The Winning Bird (Japanese: ウイニングバード, Uiningu Bādo) is a Racing Mini 4WD car released by Tamiya on April 3, 1990. It is the second Mini 4WD car from the Dream Attack project started by Tamiya and Shogakukan.
It was featured in the manga Mini 4 Top as Toppu Kudo's upgraded machine from his Rising Bird.
General info
Unlike its predecessor, the Winning Bird has a more blocky body design and is dominated by silver with blue highlights and black and red trims. It also lost the rear wings, harboring a pair of fins in its place which compensates for the lack of a spoiler.
The low-height, flat design was inspired by Formula 1 car body designs as well as a jet fighter's sharp design.
While the boxart depicts the Winning Bird equipped with the standard rollers, the actual assembled mini car can be equipped with the larger rollers as seen in the manga, depending on user's preference.
It was equipped with the white, mid-diameter 4-spoke Hotshot-type wheels paired with the red spike tires. Unlike the Rising Bird, the Winning Bird's chassis is now molded in black.
21st Century Edition
In 2015, Tamiya released the 21st Century Edition of the Winning Bird which comes with several different color schemes and an updated chassis (VS Chassis). It was also a limited prize model.
Change has been made to the bodyshell mold, allowing it to be attach onto later chassis. (the exception of this is the front-motor chassis, the midship-motor chassis and the AR Chassis)
It was equipped with the silver-plated, large-diameter 6-spoke Manta Ray-type wheel paired with MS-type spike tires with the color choices of red and black (Depends on the model).
In the manga
5 of the 6 Shogaku Year serializations of the Mini 4 Top has Toppu replacing the Rising Bird with the Winning Bird though in the Top 6 version, he owns the Winning Bird right from the beginning).
In some versions of the story, the Winning Bird has the lightweight, polycarbonate body version known as the Winning Bird Formula.
Technical info
Length: 127 mm
Width: 92 mm (With large rollers)
Height: 45 mm
Chassis: Type-3 Chassis, VS Chassis (21st Century Edition)
Gear Set(s): 5:1 and 6.4:1 (Original), 4:1 (21st Century Edtion)