Features
According to Robitronic, the Mantis is for both bashers and racers, and with a street price of $450 it gives both a lot of bang for their buck. For a first effort, the Mantis isn't loaded with tons of innovations, but it is a solidly built, well thought out truggy.

Dual Chassis Braces
The Mantis takes no chances with chassis flex. The three millimeter chassis is already plenty beefy, and dual stamped aluminum chassis braces connect both bulkheads to the chassis near the center. This is good because even though Robitronic advertises an aluminum top deck, it doesn't actually connect to either bulkhead, but really only serves to locate the throttle/brake servo. An engine mount with an extra-large footprint also helps chassis rigidity.

Rubber Hinge Pin Holders
This is one of the Mantis' most interesting features. The suspension's hinge pins are encased in rubber bushings before being secured by the aluminum suspension mounts. The rubber doesn't seem to have any noticeable effect on suspension geometry, but it does provide a little bit of give in a crash, and should help protect the extra-long suspension arms from breaking.

Low CG DIffs
It's obvious from the chassis layout that Robitronic's engineers concentrated on keeping this truck's center of gravity low. This is obvious from the diffs, which lay low in blisters on the Mantis' chassis. The diffs are also accessible by removing only four screws, and are fully sealed for maximum protection.

Keep It Covered
No gigantic Ferris wheel here. The Mantis utilizes a moderately sized center gear, and protects the teeth from rocks and trash with a cover. The center gear is sandwiched by the dual brake disks, and a unique control mechanism that makes for easy and quick front/rear bias adjustments.

Instructions and Setup
The Mantis arrives with the tires and wheels bolted on, so setup is limited to putting fresh batteries in the receiver. The instruction manual features full assembly schematics, which will make life easier when teardown and rebuild time comes. However, even though Axial's Paul Coleman is racing this truggy, there are no setup sheets or tips included or available online. With a brand new design, this would have been helpful.

Testing
Testing the Mantis involved two stages. The first location was my backyard, where it handily passed a test I call "Race the dog." (Failure means death as a chew toy.) From there I took the truggy to The Grove in Rock Hill, SC. One benefit of living in the South is that you can find tracks that race year round, and the Grove is one of them. The surface was in excellent shape and a great place to put this truggy through its paces.

Acceleration and Speed • Robitronic is imported to the US by Axial, and as such, the Mantis uses many components from Axial. This includes Axial's excellent .28 Spec 1s engine with pull start. When properly tuned, this engine pulls like a tractor, and the polished aluminum pipe seems a good match for this mill. This truck is also shod with Axial's oversized Terra-izer tires, which are very good on medium-packed tracks. The tires' large contact patch, combined with heavy #15,000 silicone fluid in the center diff kept all four tires clawing the ground, and made for excellent acceleration any time I pinned the throttle.
Low gearing also played a role in the Mantis' excellent acceleration, but a lower top speed was the payoff. Top speed wasn't poor by any means, and it was more than enough for The Grove's tight, technical layout. The truck comes with a 13-tooth clutch bell, but for more open tracks with longer straights, Robitronic also includes 14- and 15-tooth clutch bells. With these options, you should be able to tune the truck exactly to your needs.
Rating: 9/9

Braking • Dual brake disks and a unique linkage mechanism make it very easy to dial in the exact amount of bias you want between the front and rear tires. Tightening the turnbuckle sends more braking to the front tires; loosening it moves braking power to the rears. Overall, braking felt adequate. I experienced no brake fade once the pads and disks had mated in and been re-adjusted, but the brakes just seemed a little sluggish. This might be improved by replacing the brake spring on the servo assembly with a length of fuel tubing.
Rating: 8

Low-Speed Handling • This truck has plenty of initial turn-in. Rolling through a turn was a piece of cake, but powering out was a little trickier. The back end wanted to slide around, which required a gentle trigger finger. Before I made any changes the truck wanted to powerslide on turn exit—fun, but not the fastest way around. The cause of this is almost definitely the diff setup the truck ships with. Robitronic says the Mantis comes with a "factory driver setup," which may be true for the shocks and suspension settings, but the diffs come with #7,000 oil in the front and rear and #15,000 in the center, which seem to be more suited to climbing over logs in the backyard than handling on the race track. Dropping the viscosity in all three and bringing the rear to between #3,000 and #5,000 should help considerably. The oversize tires also lead to lots of sidewall flex, and steering could be sharpened even further with standard size rubber.
Rating: 8

