“Big boys have big toys,” as they say. The obvious downside is that big toys are expensive. I’d love to drive around some tricky off-road terrain in a Land Rover Defender, but solid off-road trucks cost at least one year’s worth of salary (or two, or three…). Luckily there’s a loophole here: Radio-controlled models are much cheaper and still provide lots of entertainment.
The RC hobby gives me all of the fun for a fraction of the cost. Mind you, RC models aren’t toys. They can easily cost upwards of €1000 and contain a lot of real-world mechanics that requires the same skills to use and maintain, just in a smaller scale.
So here I am: having fun driving this awesome model Defender. It’s 1:10 scale so it’s about 65cm long and nearly 25cm wide, and weighs nearly 5kg. It is so detailed that many people can’t tell it’s a model by looking at a photo. And that’s what today’s article is about: fooling people.
(click images to enlarge them)
This is a photo I took at an off-road event this April. That Pinzgauer in the background is indeed full-scale and I rode it to the event. Full-scale cars were doing what they do best and my model car did the same in between them, to cheers from the full-scale drivers.
I have this image as my desktop background at work. Most of my colleagues assume it’s a downloaded image of a full-scale car and that I use this image because I want that car. I respond, “oh but that is my car, I’ve had it a while now” and enjoy their surprised faces before I reveal that it’s actually a model, and enjoy even more surprised looks.
I posted a note about this delightful experience on an RC forum and the responses were mostly disbelief even though they are used to looking at models. One commenter wrote this gem:
There’s no way that’s a fucking model. You’re trolling. That’s definately a real Land Rover. Look at the rear tyre being squashed. The trees. Even the mud sprays up the side.
I responded that they were fooled by the photo just like my colleagues, and added these photos as proof of my claim:
My response was also met with disbelief. There was this magnificent reaction:
WAIT THE OTHER TRUCK IS REAL WAHT THE FUCK
Perhaps you can imagine how much fun it is when people can’t tell the difference between models and full-scale trucks. First people get fooled by the truck that’s actually a model, then they get fooled again by the truck that isn’t a model!
I shared these responses with my friend who drives that Pinzgauer and with my RC friends. It’s stories like this that really put the icing on the cake of this hobby!
