The Shining Scorpion (シャイニングスコーピオン) is a Fully Cowled Mini 4WD car released by Tamiya in 1997. It was originally released as a body set which is the pre-order bonus for the SNES game.
It is featured in the video game Mini 4WD Shining Scorpion Let's & Go! for Nintendo SNES (known as Super Famicon in Japan) as the machine for the player character. It also featured in the manga and anime Bakusou Kyodai Let's & Go! and Bakusou Kyoudai Let's & Go! WGP as the machines for Mini 4WD Fighter and Sheng Huang respectively.
General info
As its name implies, the Shining Scorpion featuring the smooth, fully-cowled body design that is based on the scorpion. The front cowl can be removed.
It is mainly in white, with blue (or violet, pink and red) highlights and black trims on it.
The original Shining Scorpion comes with the red small-diameter 3-spoke Fully Cowled-type wheels with high-profile tires. It comes with the gray V-machine-type side-guard and the chassis's sub-parts were molded in green.
The Premium variants comes with the small-diameter 5-spoke Saber-type low-profile wheels with low-profile tires. They also came with the Side-Guard EX.
In the video game, manga and anime
In the Mini 4WD Shining Scorpion Let's & Go!, the player received the Shining Scorpion from Dr. Tsuchiya and Tesshin Akada during his visit on Sagami model shop.
In the anime adaptation of Let's & Go! series, Tesshin made not one but two Shinning Scorpions; the first one was given to the his assistant Da San Yuan who then passed down to his grandson Huang, while the other one was given to Takeshi Sugiyama (the future Mini 4WD Fighter) 10 years prior. Fighter quickly recognized the design of Shining Scorpion that Makoto (Retsu and Go's friend) found on the internet because he still owns the Shining Scorpion.
The Shining Scorpion is also the first car to have the ZMC-made body. According to Dr. Tsuchiya, Tesshin had said before that this car is a decade too soon to be ready for the race scene. The car has a special ability where the car's highlight color will change at certain speeds until the car is stopped.
In Power WGP2 video game, the rest of the Light Scorpion team switched from their Kong Long in the first World Grand Prix to a variation of the Shining Scorpion named Shining Dragon, which is simply a green palette swap of the Shining Scorpion.
Technical info
Length: 132 mm (Normal), 150 mm (Premium)
Width: 90 mm (Normal), 97 mm (Premium)
Height: 37 mm (Normal)
Chassis: Super-1 Chassis (Normal), Super-II Chassis (Premium)
Gear Set(s): 5:1 and 4:1 (Normal), 3.5:1 (Premium)
Gallery
Boxarts
Trivia
- The Shining Scorpion is the first video game original machine that was later appear in the anime and the manga.
- The appearance of Shining Scorpion in the anime as Fighter's car makes the Fighter Magnum VFX a manga-exclusive car for Fighter.
- All color special versions of the Premium car (red, violet, and pink) are based on the color switch ability.
See also
- Shining Scorpion X
- Neo-Tridagger ZMC
- Storm-Cruiser
External links
- Shining Scorpion on Tamiya official website (Japanese)
- Shining Scorpion Premium on Tamiya official website
- Shining Scorpion Premium Red Version on Tamiya official website
- Shining Scorpion Premium Pink Version on Tamiya official website
- Shining Scorpion Premium Violet Version on Tamiya official website
| Fully Cowled Mini 4WD series | ||
|---|---|---|
| Super-1 | Magnum Saber* · Sonic Saber* · Tridagger X* · Black Saber · Spin-Axe · Proto-Saber JB · Victory Magnum* · Vanguard Sonic* · Beak Spider* · Neo-Tridagger ZMC* · Fighter Magnum VFX* · Ray Stinger* · Shining Scorpion* · Bergkaiser* | |
| Super-FM | Brocken Gigant* · Gun Bluster XTO* | |
| Super TZ | Cyclone Magnum* · Hurricane Sonic* · Cyclone Magnum TRF · Diospada* · Beat-Magnum* · Buster-Sonic* · Beat-Magnum TRF · Fire Stinger | |
| VS | Spin-Viper† · Diomars-Nero† | |
| Super-II | Spin Cobra† | |
| AR | Z Wing Magnum · Great BlastSonic · Beak Stinger G · Proto-Saber Evolution† · Tridagger WX | |
| FM-A | Great Magnum R · Cosmosonic | |
| * denotes Premium version available; † denotes racing chassis re-release of a Mechanical Mini 4WD car | ||