Is this hobby as exciting as it used to be?

[Mechanic AH 579]

I was just going thru some old RC magazines from the late ’80s to mid ‘90s and I miss that period's energy and feeling. Companies brand and market their products with a different kind of vibe/enthusiasm and excitement. The industry seem to market the hobby to every single generation. The community felt much larger and things always felt like they were going on an upward trajectory. There was noticeably a dynamic aura that was exciting. I enjoyed reading the articles and looking at the ads: the copywriting was fun; if there was any illustration or art it was cool or intentionally wacky; brushed motors not only had a lot character—they were marketed with a lot of it too; race spec cars were worth daydreaming and they had more individuality; there was an interesting range of aftermarket companies to choose from and they were almost on a different level when it came to ingenuity; and, the plethora of interesting wheels, tires, bodies, and so on. So much was happening.

Interestingly today, with better technology, knowledge, and ways to market, things seem to be a bit mundane. The energy feels cold and pragmatic. I’ve read many articles about how the pandemic has brought back some interests in the hobby among consumers but I wonder if that’s just temporary. In some ways there are still exciting aspects about the hobby but it doesn't have that same charm. Do you think the hobby will ever get back to being that big or exciting? What's preventing that culture/excitement to come back? Or was it always there but never evolved? 

[BelknapCrater 179]

Maybe just an ageing user group. I also blame the Internet. 

[Willy iine 17939]

I think so, @BelknapCrater.  It's an old man's hobby and I think it's difficult to get excited as we did the first time around.  

The internet for me is good, because I can get inspired by others' projects from all over the globe..  I hope that I am contributing too to return the favor.. 

[OoALEJOoO 2780]

Just now, Willy iine said:

I think so, @BelknapCrater.  It's an old man's hobby and I think it's difficult to get excited as we did the first time around.  

The internet for me is good, because I can get inspired by others' projects from all over the globe..  I hope that I am contributing too to return the favor.. 

Yes sir, your custom builds have been an inspiration to me!

I think that youth these days have different interests. Digital life many times replaces the physical one and cars in general seem to be getting out of fashion. I do my part promoting the hobby by running my cars on public spaces (safely) and being friendly to people that approach me with interest.

[Frog Jumper 3478]

I see a lot of local interest in no-prep drag racing.  I think it’s more about the cars we choose (Tamiya Buggies) vs. what is popular in the wider world of RC…

[Snappy1 959]

1 hour ago, Frog Jumper said:

I see a lot of local interest in no-prep drag racing.  I think it’s more about the cars we choose (Tamiya Buggies) vs. what is popular in the wider world of RC…

Agreed, other than Tamiya, vintage Team Losi really presses my buttons, I have about 10 cars and just got my first truck , WOOT!

but the only real site is RC10 talk, in the Losi section, new threads and builds are few and far between.......

[Sprocket 50]

That was definitely the golden age of RC. Things have changed for sure.

And I still have my heavily modified JRxT. Love that thing
 

 

[Wooders28 4563]

Being involved in the racing side, the excitement is still there.

New chassis designs, new motors ,.New battery tech etc, the only thing that's really changed , is the marketing.

The modern world is online, magazines are going to be a thing of the past, I know mag editors of 1:1 car mags, and they're struggling to find content, as by the time it's written, edited ,gone to the printers and distributed, it's old news. They've even stopped the classified ads, as most had been sold by the time the mag had reached the news stands.

High streets have moved online, so you can no longer watch endless loops of cool Tamiyas jumping off dunes, in your local model shop.

As it's now more, target marketing, you need to be on Facebook groups, subscribe to manufactures on YouTube etc, to get all the 'buzz' .

Personally, I think Tamiya have dropped the ball slightly, kept fighting against lipo tech (although the new tble04s does have lipo cut off option), and not including things like a slipper as standard. Yeah it keeps the cost down slightly, but pushes the brand more into the 'toy grade' category, and less to get excited about.

