86 replies to this topic

[Melly]

I am 35 years old now, but as a child my parents were not well off at all. I remember watching other kids at the local track with there Tamiya kits. I was envious to say the least. I mean who can afford a $100 kit plus another $80 for electronics not to mention the cost of the battery and charger. That was a lot of money back then. Not so much now.

I started purchasing kits at around the age of 25 when I got my first real decent job. Feels so good now knowing when I see a kit or re-release I can purchase it without a second thought.

Just wondering if others were in the same boat?

[Live Steam Mad]

ABSOLUTELY, I was in more or less the exact same situation.

My late father was in financial trouble in 1985 with a failed Transport business and Mother didn't work since just before 1974 so I was brought up in poverty in various rented Council Houses in St.Helens, NW England. I got no pocket money.

I always wanted a radio control car as they were what I first fell in love with when I saw the adverts for the Sand Scorcher on the back of UK magazines in 1981 when I was 7 years old, I could never have them and that made me dream about them and admire them and want them ever more!

Then for my birthday (I was aged about 8, it was about 1982), I was with my parents in Toy and Hobby in St.Helens, I seem to remember that it was up on the first floor on the left and the RC cars were on steel shelving, and I ended up with a Corgi mini-METRO R/C car as I loved it it was so cute and was a large enough model for me even though it was only about 1/16 scale, BTW it's in my long disused showroom.

Then when I was about 13 in about 1987, I was in Toy & Hobby again in St.Helens on the 1st floor with the model railway stuff by Hornby on the left and RC stuff on the right, with my friend Andrew Clitheroe from school, and we saw the Taiyo Jet Hopper Turbo and wow we were mesmerised by them and I wanted one real bad.

Around the same time when I was 13, in 1987, we were in Bold Street in Southport and came across The Model Shop (Southport) Ltd which was at 17 to 19 Bold Street, it's long gone now, and I saw The Hornet and Subaru Brat and The Frog, all stacked up in the window one on top of the other piled quite high as I recall. I used to stare at the box art and pictures of the mechanisms for ages through the window. We eventually went in and Mum bought me the 1987 Tamiya catalogue and wow were my eyes opened looking through it. The catalog got used to death and thrown out by my parents but I bought another a few years ago.

I remember getting a Tandy yellow 4x4 pick up truck also in 1988 but never any Tamiya's. My friend Andrew got a Tandy Audi Quattro, with proportional controls (I was very jealous LOL) and later on he got a second hand Tamiya GrassHopper and wow I was impressed by it, it looked so cool and off road style and it was so big compared with our toy grade cars. The first kit that I bought was bought with my own money, a Kyosho Raider, cost me 40 GBP in about 1990. Parents never bought me any RC kits as a child

I also recall on one of those rare occasions that I found myself in a Hobby Shop in about 1989 (only because I had badgered my Mum to let us enter it) when we happened to be in Wigan (NW England), in G & I models (again long gone) I saw a new built Tamiya BlackFoot, and asked for it for Xmas from Mum and dad. I think you can guess what the reply was... NO CHANCE. It was 90 GBP (on special offer!) I remember it being so impressive and large and had a weird but wonderful suspension that none of my 2 toy grade RC cars ever had. I also remember thinking how fragile the body was

I am still completely obsessed with Rough Rider, Sand Scorcher, Blackfoot and Acoms MK1,2, and 3 radio sets... even now

I'm 34 now.

Cheers,

Alistair G.

[Melly]

EXACTLY! I often head to the hobby shop and look around. No more window shopping. If I want it, I get. I was running my re-release Grasshopper just yesturday. Made me feel all tingly inside. Like it was the 80's, to me that is priceless....

[Grubby]

I am 35 years old now, but as a child my parents were not well off at all. I remember watching other kids at the local track with there Tamiya kits. I was envious to say the least. I mean who can afford a $100 kit plus another $80 for electronics not to mention the cost of the battery and charger. That was a lot of money back then. Not so much now.

I started purchasing kits at around the age of 25 when I got my first real decent job. Feels so good now knowing when I see a kit or re-release I can purchase it without a second thought.

