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The Duratrax Cliff Climber, just don’t call it “cute”!

Written by David Baker
Photos by Walter Sidas

The ready-to-run (RTR) version has everything installed, and it’s ready for you to add battery packs. The ESC can handle up to 16.8 volts.

By now, you’ve realized that RC rock crawling has carved a permanent niche for itself alongside truggies, monster trucks and 1/8-scale buggies. If you want to take a crack at the slow pace and big fun of crawling but are not quite ready to sell the farm to get into it, you may want to check out the DuraTrax Cliff Climber. Priced right and with many of the personality traits of larger rock runners, the 1/14-scale Climber offers a great introduction to rock crawling.

What You Need to Know
If 1/14-scale doesn’t mean a lot to you when you try to imagine the size of the truck, maybe it will help you to know that the wheelbase is 9.5 inches.

• So many current crawler kits feature one centrally mounted motor. The Climber follows the Clod Buster with a motor mounted on a gearbox on each axle. These high-torque 380 motors supply more than enough power for mountain-goat maneuvers.

The tires’ soft compound and aggressive tread with plenty of side bite show that DuraTrax noted what RC crawlers want in a tire. The wheels’ bead-lock design is just for show. The tires are glued to the rims.

• Along with 4WD comes 4W steering (unlike other kits for which you have to buy additional equipment.

• The painted and detailed body has the rock crawler styling of full-scale off-road bodies.

• The spoked plastic wheels are mounted using 12mm hexes. This means that most standard 1/10-scale wheels will fit.

• The speed is controlled by a DuraTrax 15K motor that handles 14.4 to 16.8 volts. The truck uses two 6-cell NiMH 2/3A batteries through a single controller (batteries not included).

• DuraTrax already offers a host of aluminum and carbon-fiber option parts.

Four plastic shocks with aluminum caps provide the damping. DuraTrax offers aluminum upgrade units for those of us who cannot leave anything stock.

The guts of the gearboxes are relatively simple. No differential means that the axle is already locked for you.

Performance
Because it has motors mounted on each axle and relatively light batteries mounted on the chassis, the Cliff Climber climbs very well. At lower throttle settings, the rear axle will stall on climbs, but a more liberal application of throttle overcomes the stall and drives the rear axle. The Cliff Climber’s tires did well at Pointes West, but they have such large footprints that I thought they were almost too much for the Cliff Climber and that their large contact patches didn’t have enough ground pressure to actually make them work as well as they could have... To read the rest of the performance pick up the October '08 issue of RC Driver magazine.

The Last Word
We can never tell what the next popular scale will be, but right now, things seem to be getting smaller. DuraTrax’s smaller Cliff Climber is a go-anywhere small-scale rock crawler that’s just as at home climbing rocks in the park as it is climbing over the pillows in your family room. At less than $250, your small investment will drive you where you never went before. Watch for a full “Driven” review in the October '08 issue of RC Driver magazine.