Here is my review of the popular budget basher from FTX - the Tracer MT.
I have gone with a brushed motor version, as I wanted to see what the very basic version of this kit was capable of.
First of all, the build of the kit is exactly what you would expect from FTX - nice and simple and very decent quality for a sub £75 car.
The thing that impresses me the most with this kit is the individual spares and upgrades that are available. You can upgrade shocks, electrics and other chassis components to metal parts to improve this car even further.
The honest answer is that it is absolutely fantastic out of the box though. I found the battery to be charged in under an hour and it ran for 15 minutes which I would say is amazing on such a small battery.
We also had a spare battery which gave us around half an hour run time in total and I can honestly say I think for the money you couldn’t get a more fun R/C car.
Jumps with this thing - no problem whatsoever. While nothing is unbreakable, I found the Tracer to be really quite predictable and landed very nicely. You will tend to find sometimes that a smaller lighter car can take jumps just as well if not better than some bigger faster cars simply because they have less mass to land again making them harder to break.
The stock tyres provide excellent traction and the handling is awesome for such a cheap little truck. Honestly the one and only criticism I can have for it is the fact that I just wish it had a little bit more power. Don’t get me wrong there is enough there already, but I do feel a bit more would make it even better.
Overall score I give the brushed FTX Tracer is 8/10.
My absolute best buy would be the brushless version. For a £100 area I really believe that is going to be the best on the market bar none for quite a while. Of course you can always upgrade your brushed tracer if you want the extra power!
