Saito2

Well spotted! Not sure if I like that. The original CVAs were a better design IMO. Any chance of some new boxart Tamiya? Please...

Same here. One of my earliest Tamiya catalogs had the Super Dragon Jr and Thunder Dragon Jr in it (the Fire Dragon Jr wasn't out yet) and for that reason I made/got 1/10 versions for my collection. With the blue decals of this SD version, I may grab the bodyset if possible. I have a Madcap I can't seem to give away and the blue decals will go well with the blue shocks. Of course then I'll be pushed to get a Fire Dragon of some sort to complete the Dragon series...and down the rabbit hole I went again...

I choose whatever is the most simplest, most basic, most plastic design for beach running which is why I always go for a Lunch Box, though it isn't in the poll. Big tires help with sand and keep the electronics higher up out of harms way. The tub chassis also helps with this even more so than the Madbull. The gearbox is simple, strong and fairly well sealed with no dogbone/drivecups to get worn or corroded. Very little metal present other than hardware and I can tear one done completely for a total cleaning in minutes.

I agree. The truck is a great jumper. Its the perfect balance between more complete absorption (like a re-re Blackfoot with its oil shocks) and total sporadic bounciness (like a stock Clod Buster). Its big and solid and truck-like, but still "chuck-able" in turns and not overly ponderous nor top heavy. I've run them with full oil shocks and they handle surprisingly very well, but its far more fun with the pogo-sticks. I admit to running some stealthy black Traxxas oil dampers (no springs) in the rear only in those pics (in addition to the chrome pogos) which keeps some of the rear squat in check and softens some of those high jumps without killing the character of the truck.

Yep, I'm in the same boat. I had direction and drive in my teens and 20s that got me into restoring antique/classic cars. I've had my hands on some nice stuff but never ever felt I was "good enough" at what I did. Zero confidence. To this day I rarely take my personal classic cars out because I feel they are a poor reflection on my skills. The feelings of being an abject failure at just about everything or at best, an also-ran, keeps me on the sidelines. Now life is just aimless, surviving from one day to the next. At least I have the goal of fixing up and selling our current house in ten years and moving to the beach which is about all my wife and I want to do in life at this point. I feel the same way. I get roughly 45 minutes each day to myself at the very end of the day before bed. I'm too half-asleep to draw or learn anything new on guitar. The idea of working on a 1:1 car makes me shudder so I usually find myself reading comics or sitting quietly with a Tamiya at the workbench while I learn about something like Dumble Amps or film theory on my smartphone in the background. Perhaps this is just mid-life malaise. The realization that life is short and time is precious certainly weighs heavy.

There are possibilities for future new Tamiyas to enter the fold for sure. A King Cab or Hilux Monster Racer would be a shoe-in as would a Falcon or Sonic Fighter. I could see a Super Sabre purchase to honor my late father (it was the one Tamiya he showed interest in) but that's about it. Never say never but the door is obviously closing. In retrospect, its time too. There seems to be a growing mania of pre-ordering, worries of under production, limited runs etc. that's beginning to surround the re-res that I'm not down with. Whether this is Tamiya-based of fan-based hype, I don't know. I just want a re-release to hit the stores in a timely matter (pandemic delays understandable) and if I want it, I'll buy it like the earlier days. I don't think the last run of Novafoxes or Fire Dragons ever hit Tower hobbies and tbh, I'm not hunting all around in a panic. If Tower has it, I usually buy it. Stuck in my ways. I've got the typical US/grind you to dust production job, a special needs daughter and a wife facing a potentially life-long disease so my hobby and collecting things for it doesn't need to be stressful. There are days I just think about purging all of it but I know my moods well enough to know that "future-me" would really be angry with "present-me" if I did that, lol. I'm with you. Its the first new Tamiya to tempt me in awhile. Boxart would tempt me even further. I fully applaud them them for it. It gives me hope for Tamiya's future. If it fails, I'm always up for a Super Egress, lol. That's a solid idea. Thanks.