[Jonathon Gillham 4514]

Interesting topic. I think the interest is still there but older people are less excitable, and kids have a lot of things competing for their attention. New releases are now an iteration of a previous model so that excitement of a new model just isn't there. Ae have just released the RC10 B6.4. I run a B6 and have to look closely to spot differences. So the 5th iteration of the same car now. The differences between new an old models used to be huge. I think this is partly because they release 'new' models more frequently, and partly because the designs are pretty well settled and now being optimised for track conditions. The same thing is happening with 1:1 cars too though with manufacturers making all sorts of car on the same platform - the whole Jaguar IC range of 2 SUV, 2 sedans and a sports car are all on the same underpinnings. Cant blame little car makers from copying big car makers right?

In saying that, there is still innovation, look at the TC01, TD2/4, Xray X4 etc. Those releases create a lot of excitement

Right now down here the club racing scene seems to be booming. New tracks and clubs have opened in the last couple of years, and most clubs appear to have good turnout.

Overall I think its just evolving and the excitement is still there, just manifests in different ways. Like if the Boomerang was rereleased, that would be exciting

[Wooders28 4563]

8 minutes ago, Jonathon Gillham said:

The differences between new an old models used to be huge

Tamiyas ORV chassis was released in 1983, and spanned a decade ,with various bodies and wheels (from the Brat ,to Mudblaster) ? 

Maybe huge to a child's eye, but would you think the same now, putting bigger wheels and a different body on? 

Yes it was a decade of innovation, from motors hanging out of the back, to mid mounted , even fwd front mounted motors, so is there a 'game changer' car out there? Or are manufacturers just reacting to tech advances (ie shortys look to be standard fitment now, no more stick or saddle packs) and specific cars for modern surfaces?  (astro, carpet). With some of the top drivers now running 4.5t /5t in 2wd, is that going to filter down to be the normal like 6.5t / 7.5t now, so maybe start to see longer wheelbases, with further forward mounted motor etc? 

[Jonathon Gillham 4514]

40 minutes ago, Wooders28 said:

Tamiyas ORV chassis was released in 1983, and spanned a decade ,with various bodies and wheels (from the Brat ,to Mudblaster) ? 

Maybe huge to a child's eye, but would you think the same now, putting bigger wheels and a different body on? 

Yes it was a decade of innovation, from motors hanging out of the back, to mid mounted , even fwd front mounted motors, so is there a 'game changer' car out there? Or are manufacturers just reacting to tech advances (ie shortys look to be standard fitment now, no more stick or saddle packs) and specific cars for modern surfaces?  (astro, carpet). With some of the top drivers now running 4.5t /5t in 2wd, is that going to filter down to be the normal like 6.5t / 7.5t now, so maybe start to see longer wheelbases, with further forward mounted motor etc? 

All good points. 

Are they really running 4.5T in 2wd buggies?! Whats that all about then?! At the onroad club I run at they don't even run that in TC!

I was meaning there is a big difference between Hotshot, Boomerang, Hotshot II, Supershot, Bigwig which may have made it worth upgrading, compared to the TT02B which is the same except the body and colour of the shocks.

The RC10 was a game changer BiTD right? TA01 for onroad? But that hasn't happened in years.

Now I don't think it matters what brand you run, its about setup help and parts availability rather than performance. I run HB and Ae because I can buy parts trackside and lots of others run them, not because they are 'better'.

[alvinlwh 5292]

It depends. Scrolling through Tamiya's "new" release list brings not much excitement, even though having built Tamiya for decades.

For the RC section is just mostly another "haven't I seen it before?" list, even though I only truly started on the RC part of the hobby only about a year ago. A rere of something old (from the 80s like you said), a box of parts packaged as a "new" release (M-08R) or something old with a new wrapper (TT-01e with xyz), or just the new wrapper (body shell).

