I bought the latest copy of Evo, and there was a couple of pages about Tamiya RC cars.
I read with interest as I always wanted a 1/10 scale Baja Bug when I was a kid but they were just too expensive. I had a few £20-50 radio controlled cars but never the "holy grail" Tamiya.....
The feature has rekindled my desire for one, I can afford a few whimsical purchases and TBH compared to watches its a relatively cheap hobby lol!!!!
I think I'm gonna plump for the Integrale or the 911RS body as they're really iconic!
Anybody else have one or any Interest in them??
Ps I know nitro is better but the nostalgia is not there....
My friend used to spend 20-30K a year on them. He was racing all over the world, but only as a hobby... tamyia, Serpent, Novarossi ... all lovely pieces of engineering
if you mix that with litres of nitromethane= huge fun
(but planes are so much better :) )
My lad recently blew his first few months wages on a couple of them, he first bought a Tamiya Hornet and then a HPI 4x4 thing which is quite simply ridiculous. The speeds it reaches is amazing.
Unfortunately he won't let me play anymore as my first attempt resulted with it going under the neighbours car at about 40mph.....spoilsport
They are great fun but I expect if you take it up seriously you will be amazed at the costs involved.
FFF
Last edited by Franky Four Fingers; 4th January 2015 at 11:48.
Been into RC for a couple of years now. Own several both on and off road. A tamiya was my first on road (a TB03D) but that has now been totally converted to a full carbon chassis. I also have a higher spec xray chassis too. I mainly drift with the on road cars. My off road is an Axial exo terra buggy which is a beast!
It is a cheaper hobby than watches, but only just depending how deep you go.
RC is a great way to get outdoors and I love having a good old tinker to set things up just so.
My lads each got a 1/10 RC. Tamiya kit, the entry level buggy the Grasshopper. They're great, took a couple of days to put together but the boys all learnt from doing that. I expect they'll upgrade bits before long but that's all part of the fun from what I gather!
Always wanted one as a kid,but they were to expensive,I wish this thread had never appeared who knows what mite happen
Same story here. Always wanted one as a youngster but Santa never delivered. Last year bought a Tamiya 4WD Plasma Edge and enjoyed putting it together. Just ordered a Neo Racer 2WD(£65kit only) from ebay - seems a bit of a bargain!
Many years ago I saved up ALL my pocket money and after a long time went to Beatties in Romford and got a Tamiya Sand Rover buggy. Many hours of fun building, hours of fun driving, more hours not so fun rebuilding.
It now sits in it's Beatties Tamiya bag waiting for a rebuild, I keep meaning to do it, it's sat there for years now. Last time I looked the driver was missing, goodness knows where he went.
Might get it out today after reading this, work out what needs doing.
They are great fun! My first was a Tamiya Wild Willy followed by a Super Champ, 956, Hornet, Grasshopper. I then started racing at club and national level with RC10s. Happy days and great fun. All out of the boot of my Vauxhall Astra.
My son has a GT3 road car but want to get him into 1/10 off road as well.
I'm about to have a clear out, Traxxas, tenth technology and some others, I've been hanging on to them in the hope my kids would get interested but they don't seem to compete with Xbox ir play station. The other problem is the technology moves at a fast pace, I have loads of stupidly lairy motors and then it moves on to brushless.
Originally Posted by adrianw
Complete gibberish! Speak English, boy!
http://www.modelsport.co.uk/tamiya-x...products/38310
Hmmmmmm.......
Yep into them big time have been for over 30 years now,although Tamiya are far from cutting edge i still always have a few in my collection which at the moment include a rerelease Wild willy,Sandscorcher,Porsche 911 (for sale) and an original Rough rider restoration project.
If you want something more durable,useable,fun or fast then look at Traxxas,HPI,Losi,Associated etc,and a good source is Modelsport.
Looks like Tamiya beat me to the rebuild,To celebrate its 30th anniversary - http://www.modelsport.co.uk/tamiya-s...roducts/365845
oh great, now I feel really old!
I've got a Tamiya Madcap up in the loft I built with my dad when I was about 10.
My mates had between them, a grasshopper, a bearcat, a manta ray and a lunchbox.
The manta ray was allegedly the fastest but the madcap always won!
Not used it in years but a few of my mates who still play about a bit say that losi are the make to go for?
Also remember going to Beatties in Romford and seeing the Tamiya video running,which only got my juices running even more.
I used to have the Roughrider, Holiday Buggy and a very beat up Mitsubishi Pajero. Sold the boxed Rough Rider a few years ago for nearly £400, which turned out to be a right result as it was re-released a few months later!
We used to take a car battery on wheels with us for in the field charging. Great fun, but no doubt totally outclassed by the new models.
