I'm not entirely sure about that. Most of those (including the Ultima Racing Sports series) use different bearing sizes and just slightly differently sized internals compared to the first-tier Kyosho cars (making parts swapping a pain). This one is in the same category as the 2WD Spider, 4WD Pure Ten Alpha and Lazer ZX5/TF5 RTR cars: worse quality materials and simplified designs but compatible parts. Basically entry-level cars that can be upgraded to something better.Lonestar wrote:Great thread, thanks for taking the time to document it this thoroughly
I'm thinking this is one of the designs that were actually NOT done by kyosho engineers themselves, but bought off someone else's - the famous "b-grade" cars (like Raider, Rocky, etc...). I've always been told K always had this dual "sourcing" strategy...!
In the Mantis' case I suspect a fully upgraded FWD car will perform close to or maybe even better than Tamiya's FF-02, which is really the only other comparable car (mid-motor FWD with space frame chassis).
The GP FWD Mantis was actually developed further than the EP version, and was raced in Japan (there's also a very cool Mini version).