Kyosho Optima Mid Part 4
"Tyres OT-66"
Hello fellow RC enthusiasts from around the World and thank you for joining me. I hope you are all well.
In this long awaited "Part 4" of the Optima Mid series, I am going to be changing the Sand Super tyres that were supplied in the re-release kit for some reproduction Bridgestone tyres.
The Bridgestone tyres were originally supplied with the Optima Mid and the Optima Pro buggies back in the late 1980's and early 1990's and had the original part number of OT-66. The re-release Optima Mid (in fact all the re-release buggies) are supplied with the "Sand Super" tyre which in my opinion doesn't look anywhere near as good as the Bridgestone tyre. The reproduction tyres will give the Optima mid (in my humble opinion) the full nostalgic look it deserves.
The reason I had not fitted these tyres any earlier was simply because I couldn't afford them until now. I had always planned to put these tyres on the Optima Mid. Some might say I should have used the spare money I had to go towards my Javelin project however, I needed to finish the Optima Mid project before moving onto the Javelin. The Javelin will also require the correct reproduction tyres, so I will add them to the build parts list.
When I say "I will be fitting them now", I have only actually ordered the tyres yesterday (11/7/26), so I will have to wait goodness knows how long for the tyres to arrive. However, I did pay an extra $19 for express delivery so hopefully I won't have to wait to long. Apparently the company that makes the reproduction tyres are based in Kuwait, so they could still take a couple of weeks to arrive. Whilst waiting for the tyres to be delivered I can take the opportunity to order some new tyre lettering paint, of which I will need white, red and yellow colours to keep with the original box art as shown below.
The "Optima Mid SE" above and the "Turbo Optima Mid" below.
As you can see from the beautiful examples above, the tyres have 3 different colours painted onto the tyres. It will be tricky and time consuming to paint the tyres, but the results are more than worth it. I also plan to ask my friend (who is extra careful and critical of quality) to paint them.
Whilst we are talking about the worth of things, I am sure you are all interested to find out how much I paid for the tyres and where to get them. I bought the tyres from
"Marwan RC" and the costs are as follows.
OT- 66 Tyres $18.49 for 2 tyres
I obviously needed 4 tyres so it came to $36.98.
Express delivery was $19.75
Giving a grand total of $56.73
The grand total in GBP (£) was £44.15 using the current paypal conversion rate.
Hopefully you can appreciated that the tyres are quite expensive, hence the time it took to save for them.
So, that is the news on my Optima Mid to date. All I have to do now is wait for the tyres to be delivered and then I will fit them to the wheels and then paint them. I'm hoping/expecting the tyres to take at least 2 weeks to be delivered. I have used Marwan RC before, when I ordered my standard Optima tyres but I simply cannot remember how long they took to arrive, however I can remember being pleasantly surprised at how quick they were delivered.
When the tyres arrive, and the painting is underway, I will update this post so you can see how long the painting process takes and how it comes along so please keep checking this post for further updates.
Until the tyres arrive, please stay safe and continue to enjoy your RC hobby.
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