners is really the point. It is super fun to drive, and that is the point.
It was only a couple of weeks before I drove the Pumpkin under a parked car and smashed the roof and windshield. I epoxied it back together, but I was pretty unhappy about the clearly damaged appearance. About a year later I collected the parts to install a new body, this time in the original black. The model now looks almost like an original except that it has chrome wheels instead of yellow, a change which I find to be an improvement. I guess it was a fortuitous crash since I really wanted the black one to begin with.
Update: This model was destroyed in the 2022 fire. It has not been replaced.
 Page 1: Assembly |
 Page 2: Upgrades! |
 Page 3: Final Photos |