Even their static releases do not excite me much. Just another Spitfire/P-51/Tiger/Sherman? Yawn... From other manufacturers, F4F-3S?  A-7K? ASU-57?  Yes please! 

[Wooders28 4563]

24 minutes ago, Jonathon Gillham said:

Are they really running 4.5T in 2wd buggies?! Whats that all about then?

Aye, once one person starts getting better lap times with the lower turn motors, they all follow.

Seriously quick , not sure if the new Laydown2 was designed for it? 

 

10 minutes ago, alvinlwh said:

For the RC section is just mostly another "haven't I seen it before?" 

Do admire tamiya for going with in inboard shocks, which look a bit different, but even that was tried by Schumacher back in the late 80's with the 'Top cat', which didn't work too well if I remember right (well, if it did, that would be the norm now?) 

[Wooders28 4563]

37 minutes ago, Jonathon Gillham said:

I was meaning there is a big difference between Hotshot, Boomerang, Hotshot II, Supershot, Bigwig

Paint a hotshot ll body white, and slap some boomerang decals on! 🤔

The Bigwig is different,  but needed the technigold motor (still only a 21t motor, and loads of modified motors where faster than it....) and 8.4v to stand out against the Mid and the XLS.

[Mad Ax 8406]

Interesting question.  I think the excitement is still there, but in different places.

For a start, when RC racing began, it was small-scale-big-car-racing.  The cars were, as much as feasible, small versions of big ones.  Nobody really had the right formula, so many new ideas were tried.  Virtually every competition formula starts out that way (including natural selection - look at some of the crazy body plans that were around during the Cambrian explosion), and they all end up with carbon-copy designs that work (look at how so lifeforms with completely different origins but filling the same niche have converged on the same shape, over and over again, because it works).

I remember round 2006-2012, manufacturers seemed to flip-flop between saddle packs, shorties and stick packs - like nobody could decide what was best, so it would change every year.  I was only racing at local club level back then so I might have missed the major developments at the international level, but it felt like nothing was static.  Now most race classes look the same.  Even Frontie, which was specifically made to add some scale realism back into on-road racing, has moved from front-motor to mid-motor as racers chase that all-important edge over the competition.  Because when you're racing, scale means nothing - it's the results that matter.  When the Iconic Cup started, people were running all manner of chassis and body combos, but then silly big wings started to appear, and edge-case bodies like the Pikes Peak Suzuki, which were technically legal because they accurately represent a real car, could gain a huge advantage thanks to the enormous aero parts.  Now, with non-standard wings and crazy bodies outlawed, the GT and Super Touring classes still zero in on one or two bodies that have the best edge.

So, it's not that there's no innovation in racing - it's just that everything is so much closer to the elusive perfect design, the gains available are smaller and the changes needed to get them are less obvious.  And by that measure, a well-set-up car from a few years back driven by someone with some skill behind the controller will be faster than a brand new car with a less-than-perfect setup and a less-than-perfect driver.

As for marketing - if you're not racing, then the bulk of it seems to be aimed at the RTR send-it brigade.  I just watched the official vid for the Arrma Vorteks, which barely shows the vehicle moving as the driver would see it.  It's all about a handful of super-slo-mo closeups set to crunching guitars and a powerful beat.  To me it seems no less of a lifestyle vid than those indecipherable scent adverts that appear around Christmas time, it doesn't really tell you anything about the product itself.  The Arrma taglines are "don't just bash - blast!" and "designed fast - designed tough".  They're probably aimed at people who were disappointed with how slow and fragile their Tamiyas were in the 90s, and if you'd given me a 6S Arrma when I was 13 I'd have been the happiest kid on Earth.  But I don't think these are aimed at 13yos.  I don't think there's that many 13yos with either the money or the space to run one of these and not many parents prepared to buy one, at least not after buying the latest iPhone, games console and whatever else it is that kids want these days that would probably come higher up the Christmas list than a toy car that went out of youth fashion in the late 90s.  I think they're aimed at the independent middle class 20-something, typically male, who isn't yet tied down with a mortgage and childcare duties, who can drive himself out to the wilderness to blast (not just bash) his truck until either hot new girl or a hot new gadget comes along and it gathers dust in the garage along with the fancy mountain bike, the camera drone and the snowboard.  I'm not anti-Arrma, and-Traxxas or anti-tribal-paint-high-speed-basher in general (I even own an E-Maxx), but it always feels like a high-turnover hobby, unlike other niches in the RC community.

