What's the deal with the Traxxas Eagle?

[Basher67]

Picked this up from a buddy a couple days ago. Cleaned it up a little to assess if it was something I wanted to restore or pass on to someone else. I have to say, this truck seems weird to me. It's a cool truck, but seems to have some oddities. First of all, I can't seem to find a manual for it and from searching around, I'm not the only one. The shocks almost look very similar to AE units. The chassis is shaped carbon, but factory painted metallic black? The wheels are Proline and look like they are meant for a Tamiya blackfoot. The rear has 12mm to Tamiya adapters and the front axles look like truck conversion units. I spent some time online today digging up what I could for information and didn't come up with much. Most of what I found was for the Blue Eagle. The few trucks I did find online looked like they had the same wheels, adapters, etc. Was this the way they came from the factory? Why is the manual nowhere online? Why do the shocks look like Traxxas stole an AE design? This thing looks like Traxxas threw together a truck conversion using parts available at the time. What's the story on these?

[GoMachV]

Pretty much nailed it. The shocks were off the Bullet, and were really good shocks. You can use those rebuild kits on AE bottom loaders. Most of the plastics were off the bullet as well as the trans, but had 48p gears. It was a great truck for the time, really light and competitive. The chassis always weirded me out too haha. Why paint a carbon chassis. They used a very truck looking body, not really a stadium truck style body. They used the truck conversion style wheels and buggy arms just because that is what they did in that era. It was all pre rc10T when we started seeing long arms.

After this they went to the Blue Eagle and then very quickly to the LS. The LS seems to be the most popular of the single deckers from what I see.

I have a nib eagle and blue eagle, however they are being stored. I can get manuals scanned once we move.

[Basher67]

Thanks Jeff. I really don't need the manual. I just wanted to see it to confirm if the oddball parts were original. It just surprised me that it wasn't anywhere to be found online. This one came with the body. Looks like the Hawk body. I also thought it was kinda cool that they haven't changed the body mounts except the color of the nylon. They are the same as the ones in my slash drag car.

[GoMachV]

Yep that’s the right body. She looks really good!

[adam lancia]

Basically the bridge truck between buggy-converted trucks for the heavy metal class and purpose built stadium trucks like the 10T and JRX-T. Yours looks great!

[scr8p]

I didn't take pics of the manual when I built mine, just bag contents as I built it.

https://www.rc10talk.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=10938

[Mark Westerfield]

I got one of those in a trade deal once and have since sold it. Other than the chassis being really flexible side to side, it's a really cool truck and actually quite innovative for the time.

[Lonestar]

I love those early Traxxas (as most of you know!). This looks in really, really good shape!

[Basher67]

It's not in bad shape. The front of the chassis is a little rough, but fixable. A few of the original white parts have been replaced with black ones over time and the rear arms are mismatched. Both are white and the same dimensions, but the one on the right side appears to be a later design. I had a couple beater Bullet parts cars that I gave to a buddy to strip for parts. He's going to give what's left of them back to me to see what I can use to help out this Eagle.