Traxxas Bigfoot No. 1

The fearsome Ford that put monster trucking on the map puts its stamp on the Stampede.

- Peter Vieira

It’s easy to name the vehicles of the pop-culture scene that most captured our imaginations in the ’80s—the Back to the Future DeLorean, Knight Rider Trans Am, and National Lampoon’s Vacation’s Family Truckster come readily to mind. But the biggest (literally) four-wheeled fantasy of the ’80s did not inhabit a fictional world; it was a real-steel ride that crushed cars and created motorized mayhem without the help of special effects or a prop department. We’re talking about the Bigfoot, of course, the icon created by Bob Chandler that famously flattened cars from coast to coast and birthed the monster truck as we know it. Bigfoot lives on as a modernized machine in the Traxxas Monster Truck Destruction Tour series, but it’s the classic F-series version that most think of when they hear the name. And that’s what Traxxas has modeled here, with Bigfoot No. 1. The Traxxas truck is beautifully decked out like the boxy Blue Oval that started it all, complete with a heaping helping of chrome parts. And like the “modern” Bigfoot Traxxas offers, the “No. 1” rides on the Stampede platform, so we already know it’s going to be a fun driver and tough truck even before we pull the trigger. But let’s run it hard to make sure…

Metal-Gear Magnum 272 Transmission

Traxxas first went metalgear with the Velineon brushless-powered Rustler, Bandit, and Stampede, and quickly made the gearbox standard on the brushed versions of those models and all the other Traxxas vehicles that use the Magnum 272 gearbox. That includes the Bigfoot, so if you decide to upgrade to brushless power, the gearbox already has the strength required to handle the extra torque and rpm. Fun fact: the “272” refers to the transmission ratio, which is 2.72:1.