Do you ever get to the point when you begin to seriously consider, this might be the last NIB Tamiya you crack open? Here, on my cluttered old work bench is a Thunder Dragon that I waited so long for since placing the order, that I literally forgot about it until it showed up on my front doorstep (I am horrendous about keeping up with emails, so I didn't see the notification from Tower that something was on its way). I should have been anxious to get it, but I kind of dreaded it. Tamiya purchases have slowed to a trickle over the past few years so with each new kit that comes along the likelihood it will be the last goes up. I let it sit for several weeks before slitting the plastic wrap (perhaps for the last time(?)) and savored the experience. Its one of the perils of being decidedly locked in the past. There is a finite amount of material to deal with. With my music or comic book collecting, that well of cool vintage material is deep enough to keep me buried for the rest of my existence, but with Tamiya, there's only the first 100 for me and with 80 cars or so currently hanging around ...well, the math is obvious the end is drawing close. I know we all joke about how we can stop at anytime (or not!, lol) but the light at the end of the tunnel is in sight. Its been a heck of a journey...

Took the Kyosho Big Boss out for a drive away from home for a change. I love this thing. Its an example of something that is more than a sum of its parts. Its soooo plastic right down to the diff outdrives but it hasn't broken yet and its great fun to drive. Its pretty big and has a certain feeling of mass to it when wheeling it around, but its not tippy despite its truck-like nature. You can kinda tell the Blackfoot sprang forth from buggy roots and its certainly more nimble because of it but the Big Boss has a go-anywhere vibe. Someday, I'd like to do a shootout between these two trucks like the old magazines did bitd if I can manage to drag myself out of this current funk I find myself in. I wish Kyosho would bring these back but when I shook my magic 8-ball and it replied "Outlook not so good".

I used RTV because its what I had handy.

Thanks for clearing that up. While the amount of cars in there was insane, I honestly had no idea what cars I was looking at. Nothing looked familiar glancing at the pic.

I believe that is a Trintiy Power Plus shock. They came in a variety of colors (green, blue, purple, etc.) for multiple applications like the Blackfoot, Clod Buster, etc. The Blackfoot part numbers were 7196 for the front and 7197 for the rear. I have a set for one of my Clods, but someone unfortunately stripped the blue anodizing off mine. Now people always confuse mine for Kyosho Platinum shocks (which they are definitely not).

That picture still makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Still.

According to the Jamie Booth interview, while he didn't remember any particular issues with the stock rear suspension, Tamiya designers handmade complete new front and rear suspensions at the same time for testing.

I count myself as being soooo lucky I didn't break anything on my childhood Vanquish back in the day. I got it on closeout so it was already on its way out. To the best of my recollection, I don't ever remember seeing any MRC/Tamiya spares for it either in the hobby shops I frequented. Stocking all those spares for those many varied chassis' Tamiya had back then probably wasn't easy. The cheaper, more popular cars (Hornets/Lunchies/ORVs) always had spares though. Perhaps its not much different now. High volume re-res that hang around forever like the Hornet/Grasshopper/Lunch Box always get good parts support. Kit breakers fill in the rest. Whittling your main "new" buggies down to the DT03 and TT02B makes parts support easier. Traxxas wasn't dumb with their Bandit/Rustler/Stampede trio. I usually use the variation "the cat's meow" or, if in more vulgar settings, the cat's, um, "rear end" shall we say.

I run kits that I have or can find parts for. I had a re-re Egress that I simply couldn't bring myself to run. Spares were spotty and the kit was very expensive. I was also afraid of the old phrase "never meet your heroes". It was so expensive and meant so much to me that being underwhelmed or breaking it would ruin the experience for me. I loved building it and love looking at it but that's where it stops for me. There's the cheaper, total fun vehicles like the Lunch Box that is pure guilt free fun. Then there's the mid level kits like the Hot Shots. I used to enjoy 2wd buggies more, but have grown to prefer 4wds later in life. As long as I can repair them, I enjoy them. I wish Tamiya would keep a DF01 like the Manta Ray in stock at all times. It was a cheaper re-re and performed very well. You get much of the Top Force experience without all the bling and the higher price. Its competent but pretty care-free at reasonable power levels. Cheap and cheerful ABS/PC buggies are kinda Tamiya's mainstay and that's where fun can be had. I gave an Avante runner a thought for about 2 seconds and decided, beautiful as it was, its dollar to fun ratio didn't work for me.