[/nostalgia]
Mu Mum used to love Romford market for shopping. Typical kid I hated going shopping, then I found Beatties ! Took Mum a while to work out why I was so keen to go to Romford with here. Tamiya had great marketing, even the pictures made the cars look fast.
Ah happy days.
This thread needs pics!
Hell yes! I used to have a Hornet & this thread is getting me thinking!!
LOL a common theme here! Badly wanted an Audi quattro as a young teen, but big £££ at the time which poppa GQ wasn't keen on, ended up buying as an adult and have since had/still have several. Got a barely-started Globe Liner truck and trailer with lights and sounds that all-in would buy a very respectable watch!
The vintage stuff is nuts, the holy grail original Hilux goodness knows what they make nowadays but around ten years ago were £2k for an unstarted kit.
I have a loft full of radio control electric and I/c cars that I am about to flog
If your not listing any Traxxas vehicles on SC, please send me a PM. I'm looking for a Slash, Stampede or Rustler either VXL or brushed
I started getting into RC racing as a hobby after spending to much on watches. Turns out that RC vehicles and their maintenance can be just as expensive!
I once used to drive a Mercedes Unimog occasionally
I now have a Tamiya one. a great toy Mrs Goat got me to attempt to take away the craving for a real one!
Fabulous kit- over 1000 parts iirc, working diffs,hydraulic suspension, steering etc etc
I have a Tamiya Bigwig in pretty pristine condition considering it's nearly 30 years old. Runs on 8.4 volt instead of 7.2 volt battery pack. I remember it going like the clappers compared to the Grasshoppers, Hornets and Hotshots that the other kids had although I'm sure it's positively sloth - like by modern standards.
I had something called a Mardave Apache that I remember being persuaded to buy over a Tamiya Grasshopper or a Hornet by the local model shop :-). Was great fun racing at a local club, still in the loft but from memory need a few repairs...
Notice from the previous links Tamiya have reissued the Super Champ, which I remember wanting as a kid :-)
http://www.modelsport.co.uk/tamiya-f...roducts/386941
I've got the re-issued HotShot and Sand Scorcher. Both great fun. In my youth I had a Super Champ, but that aluminium suspension parts and a complete lack of talent led to many breakages and it became too expensive to maintain. Haven't got many recent pics, but here's one of the HotShot.
I was also a Hornet owner. I did a few mods, not totally sure what now, a new motor and different batteries I seem to remember? And a fast charger.
I'm getting a bit nostalgic myself.
I remember that one year it snowed a lot and we all built a huge X games like course with huge snow jumps.
Minutes of fun until the next battery swap.
My mate had a Mardave Marauder with a petrol engine, it did about 60 mph.
Way too hard to handle for my Tamiya thumbs.
On sc??
The pinnacle in my youth (and price range) was a Nikko 4wd
Exactly like this, was £69 from Toymaster in 1989.....
I have a kyosho pure ten nitro car that I keep meaning to get going again. This thread may give me a kick up the arse to do it.
You're a bunch of girls.
1/10 is really just for schoolboys without chest hair, or indeed a chest.
Sitting in the garage here at Browne Towers is a (I'm pretty sure) Kyosho buggy, 1/8 scale - 3.5cc engine, proper expansion pipe, 4wd, disc brakes and a whole lot more - the engine was tweaked by the local shop and runs pretty high compression, the pnly problem with that is that it stripped the recoil starter the second time I used it, so I had to get a starting table.
It runs a top speed around 75mph - that's actual speed, not scale speed. It can get quite scary at times!
It's quite similar to this:
http://kyoshosan.blogspot.co.uk/2012...i-z-buggy.html
Haven't used it for about 8 years now - must blow the dust off at some point!
The cars I run these days. They are a little different since these pictures were taken, some work has been done to the general looks etc. Haven't had a proper tinker for some time, but my youngest enjoys the road car drifting around the living room. The buggy had its first play in the snow last week which was one fun than I expected.
I had a bout of getting into Tamiya and must have had 20+ car and trucks, here are some that I have had and now moved on:
modified Stadium Raider
Thunder Dragon
One of many Fighter Buggies
Kyosho subaru WRX
Falcon
Baja Champ
Mad Bull
Mad Bull no.2
Grass Hopper no 1
Grass Hopper no 1 with beater body
Grass hopper no 2
Another Fighter Buggy
and another
Clodbuster 1
Clodbuster 2
Midnight Pumpkin
Another fighter Buggy
I still have a few that I need to get rid of as they are taking up too much space, just need to get them on eBay.
Woah Nibby! I had a big rush of nostalgia then. Nice one! I had a Koyosho Ultima back in the day. Good times.
