Tamiya 58512 VW Camper Wheelie (WR-02)

Posted by Justin on Aug 16, 2012 in Tamiya | 0 comments

Tamiya 58512 VW Camper Wheelie WR-02

Since its release earlier in the summer, my opinion on the Tamiya 58512 VW Camper Wheelie kit has been somewhat divided. Whilst I’m a huge fan of the real thing, Tamiya have perhaps pushed things a little far with this, creating a bit of an oddity maybe. The 58512 VW Camper depicts a 1st-generation, T1 split screen variant of the Volkswagen Camper Van, which was also known as the Volkswagen Bus to many of loyal fans. On first look, the shell looks like a pretty decent representation of the real thing, but on closer inspection, they’ve played around with the geometry of the shell quite a bit, so its usefulness as a scale shell may be somewhat limited.

That said, the new WR-02 chassis is equipped with a wheelie bar to enable exciting, wheels in the air driving action. Which is what the Tamiya WR-02 vehicle are all about!

Tamiya has reproduced this model with a comical appearance to result in this fun-filled model which is fine with me. Whether it will gain the popularity of the Lunch Box over time, who knows. But I recently had the pleasure of building one for myself for my magazine column in RC Racer, and I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the chassis build. Once completed, the body shell looks great, but the sheer volume of masking required and the number of window decals that have to be cut out by hand is insane!