That said - I still think there's loads of excitement within the RC car hobby.  Drifting, for example, is big business - so many chassis configurations, body options, and scale parts.  It's not all about the competition, it's about the look.  Sure, dedicated drifters will spend hour after hour tinkering and adjusting their chassis to get it driving just how they want it, but when they're done, they put on an exquisitely-detailed, carefully-painted body and go slide it around a track set up to mimic a real-world drift location, complete with little houses, parking lots and street signs.

Scale crawling, too, has been full of innovation over the last decade or two.  In the beginning, it was TVP plates borrowed from monster trucks or cut from aluminium, axles from small-scale monsters and transmissions from RTR bashers.  Now there's any number of scale chassis on the market, from budget-but-capable to super-scale-realism to rich-man's-plaything, and huge market of very good, very scale, very capable trucks in between, many of which have their own unique selling point.  Plus all the rock buggies that have come along to fill a new scale niche and offer a little more speed for those that don't want to feather the throttle over an obstacle, but attack it upside-down with all the wheels spinning yelling yee-haw! until they somersault out the other side.  And if you think that ain't scale running, just watch some 1:1 rock bouncing videos  

It's been great to see some good monster trucks, too.  For a long time there really wasn't much about, and if you wanted a capable race truck, you still had to go right back to the original Clod Buster, then spend a fortune on parts and throw out everything apart from the axle internals.  Now the LMT is topping the competition tables, the SMT-10 is a great option for building what you want, and the MTX-1 is a great little rig on the same scale as the Blackfoot, to shake up that stagnant sector of unstable, unscale, decades-old rear-drive, rear-motor, independently-sprung Tamiya offerings that clunk around a back yard for a few minutes before spitting a diff and turning upside down and ruining a carefully-painted ABS body.

There's also been a lot of - no so much innovation - new parts on the big rig market, within a reasonable budget.  You don't have to spend thousands on a big rig to get full functionality.  Hundreds, yes, easily, but you can stay shy of a thousand and still have a lot of working stuff, without having to have your own milling machine.

And let's not forget how much excitement the 3D printer explosion adds to the RC world when you can design and make your own parts right in your own home, especially as stronger media become available.

[Unknown Driver 262]

I have a leg in both camps so I may see things that those only in the vintage/Tamiya scene may not...

From a racing / bashing perspective, the hobby is absolutely still growing. 10 years ago the rage was short course trucks (starting with the Slash and later evolving with true race bred vehicles) which brought a lot of people into the hobby. Then crawling became a thing which sells a TON of cars, and in the last 2 years drag racing has become the hot fad, to the point that my LHS put in a drag strip with full computerized timing. And the demographic/diversity with some of these new segments is phenomenal. Old/young, rural/city, male/female - if you can't find something in RC that tickles your fancy, you haven't looked hard. Which is awesome.

Offroad carpet / astro is still my LHS bread and butter though, with 2WD stock (17.5) being the dominant class and 4WD stock (13.5) following next. They sell a lot of cars / kits as most manufacturers are on a 1 year design cycle now.

The LD2, B6.4, etc etc are all absolutely built for stupid low turn motors. Most of the talented mod drivers are running a 6.5T or lower motor and they're ballistic. Chassis designs have stopped making huge advancements (rear --> mid motor) and are now all about subtle refinements.

