1/12 scale RC '64 Impala inspired by Mr. Cartoon
The Lost Angel
specs & features
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1/12 scale 64' Chevy Impala model by Maisto
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Full working suspension with hopping action
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U-bar suspension and steering
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380 Mabuchi type motor for hopping with tough braided fishing line
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Toy grade gear drive motor
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Lights and engine sounds
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Custom made resin wire wheels with 520 style polyurethane tires
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Custom paintjob by Jevries
Themed Lowrider
New York 2005 at the Toy building where I seen the Maisto 1/12 scale G-rides series of models and they all looked stunning. This '64 Chevy Impala model has the best style and detail I have ever seen on a big scale model.
I started working on one in 2006 and turned it into a full function RC Lowrider car that can dance and hop undergoing different stages in paint ending up as The Lost Angel.
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Maisto G-ride into a Lowrider
I was very happy to get my hands on one of these beautiful 1/12 scale Maisto G-Rides '64 Chevy Impala RC cars. The conversion of this car went through different stages first by using the original electronics followed by using a pro Robbe F-14 transmitter and finally using a digital Turnigy X9 transmitter and receiver.
History
For the first lowrider version I used all of the original components adding switches and buttons to the toy grade remote controller. The chipset features a total of 6 functions I used F3 and F4 for the rear servo's the turbo function to switch between steering and hopping.
The rear servo's that controlled the up and side ways motions rotated 360 degrees.
Later on I swapped these servo's for regular ones but modified them adding two resistors to make them rotate 180 degrees. This is needed to get maximum lift on the rear of the car so that car can hop higher.
Here's an overview of all the parts . It's a mix of the original plastic chassis, aluminum and toy parts.
I started out using the existing parts that came with the Maisto car but had to swap the drive gear box for one that was lower.
The front suspension is a single piece U-bar slider that holds the servo with steering rods connected to it. aluminum tubing keeps the U-bar in place.
The steering servo and rods are all connected to the up and down sliding U-bar setup.
The hopper motor is a custom 380 that has lot's of torque. The servo has a spring connected to the arm to create firm tension on the line that lifts the front up without ruining the servo.
The sliding front suspension has enough room to both lift up and go side ways as well.
The wheesl and tires are the first ones I made
On the internet I found all the specifics of the chipset used on both the radio and receiver and added extra functionality to it.
Here's the chip layout I found online. F3 and F4 are unused on the original car so I used those for the rear 360 turning servos. To hop the car I had to switch between steering and hopping.
Here's the original chassis with all the parts. To turn it into a hopping lowrider a lot had to be changed.
I started out by laying out the chassis to figure out how to position all the parts so that they still fit under the body.
The white primered body sitting on the custom build chassis hitting three wheel.
The front lifted by a servo.
making sure the car has nice stance on all four wheels.
These were the first 1/12 scale wheel I had ever made in resin. It features a tire that's made from a rubber plumbing socket.
Going Pro
Being limited using toy RC parts I bought my first pro 8 channel transmitter the
Robbe F-14. It's a very user friendly radio and adding extra switches was easy.
Finally I had perfect proportional control over all the functions.
The Robbe F-14 was the first pro radio equipment I bought. It's an analog system where I added extra toggle switches to controll all the functions.
Working with a pro Transmitter made it way more easy to control the car and add extra features.
I found 1/18 scale monster truck rims and cut the spokes from a Pegasus 1/10 scale lowrider wheel. The center cap I found at a beads store and used an airplane tire made by Graupner.
The car performed very well although I had some trouble with the dual relay RC switch sticking rersulting in smoke coming from the car.
The U-bar front suspension makes it possible to make the car hit sides.
video
Paint and Graphics
I modified the Hobbyking 6 channel radio by removing the turning pots adding joystick like switches still keeping full proportional control on all servos.
A momentary DTDP momentary switch controls the dual RC switch with relays bought at modelradioworkshop to make the hopper motor spin forward and reverse.
The receiver and drive motor is powered by a relative simple and cheap esc bought on Alliexpress and proved to work flawless.
Two 7.2V 2200 mAh lipo batteries lay in the back/ trunk of the car one provides juice for the ESC and the other one directly to the RC switch with relays giving it full power to hop the car.
I really liked Mr. Cartoon's The Lost Angel graphics and decided to use it as a theme for this ride.
I collected all kinds of Lost Angel graphics and worked out a layout for the RC car.
The graphics were printed on clear decal paper and applied on the freshly painted body.
A mix of Mr. Cartoon's graphics used on the trunk of the 64 Impala
For the paintjob I used several spraypaint cans and masked it using Tamiya masking tape. I added some feather graphics for the Angel theme.
I really like continental kits on these Chevy Impala models so made one using packaging materials.
