The Taiyo Dagger, or 6.0V Jet Turbo Dagger, is a radio control car released by Taiyo into the Japanese market in 1995.
The Dagger is a car that will grow on you. At first, yes, it's a gimmick, but is it any good?
Features and Design
On one side of the Dagger is a lever which can be pulled outward, and moved up or down to select a new notch position which provides a different vehicle behavior. Along the notches it is marked:
- Extreme Wheelie Zone (Back/Red)
- Stunt Zone (Green/Middle)
- Speed Zone (Yellow/Forward)
If we look carefully, we can see that moving this notch actually moves the internal 6.0V Jet Turbo battery forward and backward, adjusting the vehicles center of gravity. With the battery all the way towards the back, the vehicle will tilt back on its rear wheels frequently ('wheelie'), and fully forward it will stay level on the ground. Adjustable between 5 positions, you can make it behave as you like.
Target Audience
One of a handful of eye-catching Taiyo designs in the mid-90s created and marketed with a single-focus on grabbing the attention of children back from the video game consoles which had consumed much of Taiyos market, and would ultimately lead to its demise.
Performance
Despite the max speed being fairly tame for a dragster, at just 17km/h (11mph), but it does have proper acceleration and despite the weird setup you can drive it fairly normally.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZhC9HbAj5Y
So is it any good?
Overall we just have to say YES, it's actually pretty good! No, you won't be zooming around an off-road track, but you CAN and SHOULD be zooming off some homemade jumps, and cutting sick donuts like it's nobodies business! This is a toy for kids who want to have some good dumb fun. Awesome.
Recommendation
Whatever you think of the Dagger and those like it, you have to admit that Taiyo obviously put everything they had into these last few models, and many of them were very successful - particularly the Rebound 4x4, Triple Wheels, and the Python and FirePower to a lesser extent, with all four being translated to Tyco and marketed in the USA.
The Dagger is still widely available on eBay used, and you'll sometimes find near-new or new models on Japanese auction sites for this Taiyo version.
