As people feel the pinch of inflation at every corner of their lives the overlanding community has not been spared from the pains of rising costs. With the prices at the pumps also going up there is a new form of overlanding that is seeing a rebirth in popularity. Underlanding Journal has the 411 on the 1/16. Scale that is.

Radio controlled vehicles are nothing new to the hobby scene. Within the last ten years companies started creating more realistic looking rock crawlers and off road RC vehicles that resemble commercially available SUVs and trucks. This started a trend where it became popular to build or purchase an RC car that was a scaled down version of the offroad enthusiast’s. It seems that some creative overlanders have found a hack to cut down on their overlanding costs by skipping the scaled up version of their car and just utilizing the RC version.

Underlanding Journal tracked down one of these resilient overlanders who didn’t let the fact of high fuel costs and over inflated underperforming priced rigs get in the way of him living the overlanding lifestyle. Kieth Maynard has been living his scaled life and provided us some insight.

Kieth – “It all started when I found a Jeep Wrangler at the local hobby shop. I thought $600 was a pretty tall price for such a small vehicle. It did come with a remote and batteries, so maybe that wasn’t too bad. I figured for one car payment I could outright own my overlanding experience and not be chained down in the rat race. I purchased the Jeep and started kitting it out. The first thing I did was upgrade the tires. But then at the local park in the kids sand pit the Jeep struggled and would easily get stuck. That led me to upgrading the axles to locked rock crawler axles. I found my gear ratio a bit too high with the newer bigger tires so I found some different ring and pinion gears and got things to a 5.10 ratio. That fixed the problem of feeling underpowered, but then also killed my speed crossing through the grassy field next to the swings. Parent’s look at me with some strange eye rolls for whatever reason when I’m over overlanding in the wood chips. It usually draws a crowd. Granted they are ten year olds, but they are really into overlanding too. Sometimes I’ll put it in two wheel drive and accidentally get stuck. Then it’s time to get out the traction mats. I was able to use my friends 3D printer and orange filament to create a realistic set of mats. They haven’t let me down yet! I did have the park security called on me when I was trying to roast marshmallows in a non designated area of the park. I usually overland my way home at night however. There have been a few people get their possessions stolen in that park at night. So we’ll just set up under the stars next to the window of my apartment kicking back with nice camp supper in the kitchen.”

Overland Journal wishes Kieth happy trails.