That said, I absolutely miss the magazines/catalogues of yore. Advertising mattered MUCH more and manufacturers put more effort into their branding. I'm SO sick of kit boxes with a black background and car (TLR), no image of the car at all (Associated), or a shadow image (X-Ray).

I co-host a podcast on our LHS youtube channel (RC Madness) and last week we pawed through some old RC Car Action magazines from 1995. The vibe was SO different. I do blame the internet in part.

The hobby is definitely more affordable, popular, and technologically advanced, it's just lost some of the 'heart' it used to have. Or - have we, as an older demographic, been around long enough to allow our nostalgia glasses to fog our perspective?

For me: Tamiya restorations to reminisce about the past, go racing for the challenge of staying competitive and current. You can scratch BOTH itches.

Or y'know...buy some ointment.

[Unknown Driver 262]

3 hours ago, alvinlwh said:

It depends. Scrolling through Tamiya's "new" release list brings not much excitement, even though having built Tamiya for decades.

For the RC section is just mostly another "haven't I seen it before?" list, even though I only truly started on the RC part of the hobby only about a year ago. A rere of something old (from the 80s like you said), a box of parts packaged as a "new" release (M-08R) or something old with a new wrapper (TT-01e with xyz), or just the new wrapper (body shell).

Even their static releases do not excite me much. Just another Spitfire/P-51/Tiger/Sherman? Yawn... From other manufacturers, F4F-3S?  A-7K? ASU-57?  Yes please! 

This. The TD4/2 chassis just does nothing for me when you realize your options at that price point. It's like they're trying to be too clever. If it weren't for the re-releases, (I suspect) Tamiya would be in big trouble from an RC perspective. I wish they'd develop some newer monsters and sell them with lexan AND hard bodies. Hand drawn box art on one side, "bash photos" on the other side. Make the brand more relevant to new hobbyists while keeping the 'heart' that we look for. I feel like they could regain some market share that way.

BUT: that involves engineering and investment, which they seem averse to.

-cough- RIP TRF -cough-

[Wooders28 4563]

44 minutes ago, Unknown Driver said:

From a racing / bashing perspective, the hobby is absolutely still growing.

Can mirror that comment in the UK, we're seeing alot of new guys messaging the club/ coming to our track. 

We don't really do , stock or Mod here, just 2wd or 4wd (easier to police, if there's no esc or turn limits) , but most of the bigger events are over subscribed, with almost the same amount of people on the reserve list, even in Scotland, we've dropped the Trucks (😥) from the championship, as there's just not enough time in the day, such is demand.

 

42 minutes ago, Unknown Driver said:

I wish they'd develop some newer monsters and sell them with lexan AND hard bodies

For me, Tamiya are scale RC Models, and a choice of runner and shelf body would be brilliant!! 

[alvinlwh 5292]

40 minutes ago, Unknown Driver said:

This. The TD4/2 chassis just does nothing for me when you realize your options at that price point. It's like they're trying to be too clever. If it weren't for the re-releases, (I suspect) Tamiya would be in big trouble from an RC perspective. I wish they'd develop some newer monsters and sell them with lexan AND hard bodies. Hand drawn box art on one side, "bash photos" on the other side. Make the brand more relevant to new hobbyists while keeping the 'heart' that we look for. I feel like they could regain some market share that way.

BUT: that involves engineering and investment, which they seem averse to.

-cough- RIP TRF -cough-

Actually I had said this before, RC is not actually Tamiya's core business. Yes, we are in a Tamiya RC forum and therefore it is important to us, but really, if one looks at Tamiya's history and product range, it is easy to tell their core business is in fact in static models. However, like I said, even that does not bring me much excitement these days. They are even reboxing other manufacturers' kits and selling it as their own, so the lack of engineering and investment part maybe true. 🤷

(I am always on a <£200 kit budget so never even consider the TD-4.)

