The Tamiya Wild One MAX Is A Human-Sized RC Buggy You Can Get In And Drive

Many of us loved cars long before we were old enough to actually drive them. It’s this youthful obsession that sells millions of Hot Wheels, slot cars, and radio-control models every year. And if RC cars were your thing, you probably dreamt of what it would really be like to climb inside the little buggy or truck and experience the ride from behind the windshield. Now, that dream can be a reality, thanks to the life-sized hoon machine known as the Tamiya Wild One Max.

Our guide to this madhouse thing is Jason Barlow, editor at large for Top Gear Magazine. It’s very much a nostalgia piece. The Wild One was first released in 1985 as a radio-controlled car modeled after dune buggies and sand cars. It had functional suspension and a badass stance, and was undoubtedly one of the coolest toys you could find under the Christmas tree that year.

We’ve been looking forward to this one for some time. Thanks to the efforts of Tamiya and The Little Car Company, it looks even better as a human-scale machine. The latter company’s usual work involves producing scaled-down versions of 20th-century cars like the Ferrari Testa Rossa or the Aston Martin DB5, designed as the ultimate ride-on cars for kids.  The Wild One MAX is no child’s toy, though, being big enough for a grown adult to get behind the wheel.

Some modifications were necessary to make the car work when scaled up to full size. The widened steel space frame chassis has room for two – a driver and a passenger eager to tag along from the ride. The suspension turrets are less pointy compared to the RC car so they don’t obscure the driver’s vision. That’s also a boon for pedestrian safety, too – important, given that it’s actually street legal in the UK and EU. Yes, you can actually take this thing out on the road, because it’s classified as a quadricycle under the L7E regulations, like the Citroen Ami. We can’t imagine a cooler machine for the drive to uni.

“It’s basically pretty friendly,” explains Barlow, noting the ease of which he gets the hang of driving the Wild One Max. “Flick the power button on, engage F, and off you go,” he explains. Right away, he’s sliding the little buggy around in the mud, hitting jumps and making the most of the adjustable Bilstein suspension. It’s hard to imagine a better toy to teach your kids how to rally from first principles … assuming you’ve got a massive field for them to hoon in.

Like the original RC car, the full-size Wild One is electric. The motor is good for 38 horsepower, which doesn’t sound like much until you consider the whole car weighs just 1102 pounds. The Little Car Company claims a top speed of 62 mph, though Barlow quotes a lower figure of 50mph – still pretty fast for a quadricycle. It runs a 14.4 kWh, 48V traction battery, and offers an estimated range of up to 124 miles on-road, or 68 miles off-road. It’s not a fully-fledged off-roader for the toughest situations, by virtue of its low ground clearance of just 10.6 inches. However, it’s got decent approach, breakover, and departure angles at 34.1, 28.4, and 50.8 degrees respectively. It’s more for skating around on dirt than tackling difficult rock crawling situations, and that’s okay.

Inside, it’s kitted out like a proper off-road racer. There’s a Sparco wheel, Cobra seats, and a digital dash and marine-grade switches that look totally hardcore. As a bonus, that means washing out the interior doesn’t put the electrics at risk. Oh, and you can even get a windscreen and wipers – useful for keeping the bugs out of your teeth.

As Barlow demonstrates, the modest power output makes it pretty accessible, and it handles with an excellent degree of chuckability. Sure, it might not win any rally special stages with 38 hp, but this isn’t a racecar and there’s something to be said for the ability to mash the throttle without fear of ending up upside down in a ditch waiting for a helicopter evac. You don’t need big power figures to get the Wild One Max skating and sliding around, and judicious use of the right pedal appears to do the trick nicely in the dirt. It’s a compelling and joyous experience from what we can see, as slow car fast usually is. “Honestly, I think that’s the most fun I’ve had in any car all year,” says Barlow.

Production is expected to begin in mid-2024, so you’ll have some time to wait before you can get one to play with yourself. Launch editions are priced at £35,000 ($43,000 USD), so, you know … consider buying a “real car” before you splash out on one of these. But if you’ve got the money, and a good place to play … looks like a right laugh, innit?

Image credits: Top Gear via YouTube screenshots