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I'd like to show you my modern interpretation of the Sonic Fighter. The model was in a very bad shape when I received it in 2024. All the shocks were damaged, the chassis have been cracked and glued together very badly. The color of the body was still in white, but due to the UV light it was more of an orange than white. The stickers were not sticking anymore. The servo was glued in completely (with no servo mount). And there were some cracks on the suspension arms as well. But it was drivable. At first, I had to disassemble it completely and wash it throughly. There was also a pin missing in the gear box. So slowly I ordered what was missing and meanwhile I was going to paint it. I thought about what I can do with it. Originally I thought about going the classic way with the original color scheme, but the longer I thought about it, I disliked it more and more. So I searched for opportunities to get a nice color scheme made completely by myself. And this is the final result. I sanded and primed the whole body and chassis with white. The bumper, the bottom parts (battery cover and these triangle bottom parts) where sanded as well, then primed with black. For the body and chassis I then added a layer of silver in the upper front part and added a very slight layer of white to have this nice glittery effect. The yellow stripe has been painted as is. And the blue part is in fact a black basis, a slight silver layer and a slight blue layer on top of it. You can't see it very good on the photo's but it is glittery as well. Then I did not like the orange plastic parts, so I decided to spray paint it black matte with a very small yellow touch on the spoiler. Black matte was also sprayed on the bumper, the battery cover and the bottom black parts. Then I did something which I have never done before, painted the driver. I didn't even had some brushes for doing that. After some research I ordered some Tamiya colors and brushes and tried to paint it as good as possible. Unfortunately the driver does look a little bit cross-eyed I then had to search for new shocks and found the new C.V.A. short shocks from Tamiya in black which does look badass on these build coloring scheme together with the original orange plastic nuts. For the wheels, I have chosen to use the original wheels, but ordered new tyres. The wheels have been sanded down, and then painted white (as well as the motor cover). Then I placed a brushed motor (Team Orion Orbital 2 Pro-BB (19T)) which was laying around, a 270A LRP F1 Pro Reverse Digital ESC, a new digital servo (cheap one from Aliexpress) and a ELRS BetaFPV Micro receiver. But the build was not complete at that moment, I thought, why not put some cool underglow effect with some blue LED as well. And so I did. Now only a new LiPo battery was needed, after a short research, I found a good one which fits perfectly for vintage Tamiya chassis as the Sonic Fighter has. And so my journey ended after almost 4 months spending time, researching, washing, painting, building, and testing. I need a new project now Edit: Forgot to mention that the bushings have been replaced with ball bearings as well

This isn't another topic on vintage models vs re-re, more so modern vs old kits. DT-02 vs Hornet, Frog vs Neo Fighter, etc. Is it more fun to build a modern kit? And what about driving a modern Tamiya vs the old designs? I do understand that most modern Tamiyas have more hop-ups, and easily more potential for "good" handling. But I don't understand the kits that require hop-ups just to go straight or be on par with modern RTR models. I absolutely understand why a design from 1983 is going to have its share of problems...even if re-releases of said design should have them ironed out.