Just wondering if others were in the same boat?

your not the only one in the same boat i was about 11/12 at the time & all i wanted for my birthday was a tamiya model my parents were both working, dad was doing day work mum was working nights & one of my dads workmates was into rc cars & he had two for sale one was a wild willy the other a ford ranger, they were both mint & i would drool all over them & when my dad said he couldn't afford to by one of them my face dropped & i felt so let down.
Never the less my birthday came & he found me a beaten up sand scorcher which i saved my paper round money to buy bits for it from Richard Konstam ( think thats how its spelt wow thats a blast from the past ) & did it up.
But my mate had a hotshot which i was so jealous of it was faster than mine could jump better than mine but who's laughing now eh i still have that sand scorcher now & would not part from it for anything i just have to look at it & all the good memories come flooding back.

Am now 36 & its still a blast.

[pmdparts]

My parents too thought that these things were too expensive and complex to spend hard earned money on! When I was around 12 yrs old (1986), I mowed every lawn in town one summer and saved enough to go to the LHS where I purchased a Blackfoot and a Futaba Attack radio. I still have both and use them frequently with my kids on our backyard track.

[94eg!]

When living in Michigan, I purchased my first kit at Age-12 with my winnings from a local Tamiya Jr. racing series (my stock Vanquish Jr.kicked butt). It was $100 Kyosho Raider kit. My parents then bought me a JR-Propo transmitter, can of paint, and a Hobbico quick charger to finish it off. I honestly cannot remember if there was an occasion like a birthday or what. I already had a 900 or 1200mah race pack from my Sears Lobo II car that was a previous gift. I spent a lot of time in my basement building it, and it was major fun over the old Lobo II (which had a range of 25')...

For my 14th birthday I managed to talk my parents into getting me the R/C Vanquish kit (on sale for $100), Futaba Magnum Jr transmitter ($80 from tower), and speedworks 427 motor ($20 from tower). Shortly before that time we had moved to Las Vegas, NV and my dad had gotten a permenent job managing some part of the Yucca Mountain Waste Repository research project. Apparently the pay was good, but I do remember the hours being very long...

[Saito]

That's odd 94eg!, I also got my Vanquish at age 14 and also on sale for $100 but it was a Christmas present in my case. Tamiya taught me the importance of saving. With the exception of the Vanquish, I bought all my own cars. It took nearly a whole school year worth of saving to get a kit, but it made it that much more worth it. The hardest to save for was my first, a Lunch Box. My Dad was impressed with my ability to hold onto my money so he chipped in and bought the radio gear. I'm glad he did. It would have been torture staring at an assembled Lunchie and still having to save even more up for the radio gear.

[TA-Mark]

I grew up on 'Poor Street' too. Begged my dad to buy me a Fox kit and then a Bruiser kit, he bought me a Nikko/Tandy Flexmobile instead. On the bright side, atleast I got something.

Now I have a nice Fox (sitting beside me on the PC desk cause I just love to stare at it) and a full option F-350 (Much prefer a Ford to a Toyota). My parents still think I'm wasting money on toys 25yrs since they bought me the Flexmobile.

When my kids (4 boys) asked for a Tamiya I didn't make the same mistake and buy them a toy instead, they all have a Tamiya buggy. I didn't just buy it for them however, they needed to save 1/2 the price from pocket money, so it was also a lesson in money management and the 'work for what you get' mentality. Now they are asking for a Tamiya rally car and I've offered them the same deal. No doubt they will have Rally TA02's at x-mas time.

[Novastar]

I had a few toy style RC Cars for a few years in the 80's, I'm sure you can remember the Bigfoot style monster trucks that only ran in a straight line and turned one way in reverse. I also had a weird six wheeled thing that looked like it was from a science fiction movie. One Christmas I asked for a RC car and had a peak through the wrapping paper to see what I thought was a Boomerang. It turned out to be a toy car called a Bullet, it ran on 8 rechargeable batteries and although it was no Tamiya it was a lot of fun and had some speed for a cheap car. This was destroyed in a house fire together with almost everything else my family had. Sooo then I started buying RC Car Action and the Australian Dirt and Track magazines and set my sights on saving for a Mudblaster truck after hearing how much fun my friends Monster Beetle was. But then I saw the Avante advertised in the local paper and parted with my hard saved cash. It was great to have but it was a bad choice being in well used condition with a full rebuilt necessary together with lots of soldering which I was'nt very good at so I parted with it for nowhere near the buying price in 1991. I left RC then for some years until buying a new Stadium Blitzer in 1996 and my Blazing Star in 2004. So now after a 3 year lapse I'm back into the sport. Where I live there is no track, dedicated shop or club but I can still have fun in my local dry creek bed I'm setting my sights on a Super Clod Buster to complete an 18 year old dream of owning a Tamiya Monster Truck.