High-Speed Handling • The Grove's tight track doesn't allow for much full-throttle action, but it was easy to tell that the Mantis stays settled at speed. Fairly soft springs on all four corners make for good weight transfer to the rear tires on acceleration. This lightens the load over the front tires and slows down steering. It doesn't make the truck feel lazy, just more stable with a slight push.
Rating: 9

Rough-Track Handling • With their wide track, truggies shine when the track gets rough—and with Axial's oversized Terra-izer tires, the Mantis laughed at ruts and bumps. The Grove also features a set of offset six-inch rollers that can upset most vehicles, but the Mantis' soft suspension and low balance soaked 'em up like nothing. You don't have to worry about avoiding ruts or bumps in the Mantis, but can instead concentrate on the best racing line. If the handling isn't to your liking, Robitronic sends along extra shock pistons to help you tune the truck.
Rating: 9

Jumping • The Grove features a lot of its jumps right out of turn exits. This requires a lot of attention to perfecting your driving to get the best line on the jumps. The Mantis takes to jumps like a squirrel to a walnut tree. The truck tends to soak up the smaller jumps and barely leaves the track, so you can apply power to the ground sooner. On larger jumps it tends to fly level and responds readily to throttle inputs. In a battle between the Grove and my driving skills, the track often won. As a result I too often hit jumps off-camber, but the Mantis always seemed to find its way back on all four wheels.
Rating: 9

Wrenching
Maintenance • The joy of 1/8 scale is that the extra room makes for easy wrenching. The Mantis is well-designed when it comes to maintenance and making diff tuning changes. The removal of four bolts gets you to the diff, and the case splits horizontally so you can pull the top half and make your changes with the bottom half still in the truck. You don't even have to remove the outdrives. Everything can be reached easily, and the receiver and battery are protected from the elements in their own compartment. The five-cell receiver pack even features a separate pigtail so you don't even have to remove it for charging. There is also an Axial fuel filter included to keep the engine healthier longer.
The only downside here is that the hinge pins in the ends of the lower control arms are captured by E-clips. An annoyance, but at least there are only four of them. The big question here is when something does break, how hard will it be to get a replacement? Replacement parts are available online at Tower Hobbies, but since Robitronic is new on the scene, finding parts at your local hobby shop may be troublesome.
Rating: 7

Wear and Tear • The only disappointment in this category is that the steering servo failed surprisingly early. During the photo shoot one wheel clipped a curb, which resulted in a stripped servo gear. (For the record, Wort was driving.) The servo was sufficiently strong to turn the wheels; it just couldn't take a hit. We replaced it with a metal-gear servo from Hitec, which in turn stripped the plastic servo horn. I didn't want to loosen the servo saver any more, so I replaced the servo horn with one made from aluminum and had no further problems.
That was the only breakage I had to deal with. During testing at The Grove I put the Mantis through far more cartwheels than I'd like to admit to, and went nose-first into the front side of a couple of tricky doubles a few times, but the truck simply laughed it all off. A few scratches on the body are the only signs of my abuse.
Rating: 9

Tuning • The Mantis offers a full range of tuning options. Turnbuckles are installed in all the usual locations and control camber and toe. There are multiple mounting location options for both the shocks and sway bars, and mounting holes on the shock towers allow you to adjust caster in the front and roll center in the rear. Multiple spring clips are included to adjust ride height. Also, as already mentioned, brake bias can be adjusted with a twist of the turnbuckle. For the beginning and intermediate racer, every tuning option you need is here and easy to get to.
Rating: 9

Conclusion
For a first effort, Robitronic's Mantis is a surprisingly good truggy. The design is solid and has no obvious weaknesses. The Axial .28 engine is strong and the suspension works predictably. Plus, there is something to be said for having something different at the race track. During my test session the Mantis' chopped body and red anodizing certainly caught plenty of attention. It is hard to get everything right on a racing RC vehicle on the first try, but Robitronic appears to have gotten as close as possible with the Mantis.