I?ll throw another vote for the Traxxas Rustler. I had one when my kid was into that kind of stuff. The stadium trucks are a blast. We enjoyed going to construction sites on weekends when nobody was around and making up our own off road courses. My kid had a Losi and while it was nice it would frequently break stuff if you crashed. The Rustler I had was like a tank. I plowed into plenty of stuff expecting to pick up pieces of plastic only to be pleasantly surprised to find out nothing was damaged.

While the nitro stuff seems cool the electric stuff is way less maintenance, no flammable fuel to have to deal with, and you can run them indoors in the winter months without breathing fumes.

Plenty of upgrades and hot rod parts for the Traxxas stuff and most of it is reasonably priced.