[Melly]

Wow, I guess many were infact in the same boat.

And many wonder about the obsession we have now, they have no clue.

I think I am going to charge up my Willy for an evening run......

[HunterZero]

Yep - I was one of those super lucky kids. I received a Frog for christmas in the late 80's. I couldn't afford any hopups for it, and if I broke something I either had to repair the broken part, or wait a while before my parents bought a spare for me. I used to run the tires until they literally disintegrated and fell of the wheels. Thankfully, I didn't break it that often, and I looked after it well enough that the gearbox lasted very well.

I do remember saving my pocket money to buy myself one hopup for it... A Technigold! A friend's dad brought it back from Hong Kong for me, cost all of AUD$36 at the time. I only ran it on special occasions!

Still have the car today, mostly original parts, original bodyshell that my mother painted by hand (my parents were cartoon animators, so were really good at painting things). Still runs great.

- James

[Dazza1]

I was lucky really my Dad and Grandad where into r/c boats when I was a kid. As they where not my thing they got me a Tiger Stripe Escort Cosworth in 1991 when I was 13. That car took such a battering I think I still have the shell in the back of my nans shed somewhere ( minus the front end). I then go a Lunchbox then Hks Skyline which I saved my pocket money, did odd jobs and saved birthday money ect.

It was the detail of the bodyshells that did it for me and the amazing pictures on the box.

[markbt73]

I bought my first one (a Grasshopper) myself, with a summer's worth of lawn mowing and fence painting and dog walking. But my second one, a Blackfoot, was a combined birthday/Xmas gift (my birthday is 2 weeks after Xmas, so some years I got one big gift instead of 2 smaller ones).

[stu22]

I got to admit to being one of the lucky ones. I got my Grasshopper and Bruiser for X-mas of 84 and 85. By that time my parents and I had been living in the US for 10 years and things were pretty stable, although the first 10 years were interesting and my parents will always be the product of the lean times of WW2.

For good grades and doing my chores I could usually keep everything running. My biggest problem was there were no hobby shop within a 90 minute drive of where I was growing up. Breaking something would generally mean waiting until we took a trip. Without the Internet, it wasn't until I discovered the Tower Hobbies catalog that I found someplace to buy parts and have them shipped to me.

[DavidKY502]

No they did not. Noting going get all into the whole sob story about my father and his abusive ways and addictions. Let me say there is no love lost there. Only thing ever lusted after was the 959. Funny how things work out. I had Kyosho buggy I raced and that bought myself later on That was my first RC. I forgot all about the 959. Something clicked when my mom died. I had to have a 959. Got one and pretty much got obbsesive with the restoration of it.

The other thing is I have a bout 3 grand tied up in my Truggy and its sitting in a shambles right now. I was doing a total tear down on it installing a new Novarosi engine some new servos and going threw the diffs. Had it totally taken apart racing was over for bit. I was doing that drinking beer watching a football game and got the call. My mom had passed away. She was in the hospital but saw her that morning talk to her all that. She looked like she was doing good. I wasnt worried about her. Why I started tinkering with the truck relaxing drinking some beer. Its been while now and still dont have the heart to touch the truggy. Every time I go to touch it I think of that call. Cant bear to touch it.

[B.M.T.]

Wow.

I was one of the fortunate ones. My parents stretched the budget and I did get a Fox for Christmas in 86, and I still have it. It's not in my showroom becasue of it's restoration is still a WIP.

However, a few years before that, I guess I was about 9, when I was first exposed to "proper" r/c, something strange happened. I was very much VW mad from a very young age, and seeing the SandScorcher at a LHS was heaven on a stick. I did some quiet drooling, knowing that this was an expensive thing and not expecting anything to come to fruition, I didn't mention my desire much.
One day, whilst traveling in the car, I remember my mother saying that they'd discussed it, and they thought they could get me a SandScorcher (for christmas or birthday, I can't remember now). I remember too my response "That is a lot of money to spend if I loose interest" Sometimes I think I was more mature when in single digits than I am now.....

Oh, I don't regret it. I would of made a complete mess of it, not been happy with the performance (compared to the revolution in RC in the following 2 years) and would hate my self 10x more if I had got it and screwed it up from inexperience.

[taliesin]

No they didn't and I'm still not happy about it, which explains why I have 27 or so now.

