1/64 Scale Suzuki Carry Truck Gets Turned Into Functional R/C Car

Diorama111 has spent years bringing life to the plastic tiny worlds he designs. With him behind the wheel, a simple plastic shell is transformed into something that moves, turns, and even blinks back at you in an unsettling way. His most recent achievement transforms the 1/64 scale Suzuki Carry truck, an homage to Japan’s minuscule Kei automobiles, into a fully functional remote-controlled vehicle. This little hauler, only 53mm long and 23mm wide, packs an incredible amount of motor, steering, and lighting into a body roughly the size of a sugar packet.

Kei cars have existed since postwar Japan, when roadways were small and fuel supplies were limited, necessitating vehicles that were stripped down to their fundamental basics. The Suzuki Carry is an excellent illustration of this: a boxy cab sitting atop a flatbed, designed for rural agricultural trips and urban delivery work. Diorama111 begins with a stock replica of this classic, retaining every single rivet and headlight lens. He correctly avoids the typical chaos that occurs when you gut out a larger RC setup. Instead, he conceals all of his modifications under the bed, leaving the exterior pristine.

Jamming motor parts into such a small place needs a lot of patience. Diorama111 creates a rear-wheel drive setup using normal servos and unique linkages, then tucks them down so snugly that you have to look very closely to find them. Steering’s taken care of by a teeny gear mechanism that turns the front wheels with a surprising amount of precision, given the scale. Power’s provided by a 50 mAh lithium-polymer battery, which is slim enough to slip into the frame without bulging out the sides. Charging occurs via a discreet outlet under the floor, and after a 20-minute plug-in, it will chug away for sessions lasting around an hour. These selections keep the weight to an exceptionally light 15 grams, allowing the truck to move quickly without tipping over.

The electronics underpinning this truck are impossibly neat. A Microchip ATtiny1616 microcontroller sits at the centre, juggling inputs from an RN4871U Bluetooth module. Pair your phone to the truck, and your commands flow over the airwaves: forward, reverse, left, right. Diorama111 has also made the circuit diagrams and code freely available on Google Drive, so anyone can give it a go or try and improve on it. The receiver board is a tiny object, only a few millimeters wide, and is soldered with very fine wires that run through the chassis. There is no bloated antenna to disrupt the lines here; the Bluetooth signal cuts neatly through walls up to 10 meters away. This setup enables the truck to respond to taps on a custom app, transforming a simple scroll into silky smooth motion.

Headlights turn on with a button press, casting a soft glow from the embedded LEDs that mimic halogen bulbs. Turn signals flash for left or right, hazard lights pulse for those pretend emergencies. Brake lights trigger when you let off the throttle, red LEDs bright. Reverse is the same, but swaps to an amber warning. Diorama111 wires these directly to the microcontroller outputs, to the drive signals.

Assembly is like a puzzle with moving parts. Diorama111 starts by hollowing out just enough space under the bed for the drive train. He glues the servos in place, then tests the linkages with a multimeter to catch shorts early. The battery mounts last, secured with foam tape to dampen vibrations. Soldering is under magnification; one slip and you can fry the board. He iterates through prototypes, swapping components until it feels right. The steering geometry presents a challenge: too much play and it wanders; too tight and it binds. Fine adjustments are made with a hobby knife and pliers to get it just perfect. In the end, the shell clips back on flawlessly, concealing the magic within.
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