Introduction to Mini 4WD
Mini 4WD cars are 1/32 scale snap together kits from the Japanese model company Tamiya, also known for making RC cars.
The kits themselves are pretty cheap at around £10, and are easy to assemble with no need for glue, and very few tools. There are hundreds of different kits to choose from with varying bodies on their line-up of chassis.
The cars small 130 size motor is powered by 2 AA batteries.
As the name suggests, they are four wheel drive. The four wheel drive transmission consists of a rear or front mounted motor with a propeller shaft, or a centrally mounted dual shaft “Pro” type motor powering the front and rear wheels with bevelled counter gears.
The cars can be raced in a special circuit usually with either 3 or 5 lanes, the cars rollers guide the car around the circuit using the walls of the lanes.
Once you release the car in the track you have no control. This means the race is decided by how you build, customise and setup your car, and this is where you can get super addicted to the hobby.
But there is a catch, the UK Tamiya distributor does not currently import them, so you need to order them from overseas. We are hoping by producing this website we can get more people in the UK interested in mini 4wd, and create some demand to encourage the distributor to import kits, parts, circuits & accessories.
With this site we are going to take you through each of the modern Mini 4WD Chassis, choosing a car to race in Box stock, teach you how to get started with customising and tuning your car for tuned and open class racing.