[burakol 446]

Hard to answer this but I keep telling myself that my kids are not me... I could only share with them my stories as a kid and the interest I have with various hobbies etc, and how it was very hard for me to have access to these fun things during the time, but at the end of the day, no matter how I try to convince them (and myself), they're interested in other things...  and as much as I want to block them off from technology, I have to accept the fact that they are living in a different generation than most of us... 

Also, I think the lack of local track (or ease of accessibility) adds to the challenge in inspirign younger people to get into the hobby... for the most part, I think the internet opened the doors to make the hobby more affordable for everyone through buy/sell forums, internet retailers, auctions sites, etc... 

[JeffSpicoli 1363]

It's much different and I admit I suffer from "It was better when I was a kid."    But that's the case with all my hobbies.   Things change sure, but it doesn't mean it's better.

I look at the BMX hobby I have, the bikes the kids ride now are just so boring.  Everything is black, everything looks the same, I don't get it.

In R/C, everyone's doing crawlers it seems and it almost seems like a dollhouse type hobby in some regards.   I get it, the technology is cool, the advances are cool, the quality is there.

I wish Tamiya would support the vintage community a bit more.  That's probably my only complaint.  But most of the corporations probably think there's not enough profit or interest in the old stuff.

It would be nice to get a lot of the old stuff new but I know that's not going to happen.

 

 

[BelknapCrater 179]

14 minutes ago, JeffSpicoli said:

 

I look at the BMX hobby I have, the bikes the kids ride now are just so boring.  Everything is black, everything looks the same, I don't get it.

I attribute that to the technology boiling down to what works. Drop-in headsets solved the problem of ovalised headtubes. Lighter tubing made the bikes easier to flick around mid-air. No brakes? More flow.

Same has happened to RC. Both 2WD and 4wd have distilled down to their final forms. Now changes are primarily proprietary increments. There is some slight variation in crawlers in regards to motor and battery placement, but it’s the same concept- technology finds the center.

[Room335 664]

11 hours ago, OoALEJOoO said:

I think that youth these days have different interests. Digital life many times replaces the physical one and cars in general seem to be getting out of fashion. I do my part promoting the hobby by running my cars on public spaces (safely) and being friendly to people that approach me with interest.

And just to reinforce this idea...my 6th grader has a technology class in school, where they introduce engineering and scientific principles. They had a recent assignment to design & build a roller coaster. Long story short, he was the only kid in class to actually build a model coaster...the rest of the teams opted to "build" their coasters using computer programs like Minecraft. I'm fully convinced that his exposure to R/C modeling gave him the confidence to physically make something from scratch. It was a "proud dad" moment to say the least!

 

Looking at the big picture, I worry that our youth in general are losing the skills to work with their hands, opting for digital solutions instead. This will catch up with all of us eventually...it's probably happening already.

[87lc2 2575]

Lots of good posts in here!  I think things are just different, but no less exciting (for me anyway).  Being a monster truck nut this is by far the best time ever in the hobby with all of the new product finally being made available for solid axle trucks.  Getting more involved in monster racing the past few years has really put it over the top for me, I couldn't be more into RC at the moment.  It used to be mostly a winter hobby for me and in the summers I'd do 1:1 car stuff.  I find anymore that all I really want to do is work on & race my RC trucks.  I'm sure that will change as the years go by, but for now the hobby is very exciting. 

Same goes for crawlers.  Not into having the latest and greatest since I mostly just run in the woods and through the mud (no comps for me), but awesome to have so many options and products on the market.

The Tamiya side is definitley much less exciting though, I'll give you that.  I still have a lot of Tamiya, but I honestly can't think of anything vehicle-wise I'd buy from them at this point.  Unless of course something totally new and cool comes along, but won't hold my breath on that one.  

[JeffSpicoli 1363]

Maybe true, but the color selection, the graphics, the lack of creativity in BMX asethetics is just dull.   Whatever I guess, the kids are listening to EMO and love wearing black, so that's where the trends are.

It will never be as great as these days