The Taiyo Thunder Storm was an RC hovercraft released in 2005 which followed in the footsteps of one of Taiyo's most successful RC vehicles, the 9.6V Typhoon.
The Thunder Storm is unique in that it comprises a whole new design and rethink of the hovercraft concept, with the hull split into a catamaran style vessel with two independent hover pods, and a central command structure.
Quoting speeds of just 13Km/h on land, slower than the original Typhoon, and half the speed of the latest T-3 model, it is by far the slowest of all Taiyo's hovercrafts, half the speed of the T-3 which clocks at 20km/h, despite sharing the same 9.6V battery pack.
This seems to suggest it's the Thunder Storms unique design which reduces its efficiency, and so given the unusual product name design (the 'Thunder Storm' with logo on the box looks very similar to Japanese TV show titles of the era), we wonder if this RC vehicle was designed as a fictional character vehicle from TV/Film, and not ever designed with actual hovercraft functionality in mind.
In any case, we can't deny that the Thunder Storm looks very cool, better than the Typhoon in our view, even if it does perform worse.
Do you have a Taiyo Thunder Storm? How does it drive? Let us know below!
