This car has pretty good traction, and tunable traction as well. With the 3 diffs (center, front and rear) and slipper clutch, you can tune as much or as little power transfer as works for you. Cornering is actually one of its stronger points, and is tunable with springs and swaybars to get as much or as little rotation as you want. The stock tires are pretty sticky for pavement, but not really that great otherwise. The kit stuff is OK (plastic LCG chassis, GTR aluminum shocks), and with some basic setup of camber and roll centers and tires it drives reasonably well. However, it’s not really a race-level car. Out of the box, the Velineon system is plenty fast on 2S, and you can go to 3S if you want. There are 3 holes of shock tower mounts, 4 holes of camber link adjustments on the tower, and the standard set of adjustments you can make with camber and steering links. The Slash is kind of a basic car, with basic adjustments you can make. I chose to pair the car with a Futaba 3PL which is a much better radio than the Traxxas TQi that comes with the other Slashes. Ok, well, almost ready-to-run, the Platinum edition requires a radio, receiver, a battery and some paint, but it’s 90% complete. Ha! There is no build, this car comes Ready-to-Run (RTR). This is true of Traxxas cars in general, which are targeted to the more casual driver/less hardcore RC enthusiast. In addition to being versatile, the car is very newbie-friendly. You can bash the car, you can make it a road car, turn it into a monster truck, you can race it, you can go indoor, outdoor, in the snow, even turn it into a… boat ?!!?!?! The Slash 4x4 is probably the most versatile RC car available. Traxxas themselves came out with a host of 4x4′s based on this design, including the Stampede 4x4, the Rally, the XO-1, and of course the Slash 4x4. After the success of the Slash, every major manufacturer came out with their competing product, both in 2WD and 4WD format. The Slash, in particular, launched an entire segment of vehicle (short course truck) that persists today. The Traxxas Slash 4x4 is the most popular hobby-grade RC car on the market. You get all the hop-ups of the Ultimate Edition (aluminum carriers, center diff, GTR shocks, LCG chassis), but you don’t pay extra for the basic radio and useless battery/charger, and you get a body you can paint yourself. The Platinum edition is really the best version to get (there are probably like 10 different versions of the Slash 4x4) in my opinion, because you get everything you need, and nothing you don’t. So I decided to go more “kit” and the Slash 4x4 was an easy choice. The Stampede was good, but I started driving primarily on an indoor track, and it was not really the right vehicle for that environment.

Most of the parts between the two cars are interchangeable. My first RC car was a Stampede 4x4, which is a close cousin of the Slash. Hopefully this reads a little better and is a little bit more of a standardized and comprehensible way to read my thoughts on the car. I’m going to change things up a little bit and try to have a more formalized approach to reviews.

Traxxas slash ultimate review