Kev’s Bench: Unboxing The Tamiya Grand Hauler

Saying that I was excited when Tamiya introduced the Grand Hauler is a major understatement. Out of all the Tractor Trailer rigs that Tamiya has introduced the King Hauler has been my favorite. A project on my long list involves a King Hauler and me stretching the chassis and adding a few touches to make it look like a custom rig that you would see at a big rig show. It looks like Tamiya has been inside my brain because the Grand Hauler pretty much looks like what I was planning on building. Luckily I didn’t have to wait for long after the truck was announced to get my hands on a kit. Let’s take a look inside the box and see what you get!

The Grand Hauler comes in a large box with an awesome pic of the finished truck. Doesn’t that make you want to buy it? It looks just like a real truck.

Don’t be intimidated by all of the parts inside the box. Tamiya makes it very easy to build with their great instructions and well packaged parts.

The cab is borrowed from the King Hauler and thanks to its simplicity it doesn’t take long to paint like other trucks such as the Freightliner Cascadia Evo and Man that have a lot of body panels. This body however is not as easy to buff out when painted because of the rivets that are molded into it.

Large molded rear fenders replace the smaller black ones that are found on all of Tamiya’s Tractor Trailer trucks. They are going to look great with a coat of paint and there’s plenty of room there for graphics. They wrap nicely around the rear tires of the truck.

 

It has a driver figure! I’m really excited that this truck includes a driver figure and just like others that Tamiya has produced this one is full of realistic detail.All the Tamiya trucks have a dashboard, a set of seats and a clear windshield and this is what they all have been missing. The good news is that the driver comes on its own parts tree so you can easily purchase one and add it to your rig to complete the package. This guy is smaller than the rest of the figures that Tamiya offers so if you want to grab this little guy for your Mountain Rider he will need a booster seat to see above the steering wheel.

Look at all that chrome. This is just a touch of what you get with the Grand Hauler. You can see the custom grill, part of the stacks, rear bumper and more. If you want to build your truck without chrome, you can easily remove it from the parts with a little oven cleaner.

Yes, that’s a lot of tire and you have to mount all ten of them on the wheels. The good news is that they fit tightly on the wheels and don’t require glue. Check out the realistic treads.

A lot of gears, shafts,bushings and more are used to make the shiftable transmission work. It is easy to build but you have to pay attention to what gear goes where and where the clips go on the shafts.

 

I’m excited to get started on this build and I have a really cool color for the body. You’ll find out what that is when it comes out in Radio Control Car Action. This is going to be a fun build.