[Swarm]

I did not get a Tamiya kit as a kid/Teenager either .Even though my parents had everything new and thought having a gold members Diner's club card was important and an American Express card was the way to go .I also watched my step father buy his son everything he asked for while my sister and I got nothing we could not have soft drink at home except when my step Dad's kids came for weekend access visits then we went to Macca's and and got chips as well WOW ...I hate double standards did back then and still do now .

I wanted a car every christmas and birthday I would ask for one and got the complete opposite .Now my step Dad builds cars he has what is called sexy fingers everything he touches turns to rubbish (cant use the real term here not very nice)

I no longer talk to my Mum and step Dad as they are new money and lavish my step brother and step sister in gifts /money ...and yes my sister and I get nothing so I have washed my hands with them I have although rediscovered my real father who encourages me in every aspect of my life .
I wanted a kit so bad as a kid I would even save up half the money with what lousy pocket money I got back then AU $2.50 a fortnight for back breaking labour but they would still not come to the party .

So I buy what I want now and when I hear through my sister that my step Dad and his sexy fingers have struck again with his cars and wrecked them by being himself I just chuckle to myself ..last I heard he was buying a magazine car to build week by week ...I know he wants to ask me for advice but since I do not talk to him he knows Iam off limits as I speak my mind as an adult .

All I wanted was a SS or FAV as a kid ohh well I have several now .

And I have taught my kids like TA-Mark the value of earning something and I swore as a kid I would not do what my parents did it just isnt right .If my kids want something I sit down and discuss it with them and work something out .

Swarm

[Melly]

Thanks for all that replied. It is a question I have been wanting to ask for awhile.

Now if I could just get some Tamiya guys in San Diego to go run cars with. You UK guys seem to have meets all the time.

[civilguy]

Melly- I'm in the US, but on the other coast!! There's not a lot of Tamiya or vintage guys over here either, but we did have a vintage off-road race in Connecticut in September and it was a blast. Mostly Associated, Losis, Yokomos, but a few Tamiyas in there. Blackfoots ruled the "Heavy Metal" class.

As far as my backstory: My father was into r/c planes in the early to mid-80s. I shared a paper route with a neighborhood kid, so I managed to buy one of my father's friend's Wild Willy. It was pretty well beat up, but I would get parts here and there (when a front arm tree was $3 ). For Christmas I got a Hotshot kit from my parents and I used the radio and batteries from the WW1. I saved up and bought a GH later that winter-- I think Christmas tips from the paper route helped that. I used to swap radio gear between the three -- no easy task especially with the Hotshot!! The next summer I worked at a grocery store, so had a little more money and by now my father had gotten an RC10 and was racing weekly. He paid for 1/2 of a 6016 RC10 kit for me for my birthday (a few months early) and I remember volunteering to cover friends' hours at the store so I could buy a second Magnum Junior (at about $119.99 if I remember right!!). I had some help as my father was an r/c addict as well, but was definitely taught that things don't come cheap... or free.

My kids each have Grasshoppers and like playing with my RCs, but they know they will have to save their bday or Christmas money (too young to work still) to get something more advanced. My daughter had a Slash fund started, but she saw the rock crawlers a couple weeks ago and may have changed her mind. At the vintage race that I mentioned I won a re-re Frog kit and my 2 kids and I are going to build it over Christmas break this year. I am looking forward to that time spent with them at the workbench.

My parents were lucky enough to have a successful business and relatively comfortable life, but still managed to pass on to me the value of hard work and earning your keep. I've also had decent luck as I've been self-employed for over 5 years and my wife is starting a new career herself--- and we're hoping to pass those ideals on to our kids as well.

To the guys who didn't have it as well and now can get the gear you always wanted, I say congrats and good for you! It sounds like the next generation of TC'ers will have a lot more appreciation for their cool r/c dads!!

[roog909]

Ouch some less nice story's here too


I got into it at a fairly young age, 9 or 10 i think? As I mostly broke my toy rc cars beyond repair, me dad was advised to buy me a kit toy car at our toy-store, (which also sold tamiya at that point), so we could replace the broken parts instead. Which sounded to my dad as a very good idea, as I was always very sad when my toy r/c cars broke (one every 2 years or so) It was a grasshopper 2 with accoms radio gear, and a tamiya 1400 NiCad (that battery lasted years!) Which was so cheap it was marginally more expensive than a toy-car.

