Wandy

Yep, thats when Terry educated me on Hotshot bumper issues all those moons ago.

Not true. The Hotshot always had a two piece bumper, consisting of the underguard and bumper itself. The difference between the early models and the "Mk2" version was that the early bumper/underguard was made of a much softer plastic and that the underguard angled the bumper up at a much greater height. Added to this was the fact that the front gearbox casings were thinner and the metal hex mount was made of a softer metal than the later versions. All of this made the car extremely weak and vulnerable to damage at the front. Tamiya improved all of this by making the bumper and underguard thicker and more stiff, angling the underguard at a lower angle, strengthening the front gearbox casings at the bumper mounting point and then making the hex piece out of a harder metal (Brass, if I remember correctly). An early bumper/underguard cannot be naturally fitted to a later model because there are lugs on the guard that clash with the hex piece area of the gearbox. To make it fit you have to cut those lugs away. Tamiya, realising the ineptitude of the early set up, quickly redesigned it and as far as I am aware never made the early design available as spare parts. Certainly, in 3 years of watching, I have never seen them come up on ebay as a NOS set of spares. It's a pity that the early design was so ineffective because it gave the Hotshot a much more compact and aggressive look....in my opinion of course.

Yeah but my point is that there is little use in whining at the company if they haven't brought a 20 year old design up to modern standards. At the end of the day if Tamiya had re-released all of these '80s buggies without any improvements then very few people would still complain. The re-releases are surely being aimed at modellers and back yard bashers, not serious racers. I think you just nailed on the head what these re-re's are about....simply fun to run and not much more........having said that I CAN understand Miramar's point about not giving the re-release the other improvements that were incorporated on the Hotshot2, Boomerang, Bigwig etc and would not affect the cosmetics of the car. Makes little sense really.

Miramar just doesn't like the poor old Hotshot! It seems Tamiya can't win here. They get pilloried in some quarters for bringing out re-releases that are near identical to the original (Hotshot) - including some of the old faults - and then from other quarters they get criticised for reviving an old classic, albeit with radically improved, and therefore different, design (Avante Mk2). I think they've got it spot on with the Hotshot....they have improved everything they possibly could without changing the looks/design of the car. If things like bump steer, suspension slop and weak points have not been improved it will be because they can't do it without making the buggy look very different to the original....and at the end of the day I would say 99% of the members of this club will want the cars re-released in the exact form of 20 years ago - warts 'n all - over a radically changed, yet improved, design and look.

Yes the rear suspension was stiffer than the front thanks to the nature of the linkage connecting the rear in-line monoshock to the top wishbones. It did not need to be very stiff to be stiffer than the front though as that area of the car was notorious for suspension slop and wobble. Apparantly the upper rear wishbones on the re-release are stiffer and thicker than the originals so this may be another reason why you are noticing stiffness at the rear of the car. I was wondering if Tamiya would have improved the performance of the front suspension but by the sounds of what you are saying it seems they haven't!

Well yeah, all of us who were around in the 1980's know that it was extremely flawed but if a youngster with no knowledge of the car's history was interested in buying one I doubt they would be swayed by a marketing policy of saying "It's garbage compared to a modern car!" All they have to say is that this is a slightly updated 20 year old design aimed at having fun at your local dirt track or park. Nah, we all know how much things have moved on. I would say we run them for the scale appearance and the nostalgia of our childhood memories.

Quoting the Tamiya website here...."Take this updated Hotshot out for a spin and compare it to today's R/C buggies to experience how far this hobby has developed! ".. Not the greatest marketing tactic I ever saw. Basically they are saying it's rubbish!

No chance of that happening. The trait seems to be one of re-releasing the '80s cars that were all plastic and sold in droves. Over engineered, expensive flops of the time are highly unlikely to see a re-release, no matter how beautifull they are/were.

Oh yeah I agree with that. The series 1 Hotshot bumper was little more than a cosmetic add on. I always think, when watching the insane jumps that were performed by the car in the promo vid, that it must have been wrecked by the time they had finished filming it. Pity though because it was a much nicer looking bumper set up than the one that replaced it.

Yeah the Boomerang seems a logical choice. It was the best developed of the 'Shot series cars and was hugely popular. The Super Sabre was a sales flop so I doubt whether we will see that re-re'd. I hope not...it's ugly! Bigwig? Very unlikely. It was the 10th anniversary car and Tamiya would not want to contaminate that legacy. It also has lots of unique parts that are unable to be used on other cars. Also highly doubt we will see the Supershot. The fact that Tamiya have made a point of changing the re-re Hotshot box art to white wheels tells me that the company have no intention of reproducing Supershot parts. Hope I'm wrong though!

Hornet, 'hopper, Lunchie, T'Shot, T-Force & Brat. I have an innumerable amount of old & new Hotshot parts so am struggling to justify buying the re-re. However I DO want to see what the new dampers are like and whether the front suspension slop has been improved. Is that reason enough?

