Tower Hobbies Cutback

Tower Hobbies has been serving the hobby community for more years than most of us remember as a mail order company. My second vehicle purchase was from Tower back in 1986 and in the years following, I used Tower’s catalog as a source to dream about my RC hobby.  Over the years, Tower has offered its own brand of products here and there and RC vehicles were among their offerings. Kits seemed to come and go, but with the latest announcement from Tower, we think we’re going to see some products that will grab lots of attention from enthusiasts. The release is the Tower Hobbies Alloy Force Cutback. The Cutback is a 1/10-scale 4WD off-road stadium truck loaded with some awesome features for a sport level ready-to-run. A fresh off the line truck has made its way to the RC Driver Reveal workbench for some initial impressions. Time for a closer look!

FACTS
Manufacturer: Tower Hobbies
Product: Cutback
Class: 1/10 4WD Electric Short Course
Power system: Brushless
Kit type: RTR
What’s in the box: Assembled truck, brushless motor/ESC system and electronics installed, 2-channel radio, additional plastic parts, painted body and manual.
Needed to complete: Charger, 7.2V NiMh or 7.4V LiPo with T-plug and 4 “AA” batteries.
Who it’s for: Any RC enthusiast
Part Number: TOWC0500
Price: $299.99

FIRST IMPRESSIONS
The Cutback arrives in a white box with “The Alloy Force” printed on the top and Tower Hobbies Cutback printed on the side panel. It’s a no-frills box, but you all know what you do with new vehicle boxes; thrash them open, toss them and have fun with your new RC machine. So moving on, the truck is packed well for shipping. The truck is strapped into the box, radio wrapped in bubble wrap and you’ll find a few spare parts and an instruction sheet in the box.

We pulled the Cutback from the box and immediately we liked the truck’s paint scheme and decals. The body is a little boxy and sits high, but it will work fine while it’s dishing out the action. The body came off and we were pretty excited with what we saw next. A 4-pole brushless motor and BL ESC nested in the chassis with the Tower branding. A standard size servo was mounted up front and inside the radio box is a 2.4GHz receiver that was already bound to the included THR-124 radio.

The chassis is pretty neat; the lower plate is aluminum with a composite plastic tray that sits up top. The tray along with some heavy upper front bracing and chunky rear braces gives the truck a nice solid feel. Hinged bumpers mount to the gearboxes and nerf wings protect the truck’s sides. The layout is pretty simple and clean, plus it looks like there’s plenty of room for a long can motor if you want to swap electronics later.
The steering is a swinging bell-crank system with fixed links from the servo and the camber links are fixed to the steering knuckles, too. The suspension arms look well braced and are flexible to take hits. Aluminum towers support the composite shocks front and rear. The shocks feel plush and feature threaded collars to adjust spring pre-load, all good stuff we’re seeing. Finally the driveline looks impressive. We like the sliding aluminum motor mount, triple differentials and steel driveshafts. The center shafts sit high in the chassis to meet up with the placement of the center diff, then in the front and rear, the diffs are angled up to mate up with the shafts while clearing the bracing underneath.

Velcro straps hold the battery in, wire guides run the motor wires over the spur and mudflaps give the truck that cool off-road look. Tower didn’t skimp on details. We also like the all-terrain tires mounted on SC offset wheels with aluminum hexes on the axle shafts. The more we look at this truck, the more neat details we find. We’re anxious to run it! Check out the January 2015 issue of RC Driver for additional details and our thoughts on the Cutback’s performance.