Tamiya Vajra Project

Ok, let's deal with the elephant in the room first: the name.  Why would Tamiya call a model "Vajra"?  If you are a native English speaker, you probably find this a strange name at best.  It turns out that a vajra is a Tibetan ceremonial club and the "j" is pronounced like a "d" if that helps.  Tamiya has a long history of using cool sounding mythological names so this is actually not out of the ordinary for them ("Agrios" anyone?).  If they wanted to use a cool Tibetan tool though, I may have recommend the Phurba, a ceremonial dagger, instead.

Did this product sell poorly because of its name or because it is such a strange model?  Tamiya decided to take the newly re-released 58489 Avante chassis which they updated in 2011 and use it on the new 58497 Vajra the same year.  Because they had just put a bunch of work into updating the classic chassis for the new millennium, it makes sense they would want to use it on something else.  If you or I worked at Tamiya we might have suggested a different buggy body.  But we don't work at Tamiya and we don't think like they do.  Instead they took the body, wheels, and tires from the 57796 Super Levant and made a truggy or trophy truck (or whatever this is) out of it.  This involved much higher ground clearance and much, much bigger wheels and tires than a buggy.  The chassis also has a longer wheelbase than the Avante like the Vanquish.

I expected this to be a standard Avante chassis with just a different body, wheels, and tires, but it turned out to be quite a mishmash of parts from different generations of Avante chassis and other cars.  Putting this design together and making it all work must have actually been a big effort.

• The A parts (front gearbox), B parts (rear gearbox), C parts (uprights), G parts (bumper), H parts (plastic gears), and L parts (steering cranks) are from the original Avante and common to the Avante 2011.  Note that the L-parts are from the optional racing steering set.
• The J parts (front lower arms), K parts (rear lower arms), and N parts (bumper supports) are from the original Vanquish and common to the Avante 2001 and Egress.
• The Y parts (rear shocks) are from the Stadium Blitzer.
• The Q parts (front shocks) are from the aftermarket CVA Super Mini shock set.
• The ball differentials and center locker are common to the Avante Black and Egress.
• The wheels and tires are from the Super Levant.  The body is also from the Super Levant but that itself previously came from the Aqroshot.
• All of the carbon chassis plates and shock towers are unique to the Varja as is a bunch of hardware.
  

Sounds like a kluge.  Maybe it is, but sometimes kluges function just fine and that's the case here.  I didn't expect much in the way of performance but this thing is actually very capable.  It has high ground clearance and takes grass and gravel like it isn't even there.  Jumps are no problem either.  I haven't had a single breakage so far.  Given that these can be had for much less than an Avante, I'd say they are a very good deal indeed as long as you know what you are getting.  My copy is entirely stock and I plan to leave it that way.  One minor issue I should point out is that if you use full steering lock the tires will catch on the body arches.

Update:  This model was destroyed in the 2022 fire.  I couldn't find another model new in the box, but since I'd already had the NiB experience I was ammenable to finding a copy already built as long as it was in good condition.  I managed to find one relatively quickly that had clearly never been driven and it was perfect apart from a missing spoiler which I fabricated myself.  I didn't take any new pictures of the replacement because it looks just like my original.  I even used the same electronics.

Page 1: Assembly

Page 2: Final Photos