Speaking of mettel/hot wheels, I have one of the newer 540 motor 4wd shaft driven buggies from wal-mart. It's not too bad, digital proportional. My only complaint is it need's some real bearings in the wheel hub's. It's only seen about 3 batttery packs and it allready getting a little slop.
I also have a smaller ~1/18 scale hot wheels/tyco "Dune Devil", takes a 9.6 and has a little 380 motor. It's not fully proportional....like the box said it was. It's fairly quick with a good battery pack. But just is'nt the same as a Baja Bandit.