The Tamiya Wild One Max Is a Full-Sized Toy Car You Can Drive

A popular toy car gets embiggened for grown-up fun

A red buggy vehicle in desert area next to the red toy car it's modeled after.
Tamiya Wild One Max from The Little Car Company.
The Little Car Company

What if you could drive a full-sized radio-controlled toy car? That’s just…a normal car, right? Almost. A company in the United Kingdom has made a scaled-up version of a childhood favorite, and it’s very much a big version of a little toy. 

The Little Car Company has unveiled the Tamiya Wild One Max, a full-sized car for adult humans based on the Tamiya Wild One Off-Roader Buggy, a 1/10th scale RC car popular with hobbyists in the 1980s and 90s. 

Based out of the U.K., The Little Car Company specializes in junior cars, motorized child-sized versions of standard automobiles. But don’t expect something like a plastic Barbie-branded Jeep Wrangler from TLCC, think handmade Aston Martin DB5 with working gauges and a mahogany steering wheel. With the Wild One Max, LCC flips the shrink ray switch. 

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It goes 30 mph on electric power, ejector seat not included

Like its toy counterpart, the Wild One Max is a battery-powered buggy-style off-roader, only the controls are on the inside and it’s street legal — if only in the U.K. Some tweaks were made in the blow-up to make the Wild One ergonomically sound, as well as safer for actual flesh-and-bone occupants, rather than the jammed-in action figures of our youth acting as surrogates. Beyond that, the Max retains a majority of the original Wild One’s characteristics, down to the livery and decals. 

A single motor capable of up to 37 horsepower propels the Max. It doesn’t seem like much but the big little car barely weighs 1,200 lbs and is only 141.7 inches long, which is shorter than a Mazda MX-5, so it’s quite tiny. With that said, it’s able to travel at up to 62 mph and its eight swappable battery packs give it a 14.4 kWh capacity. LCC claims this gives the Max about 124 miles of range. 

This and some included features included with an optional Road Pack like a windscreen, mirrors and so on allow the Wild One Max to be classified as a “quadricycle” in the U.K., giving it some road legality there and in part of Europe. Still, either here or overseas, its power output and structure should make it plenty fun with a patch of land to play around with it. The electric plaything has 10.6 inches of ground clearance, with a 34.1-degree approach angle and 50.8-degrees of departure room, meaning it should have no problem navigating dips and dives. 

Like the toy, the Max has 14-inch off-road wheels at the back while 14-inch wearing road rubber sit at the front. All four are connected to a double-wishbone suspension setup sporting Bilstein dampers and Eibach springs. 

Orders open this week, with the Wild One Max starting at around $45,000 and deliveries slated for next year. It’s no chump change, but ask yourself what you’d pay for to be able to drive one of your favorite childhood toys. Personally, we’re waiting on a scaled-up Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Party Wagon.

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