While the small-scale R/C arena has a number of amazing vehicles to choose from, there aren’t many off-road crawlers or “scale rigs” on the market. Plenty of monster trucks, drifters, buggies and truggies can be found, but if you want to slow things down and practise precision obstacle maneuvers, your options, up to this time, have been limited. Releases by RC4WD, ECX, and Basher have started to carve out room for trail-minded vehicles, and Pro-Line is now bringing their own ready-to-run (RTR) vehicle to the party.
The Ambush 4×4 1/25 Mini Scale Crawler is, from a distance, an honest-to-goodness attempt to take small-scale realism and chassis construction to the next level. At under 8-inches in length (7.80”), the Ambush is very much a “tiny truck”. But with that small size comes a unique chassis build and features that can often be overlooked on smaller radio-controlled vehicles.
Using a ladder frame chassis construction that’s found on a number of popular 1/10-scale trail rigs, the Ambush looks to be a stable truck, right at its very core. Another main chassis/suspension component that can be hard to see right away are the leaf springs used for the suspension. This scale component is what caught my attention the most, as this level of 1:1 realism hasn’t been seen often on vehicles that are smaller than 1/18 in scale.
On the electronics side, the number-one “attention grabber” (from my perspective) is the cable-less battery. After charging (via USB charger) the battery pack snaps into a front-mounted enclosure, which should make swapping out packs quick and easy. Another nice touch is the use of Velcro as a body mounting material, rather than exposed body posts and clips (which have become standard across any scale of R/C vehicle).
Riding on mini Flat Iron tires and Denali wheels, Pro-Line has managed to shrink down two of their more popular off-road accessories to help this tiny rig perform on almost any terrain. Capping this new 1/25-scale truck off, literally, is a International Scout-inspired body, complete with roll cage and 1/25-scale driver (upper-torso). This is a callback to one of Pro-Line’s earlier 1/10 trail truck bodies, which also shares the same name as this new mini-rig.
Also included with this model are a 2.4GHz transmitter/radio system, USB charger, Li-Ion battery, “micro torque” motor, and wheel wrench.
Specifications
| Length: | 7.80″ | [198mm] |
| Width: | 3.75″ | [95mm] |
| Wheelbase: | 4.52″ | [115mm] |
| Weight: | 0.68lbs. | [308g] |
Priced at $195.46, this new rig looks like it could beat any type of indoor boredom into submission, just by looks alone. The overall buzz around this new model has been fun to watch, and time will tell if other brands dip their toe into the small-scale trail truck waters. Learn more about the Pro-Line Ambush 4×4 1/25 Electric Mini Scale Crawler at prolineracing.com.
Save 10% on your next Pro-Line order with coupon code “RCNEWB10”.
Image credit: Pro-Line