Do a search for the 'coffee pot minis' promotion that Tamiya did a couple of years ago...or just look here http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.a...42180&id=16 ...It featured a variety of miniatures of some of the vintage R/Cs. Nearly all of them from that promo have had the full size car re-released (Hotshot being the latest). The only ones from that promo that have yet to see a re-re are the Boomerang, Astute and Rough Rider. I'd say expect a full Boomerang re-re, an Astute 2 (similar design principle to the Avante 2007....old bodyshell on modern chassis) and a modernised SRB along the lines of the way the Hi-Lift recreated the spirit of the Toyota Bruiser. Of course there have been other re-releases not related to the coffee pot promo (Lunch Box and Subaru Brat) so other re-releases could be in the pipeline. My guess would be FAV, Wild One, Monster Beetle and Blackfoot.

Hmm, dunno about that Terry. The Boomerang bumper is the same as that of the Bigwig and I well remember the head on collision I had with a Hotshot on driving my 'Wig.....resulting in smashed to smithereens bumper and front wishbones. The Hotshot was barely scratched! They are also the same part as those used on the Hotshot 2 & Super Sabre, albeit in a different colour. Probably no stronger though but at least you have a wider scope of replacement parts to chose from!

Just done a quick compare of Jason's prices with those of Stella. I think Stella will probably offer the Hotshot for approximately $190 all in.

Ouch! $219 (roughly 115) makes these the most expensive re-re yet.

Hmm, that's interesting...does that mean that the box art will now feature white wheels? If so then I think you can forget about the gold wheels being available as hop-ups....

Fair enough Chris, thanks for the response.

...and the forthcoming re-re does not seem to be affecting old stock kit prices either. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...A:IT&ih=004 Amazing what some people will pay for a couple of blister packs......

Looks like the prices of the old hop ups for the Hotshot will now start going through the roof as it doesn't look like Tamiya will reproduce them. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...A:IT&ih=020 http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...A:IT&ih=012 Not so long ago these could be bought for an average price of 25! Wonder if people are buying these to convert their re-re Hotshots into Supershots?

Yeah, dont get me wrong, I understand why it was deleted but it does seem that the rules on this subject are wishy washy as some members are being allowed to post their stuff which is every bit as unrelated to Tamiya & R/C as mine was...probably even more so actually.

Last week when updating my showroom I decided, after viewing some of the stuff in other member's showrooms, to post pics of my vintage Raleigh Bomber bicycle. This is a bike that has been in storage for 25 years and unused....and I likened it to finding the one and only NIB Sand Scorcher in the world and me having it. Now fair enough, listing this had nothing to do with Tamiya or R/C but in my opinion it was worthy of a listing as many fellow members who were into Tamiya as teenagers would also in all probablity have owned a Raleigh bike at the same time. As soon as I listed the bike there were a flood of comments - all positive - about how much they appreciated the sentiment of the listing. 12 hours later it was deleted by the mods. In my opinion, compared to other stuff posted in Miscellaneous>Other this had a lot more connection with our love of collecting vintage stuff...even if it was not R/C related. There is even a Raleigh Chopper in there that has been listed for years! Is there one rule for some members and another rule for others? Can someone tell me how these listings can be deemed acceptable and yet mine not? http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.a...935&id=4836 http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.a...8109&id=767 http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.a...8110&id=767 http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.a...8159&id=767 http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.a...1585&id=220 http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.a...1690&id=220 http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.a...=37652&id=2 http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.a...=1482&id=68 http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.a...2530&id=285 http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.a...=4459&id=37 http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.a...763&id=2731 Now I am NOT asking for these items to be deleted, but I think my bike did not deserve to be deleted bearing in mind the nature of the above links. I think this site is more than just a homage to Tamiya but it is a homage to our childhood experiences and I think it is not too much to be allowed one or two listings that are not directly related to Tamiya but ARE somehow related to our childhood/teenage years...hence the seemingly acceptable posting of a Raleigh Chopper, MB Big Trak etc.

Is there an English speaking link to these RC-Champ guys?

P.S. Never mind the Monster Beetle....Boomerang will be next I reckon.

As I expected, the re-re gets the Hotshot 2 "trap door" chassis. Only other difference I can see is that the damper springs are different....much more coils than the originals. Wonder if this gets rid of the woeful slop in the original car? Also wonder if they have done anything to the front gearbox wishbone mounting holes to eradicate the slack that occured? I'm really surprised they have included the heatsinks, even if they are dummies. The new ones look even better than the originals, as they look to have mounted on a plastic strut rather that the old GRP one. One thing that the re-re really does miss out on is the old KC daylighters. They were a huge part of the car's character. Oh well, I guess original decal set prices will go through the roof now! Also think that the chances of the old hop-ups, ie gold wheels, HP suspension set, pin spikes etc getting re-re'd are very slim so I think that NIB/New Built Supershot values will be unaffected by this re-re.

This re-release gets more interesting and yet controversial by the day! Here is someone elses take on it http://tamiyablog.com/ . Scroll down a little and read on. He absolutely savages the old car! I agree with some of what he says but surely the car was not that bad! I dont remember having too many problems with my car back in the day but then again I didnt race it into the ground like some did! Some people are missing the point about these re-re's. They are being produced as durable back yard bashers and not as something to compete with modern racers.