Gebbly

Wow, immaculate job. The black bonnet is an interesting take I haven't seen before but it works really well in the colour scheme. The Willys body shell is one of my all time favourite Tamiya bodies and this is a brilliant example. Looking forward to seeing a snap of it fully built. Only snag is, once you have a paint job so nice its scary to take it out for a run. Did you coat it in any kind of clear varnish to try and protect the finish?

Are there any other members with full access to the site and forum so they could keep it running in @netsmithUKs absence?

I've used an airbrush with static models before. Can you get Tamiya lexan paints to go in an airbrush?

For $250?! Crikey. I would have thought that someone on here could knock something similar up for cheaper than that in their workshop.

Ok, I'll represent the newbies here....could someone explain what is actually being sold? the smaller photos down the side look to be different parts and I cant see any clues in the text.

I've never bought from RCJaz so cant comment on how good they are as a store but it looks like they have the kit for £188.54? Took me a minute to spot that there was both a 18.540 and a 26.540 version of the MAN TGX so I guess if your tempted by this deal be sure its the version your after.

Feels a bit like an AI generated image. Lots of wierd discrepencies. Even if it was legit, if you are after part number 53610 the image says it is S6010 so not a match.

Welcome @Josie. That looks like a nice first build. Everyone experiences the nuisance of e-clips You'll find the forum is a great resource for info and chit chat about the hobby. Always feel free to ask questions because theres always someone else that will benefit from the answer too. This is my favourite thing about the hobby. It really is a chill out experience. (except the e-clips of course). It wont be long before you start a build queue of cars that you have bought and want to build. I didnt think I would have a build queue when I built my first car which was a little GF-01 but I now have about 5 kits waiting on a shelf which is nothing compared with the stashes of some members here

I totally agree. I would get in the queue for a purchase. Along that line of thought it would be cool if there were various working machines like diggers, forklifts etc. I have seen footage of people who get together with RC vehicles re-enact a working building site which looks a pretty cool way of RC enthusiasts having fun together that isnt racing.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/407130/Tank_Mechanic_Simulator/ £15.49 at the moment. gives me a mechanical fix when I dont want to get out all the real tools.

I'm definitely all about the "cosy" I discovered "cosy" computer games a couple of years back and they are so much more enjoyable than multi player games that invariably led me to swearing at the screen. One that I often return to is Tank Mechanic Simulator". Find and dig out second world war tanks from fields, take them back to the workshop, take them apart, repair and repaint them and also take on commisions to repair other peoples tanks. Then you also have a museum you can arrange and put some of the tanks you have renovated. I think there is also a plane mechanic simulator which I havent tried yet. RC is definitely another "cosy" hobby for me. I'm not interested in top speeds or lap times. Sometimes I watch people driving their RC's on youtube but the most enjoyable videos for me are not the highest jumps or fastest cars but things like racing Wild Willys or Lunchboxes or Mathias driving his little tractor around farmland or watching a club get together and laugh as they pootle around a course together. A great case in point was the fascinating recent thread by @Mad AxUK Scaler Nationals - May 2025 Event Review . A great read seeing lots of people coming together and chilling out. For me its more about coming up with ideas and seeing how I could just build something that works. Once I start building I get into my own little world and its kind of meditative with nothing else mattering. In the same way I treat Tamiyaclub as my "cosy" website. Its where I come to chill out and unwind. Share ideas, learn from the experts and get inspired by the great builds on here.

Looks amazing. And looks like you have added loads of shading detail to it as well. Great job.

Stick with it @Rinskie. As we get older were each going to have to start adapting to how our bodies change. It sounds like you had some really serious surgery and on the bright side you came out the other side of it which is a huge win. In times gone by I guess that kind of surgery wasnt even an option. Generally our hobby doesnt have any deadlines so if something is problematic and taking longer try and relax and just accept that some tasks may just take longer now. If you need a breather you can always log on to TC and vent a little, chat a little and even share your experience and knowledge in the RC hobby with us beginners. I'm always grateful of advice

When I think of RC cars, 4 spring immediately to mind. As a kid of '74 the first "proper" RC car I was aware of was the Hornet. A fast buggy that went everywhere and looked so cool. It was the one friends wanted and some even got. The slightly quirkier RC was the Wild Willy. It was everywhere, shop windows, promotional videos, catalogues. It didnt look as sleek and fast as the Hornet but all my friends new about it. I think it did a lot to draw people to the hobby and in fact after seeing a Willys jeep at a museum a few years back I immediately remembered the Tamiya Wild Willy from my childhood and that is what got me back into the hobby. Then there is the OG Hotshot. A toy grade rc (no idea what it was, a little hatchback of some sort) was bought for me as a present one year and I loved it. I took it on holiday to my grandmothers and drove it around her back patio (it couldnt handle grass). A local girl came over to play and I was told to let her have a go. She promptly drove it straight into the wall and it never worked again. I immediately knew I wanted to replace it and had heard of Tamiya and seen some of the cars. I wanted to drive it more places than just the patio and around that time the Audi Quatro was winning rally races. I remember my dad explaining to me the virtues of 4 wheel drive. And then going through the Tamiya catalogue I came across an RC buggy with 4 wheel drive, the Hotshot. For me that was a game changer and I immediately started saving pocket money. I remember seeing friends with frogs and hornets sometimes struggle over tricky terrain and was determined to get a Hotshot, a car which could surely traverse any surface in the world because it had the mystical 4WD. I did get one and it was amazing. Driving it anywhere to the shouts of "keep it off the flower beds!" and "not the vegetable patch!" And lastly something that no-one has mentioned but for me was a mind shift. As a kid, for me, radio control meant cars. I had never seen or heard of anything else. I got several Tamiya catalogues as a boy and wondered at all the amazing vehicles. At first it was all about the buggys racing over rugged terrain. But as I flicked through the catalogues again and again I started paying more attention to the other vehicles. The Tamiya RC tanks were an eye-opener and the trucks too. You could actually get RC models other than cars. From there I started to learn of RC planes and then helicopters, speed boats, sail boats, submarines, tractors, heavy goods vehicles, construction vehicles. So for me a massive game changer was the discovery of Tamiya RC tanks which led me to discover a much broader RC hobby.

The original hotshot was the car I had as a kid so I have a soft spot for it. But I have never been completely sold on the idea of a single shock at the front. I have always thought the boomerang was the coolest looking body shell. It just looks like its swooshing along. Every so often I think it would be good to have 1 member of the hotshot family in my little collection. The beauty of these kits is the huge scope for customisation so I think if I finally spent money and built something it would either be a Super Hotshot (for all the extras) but with a Boomerang body fitted. Or more likely a Boomerang with a sprinkling of select hop-ups like bearings and a customised suspension setup so that it had dual front shocks. @Twinfan's is a beauty.