Porsche
Roughrider
Scx10 Rubicon jeep
Losi mini 8ight conversion
losi tlr short course truck
very modified traxxas slash
theres loads more but haven't got that many pics.
Can anyone recommend the best brand to start with in radio controlled cars these days? When I was young it was Tamiya-relatively cheap, but also could be rebuilt and modified.
I had a Grasshopper in about 1990, with many many previous owners, and always fancied the yellow van thing Tamiya did.
I remember reusing the servos and controller in a flying model Cessna that pranged in after hitting a rather large thistle on its first landing, and I have no idea where the gubbins are now.
Somehow I ended up as warehouse manager for Schumacher Racing at Moulton for a year or so though... ;)
This is what you need, a 1:5th scale Baja :). Runs on 2 stroke petrol and goes like stink! I unfortunately sold it a while ago but would love to have another
This is what you need, a 1:5th scale Baja :). Runs on 2 stroke petrol and goes like stink! I unfortunately sold it a while ago but would love to have another
It's a nostalgia thing. Needs to be Tamiya......
All I had as a kid was the Nikko but the Hornet was what I really wanted and due to the fact that I never got one my 7year old son has a Tamiya WRX, a Nitro Buggy(not as get up and go as battery powered though!) and he also has a small Ripmax Dingo which is by far the fastest thing for its size and can be taken anywhere due to its size!! I would seriously recommend these to anyone as you can get spare parts easily and upgrades which my son😉 loves!!👍
Chris
When I started off in 1/10 scale I used eBay a lot to get things cheap. The wonder of RC is you always break things or want to upgrade them, so starting off with a second hand unit isn't such a bad thing.
But then there is no quick answer to your question, it all depends on the use you want and how far you want to go down the rabbit hole. looking at makes like Tamiya, they are great because you have lots of parts available from a multitude of places. but there are also cheaper brands that offer the same support. It will depend on whether you need it to be brand new, and also the availability of what you want on the second hand market.
Brands to look for I would suggest are:
Tamiya (as already said)
HPI - very popular, easy to get parts for.
FTX - Budget brand, easy to get parts which are also very cheap.
Vaterra - Fairly new American brand that is still available in the UK easily, and costs are fairly low.
You need to pick the style of car you want, on or off road, then you can pick what type of use, be it racing, trailing or "Bashing" (read that as general play).
Personally I started off with a second hand tamiya TB-03 Drift spec chassis, I then upgraded the drive train as required before making a full conversion to a carbon drift chassis from a third party. I then bought an off road buggy style vehicle, but this is a little harder to find parts for so I kind of regret this to some extent, but then I get the buggy out to the park and it makes up for the expense.
OK that was a long reply to a question not from the OP, but hopefully it is relevant to you too RJM! :)
Just picked up a Tamiya Egress kit - vintage re issue as this was pretty much the best car they made and was out of reach at the time. Very confused now with the current tech - brushless motors and lipo batteries so doing a bit of research before I invest in the electronics for it
Was into it as a kid. Had to do some serious saving for the Escort RS Cosworth Tamiya kit when I was about 10-11.
Had a look on a few websites at the Nitro kits, it's a shame to see that most come already assembled. To me that was half the fun. That's where I learned how a diff worked.
I was just thinking about this thread but could not find it as I couldn't remember the title!
I am looking for a r/c "monster truck" for my boy's 4th birthday the Ripmax Dingo (http://www.modelsport.co.uk/ripmax-d...roducts/379706) looks good for the money, but I wonder if it is simply going to be too fast for him to find his confidence? Any thoughts, is there any decent r/c buggy that you can restrict the speed on for a youngster to learn the controls?
Might be worth a quick call the modelsport perhaps, if the transmitter has a range control then you can limit the speed. I know more sophisticated units will allow it, but on a cheaper rtr bundle I am not so sure, you never know.
Best advice is see how easy to come by spares are. Maverick and FTX are also brands to look at. Modelsport is a good place to find stuff, service is good too!
Thanks I did ping ModelSport a message but used their webform which may have failed, i will try traditional email!
Looking at this video, for a very similar model it looks like you can trim the speed back on the remote unit (http://youtu.be/AUHIW86AI-I?t=2m59s) so may be it will be something that we can both enjoy ;)
Video isn't working in tapatalk, but if it has control over throttle range then it's ideal. Just make sure there is plenty of space first time out.
Rc is excellent fun for any age group :) have far to much in my collection but the kids enjoy them. If only I trusted my (almost) 4 year old enough....
Just watched to the end of the video even with the trim right down to "0" it is pretty brisk.
Not sure if I trust him to be sensible, but its a toy, if it gets broken, life goes on. The main thing is that I want him to enjoy it and not struggle to control it.
Still looking around but everything else in the £60 and below price range seems a bit underwhelming....
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