Restoration, how far can one go without...

[NWarty 1325]

I'll eat my own words right now.

My vintage Wild One came in today and it's better than expected. All period correct 148 servos and Rx just like first my first one! I ordered all NOS parts to fix it up too down to the last nut, bolt, screw, pressed parts, etc.!

Yes, it's going to run  

edit: I'm taking the original WO rear tires off my Fox and throwing them on the Wild One. The ones that came with the WO aren't bad so I'm okay with the swap out. This will literally be only the second car in my fleet that will be absolutely 100% correct (my shelfer GHII Super G is perfect). It'll still run though, hee hee  

[Hibernaculum 933]

We are actually very lucky in the R/C car world in that a huge amount of original spare parts were made available by companies like Tamiya, and that "complete restoration" is totally possible using 100% new original parts. 

In the 1:1 car world, restoration often gets mixed up with "using aftermarket stuff". There's a certain amount of restoration you can do without interfering with the originality of a 1:1 car. But some you can't if the car is too worn out - e.g. it's not like you can easily replace the entire body shell of a 1:1 car with a mint original, if the original paint has been damaged. This has led to the concept of "survivor" cars - extremely valuable untouched originals with minor wear. And the notion that in the car world, "It's only original once". There are books and magazines devoted to this kind of thing.

Even in other areas of toys, it's not possible to restore things properly using original stuff, at least not as "easily" as it is with Tamiya. Star Wars collectors are often forced to use craptastic repro decals on their vintage Kenner vehicles, which they have to tweak in photoshop and print 17 times to get the colours "close", because original decals are very hard to come by. But many still do whatever it takes to keep things original, waiting for the original decals to come up on eBay, and likewise the original piece of string used to hang the training ball inside the Millenium Falcon.

Tamiya kids got it easy (by comparison) 

[StrokerBoy 772]

I thought about restoring my 27-year-old Pumpkin back to new, but decided it's best left exactly as-is complete with cracked gearbox casing and paint scuffs.  It still runs but deserves a gentle retirement.  I can easily buy a brand-new Pumpkin kit and build that however I want, without diminishing my original one.

[sp005 4]

In the past year I have asked myself this basic question a few times.  After my father passed away I got nostalgic for the time he and I spent building and racing my Hornet and his Blackfoot 30 years ago.  Once I got the replacement parts I needed to get it roadworthy that was just the beginning.  Then I found the blue aluminum nerf bar that 11 year old me remembers drooling over in the store. Then I decided the MSC had to go, so I added an ESC and a Flysky 2.4 GHz remote at the same time.  Then I had to get new tires, but insisted on reusing my original wheels.  

I thought that was going to be it, but then I found a roller that had blue aluminum rear shocks, so I had to upgrade that.  But why stop there, I found blue aluminum A-arms, so they had to be purchased.  At this point, it is my original chassis, wheels, and gear box, everything else is new.  I drew the line about a month ago when I thought about upgrading the front springs to actual aftermarket shocks.  To me that seemed wrong because I thought it would somehow no longer drive as a Hornet. So is it the car Dad and I built 30 years ago? Sort of.  It is less about the car itself but the memories and the journey both with my Dad and now my girls who have been racing along side me.

[Nitomor 2122]

It's nice that you have those special memories with your Dad to treasure.