I can remember very vividly getting it, me dad telling me that I had build it, like lego, and I could repair it myself! I was overjoyed!
The building was also great, me dad was stunned at the size, he never expected it to be so big, and I never expected it to be so fast!
Me mates nikko's were nowhere! Still, it required a lot of lawn-mowing to keep it running . (snapped the front-suspension... oh, 7 times I think?)
The best bit about my parents is their enormous sense of humor, I was raised with a lot of laughs

Later at the age of 13 I got into faster buggies, and eventually monster-trucks. The grasshopper is the only kit that was given to me though, but they gave me a great hobby and a lot of friends with it too. My parents still take interest in my tamiya's. I bought a lill' m03 mini a few weeks ago, (second new kit I ever owned, I always bought second hand ones) they still like to look at my handy work as it is finished . My dad never got into it though. Instead he always stole my souped up mopeds to cruise around. His attic is still FULL of my r/c's though, I still have a lot of them, but never complains. My mother thinks I'm the cutest nerd around at 26 years old.

[hedge]

Like many others I had the RTR toy cars first then around 83 I got my Tamiya Sandrover, it was great and I loved it building and painting then driving the fruits of your hard labour. After about 6 months I joined a club in a church hall racing on hard wooden dusty floors with manual lap counting ah those where the days...

This was my introduction to Sand Scorchers and Rough Riders with 540 motors, however these where out of reach for me. Anyway my route to Tamiya was car cleaning and lawn mowing and papers delivered. For me Tamiya taught me to save and appreciate what I bought and owned - a valuable life lesson The other valuable lesson was that my interest almost landed me my first job and indeed shaped my future as I became an engineer... Go figure did the interest take me to the job or did my aptitude simply develop through the toys?

Many years later I now own a much cherished re-furbed Sand Scorcher with a Rough Rider waiting to be built. I race touring cars but I have little passion for what they are, I am not attached to them, they are nothing more than engineering to achieve my goal of winning races. However one look at the Sand Scorcher immediately brings back memories of a less stressful happy time. I am not interested in running it as I know it will be rubbish, but looking at it I can imaging it jumping dunes and spraying through surf on a sunny afternoon.

[gordb]

I'm in the lucky camp. My (rich) cousins knew they were both getting RC cars for Christmas one year, and told me all about them. I told Dad how cool they would be, and also how much I'd learn about mechanical things if I had one =)

He told me how expensive they were and said he'd do his best. On Christmas morning, I surveyed the tree with dismay to see there weren't any large boxes with my name on them. Mum asked me to bring her over what in hindsight was an unusually large box with her name on it, and I carried it over, still sneaking glimpses under couches hoping there might be a car stashed somewhere. It was only after Mum had unwrapped the words "Hornet" that I worked out Mum and Dad had me hook-line-and-sinker.

We disappeared into the basement for the rest of the day to build our new cars - definitely the best Christmas ever.

After running it for over a year, I fell in love with a Hotshot - but figured I'd be on my own to get one of those. So it was lots of hard trading on the playground to parlay my Hornet into a friend's black Hotshot (thanks Greg!).

Strangely enough, it was only a few months ago (apon witnessing the true scope of my RC obsession) that Mum said to me "Gee Gordon, if I'd known how much you liked these things, we would have bought you more of them". D'oh!

[Live Steam Mad]

I race touring cars but I have little passion for what they are, I am not attached to them, they are nothing more than engineering to achieve my goal of winning races.

Hehe yes you summed up that well. It's little more than that for me as well.

However one look at the Sand Scorcher immediately brings back memories of a less stressful happy time. I am not interested in running it as I know it will be rubbish, but looking at it I can imaging it jumping dunes and spraying through surf on a sunny afternoon.

Why not get a few runner Scorchers, do them up in all different colour schemes, and get together with other SS / RR owners and run them on the beach along the sand flats and water puddle splashes, there's nothing like seeing it for real

Cheers,

Alistair G.

[spencem875]

I dont recall being "into" r/c as such as a kid but my dad did buy me a Nikko buggy (like a poor mans looking hornet) for xmas. After waiting for him to have his go i ragged it round the living room all day. Some xmas later ( i really dont recall which) he got me a MB! it was teh rox. However, due to cash flow or what i dont know they didnt get me the radio gear till my b/day, 30th Jan. I have always been handy with stuff even then and i had built it boxing day. That was the longest 35 odd days of my life, but well worth it. I really dont remember much after that, my mate had a hornet and then a 959 and his was always faster, except my MB rocked on longer grass/mud.

This was around 10 or 11 maybe, fast forward im 31 with 2 boys of 4 and 1. Now the fun begins