There’s something about a 1/10 scale desert truck that a lot of bigger, faster machines just don’t have. It’s not about clearing a jump by three car lengths or landing flat off a six foot table top. It’s about a truck that looks like it belongs out in the dirt somewhere between Baja and the Mojave, one you can drive with some restraint and still feel like you’re doing it justice. That’s the appeal of the Outlaw Rampage line for me. Motor on axle, trailing arms out back, independent front end, and a shape that just works. I loved the original, and Kyosho clearly haven’t wanted to mess with a winning formula here. What they’ve done with the Pro 2.0 is quieter than that. Reused a lot of the car, changed some of the bits that needed changing.

Sitting the two trucks side by side, you’d be forgiven for not noticing much at all. Same shell, same proportions, same beadlocked wheels doing a nice job of looking tough while staying light. The one visible difference up front is the headlight surround. You get a choice of round or rectangular lights in the kit, both able to be populated, so you can build the face you prefer. I went with round on this one because I like the look better, but it’s nice that Kyosho left that choice in your hands rather than picking for you.

The bit I want to talk about properly is the axle, because it’s the part of any car like this that decides whether you trust it. The housing is two plastic halves, held together with six screws. On paper that sounds like it could be a weak point, and I get why some people might look at that spec sheet and wince. In practice, for the kind of driving this truck is built for, scale, considered, not launched off everything in sight, I think six screws and a well moulded plastic housing is plenty. This isn’t a car you’re taking to a jump comp. Driven the way it’s meant to be driven, that axle should hold up fine for a long time.

Under the skin, Kyosho say the new V2 gear set uses revised materials and a different tooth profile, aimed at cutting noise and adding durability. Handling both sets side by side, the gears in the 2.0 do look fatter, and the material has a different feel to it. Whether that translates to noticeably longer life is something only time in the dirt will answer, but it’s a sensible thing to have addressed on a car with a floating rear end. The radio tray has had more attention too. It’s a flatter, more open layout now, with a separate dustproof receiver box tucked in behind it, and it made routing and mounting my gear noticeably easier than on the original.

On the electronics side, I’ve gone with a slightly hotter setup than stock, but if I was speccing this truck purely on what suits the way it drives, I’d land closer to a 2600kv brushless system. That feels like the sweet spot for a truck like this, enough pace to keep it interesting without turning a scale desert truck into something it was never meant to be. Weighed side by side, the two trucks come out almost identical, a shade over 2.3 kilos each, so none of this has added meaningful weight along the way.

I like this car. I liked the original, and I like what Kyosho have done with the 2.0. It’s not a reinvention, and it doesn’t need to be. It’s a tidy set of running changes to a truck that already had the fundamentals right, and if you don’t already own the first one, this is a very easy truck to recommend.

My thanks to Hobbies Australia for supplying this review unit. If you’re in Australia, check with your local hobby shop for pre-orders, or get in touch with Hobbies Australia directly if you’re not sure who that is. Elsewhere in the world, you can find it here.

A note on affiliate links: we were provided with this car by the manufacturer for review purposes. The purchase links in the above article are affiliate links, which means we may be paid a small commission if you choose to click on them to make a purchase. As always, we make effort to ensure that no review is impacted by this – we still report on bugs and issues encountered during product testing, and our fixes or solutions if found. Thank you for reading and happy RC-ing!