The Best RC Cars That Would Make Great Gifts

This is one for the rally fans! Tamiya’s Lancia Delta Integrale RC car body will remind you of times when rally racing was completely unhinged.

Tamiya’s 1/10 scale series of build-it-yourself RC cars is perfect for older buyers looking for a fun way to kill some time. It should be noted that this kit only comes with what you’ll need to build the car. You need to buy the motor, battery and other components separately. That’s all part of the fun, though! This allows you to customize the car with different motors, batteries and other components so you can make it as fast as you like.

While not cheap, this line of Tamiya products double as great-looking display pieces, in addition to being fun to drive. This makes them well suited for older car enthusiasts or those who are typically into building scale models of cars, ships and the like. Tamiya has a bunch of other cool car bodies as part of this series as well, like this Alfa Romeo GTV, so you can pick and choose your favorite.

The Lightning STK from Red Cat Racing is a bit more affordable than the Lightning EPX Pro but offers similar performance, making it a less expensive alternative to our Editor’s Pick.

We like the way the Lightning STK’s NASCAR-style body looks, but that’s not all it has to offer. With a 550 brushed motor, an 1800 mAh nickel-metal hydride battery, adjustable suspension and aluminum capped, oil-filled shocks, this 1/10 scale RC car is ready to race out of the box.

This RC car is rated at about 25 mph. Buyers suggest buying a spare battery to extend its usage window and also getting rechargeable batteries for the remote. The remote takes 8 AA batteries, which can quickly get expensive to replace.

This is also a tarmac-only RC car and is not waterproof, so just like NASCAR in real life, you should only drive this on a paved, dry road.

This awesome-looking AWD RC rally car from Traxxas may be familiar to you if you watch Ken Block’s Gymkhana series. It’s modeled after the Fiesta ST rally car that Block has been known to pilot and can pull off similarly impressive drifts.

This ready-to-drive RC car comes with a waterproof electric motor, fulltime all-wheel drive, replica rally wheels with grippy tires and a hobby-grade radio system. The battery and charger is sold separately however , which is a downside, but this at least allows you to purchase a good battery for it that will extend the life and improve the overall performance of it.

With different gearing and an improved battery, this can be an extremely fast RC car, but out of the box it will do about 30 mph.

This is a very expensive RC crawler, but it was just too cool not to include. Styled after the much-loved Ford Bronco, this RC truck is impossibly cool.

It’s also of high quality, featuring durable portal axles, working locking differentials, low- and high-speed gear ranges and an extremely detailed body with accurate details and even windshield wipers. It can accept NiMh or LiPo batteries (these are sold separately though) and features a robust 550 electric motor.

You can get a ready-to-drive Traxxas TRX-4 chassis (which this truck is based on) for less if you opt for the unlicensed truck body, it should be noted. The TRX-4 chassis can also accept a variety of bodies – here it is as a Land Rover Defender, for example.

While expensive, this RC Ford Bronco is of extremely high quality and looks very, very cool. It’s also fully upgradable (like many other Traxxas products, we’re sure you’re beginning to realize) so this is a great starter kit for the budding hobbyist.

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The Redcat Racing Lightning EPX Pro is a good middle ground between performance and price, which helped it land our ‘Editor’s Pick’ designation.

This RC car features a 3500 mAh lithium polymer battery (LiPo), a 2.4GHz radio and a brushless 3300KV 540 Novatech motor. It will do over 40 mph and the battery should last around 20 minutes or so. You may want to buy a backup battery with it if you plan on using it for longer than 20 minutes, though.

This RC car is extremely fast, well-priced and is of good quality. This is a tarmac only RC car, so you won’t want to be jumping it or going off-road with it, but is perfect for paved surface racing or driving. We’d say the only cons are that it can’t go off-road and that it’s so fast it may be hard to control for less experienced users.