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Are young RC collectors rarer these days?

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8 hours ago, Saito2 said:

Banging that out on a typewriter while snowed in at the Overlook (Stanley) Hotel are we? ;)

Sadly, younger folks wouldn't know what you know...  It was a scary movie when we were kids.  How many kids now would have seen a movie from 42 years ago?  Come to think of it, many wouldn't even know what a typewriter is.  RC cars have become like typewriters.  Younger folks would play with it if it's in front of them, but they don't collect anything unless it fits in their phones (digitally).  

 

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This kind of question comes up in various hobby-type circles whether its model railroading or classic cars. I think there will always be some kids or younger folk that get into these hobbies even after all the original hobbyist die off. Their numbers will be small and they can never truly have the connection we did since it was part of our youth in the 80's but I don't think that will stop a few of them from getting into it. I know of a young person or two (late teens and early 20s) that are into Model Ts. They certainly aren't mainstream in that particular interest and they have no personal connection to Model Ts but they discovered them and got "into" them just the same. There are some kids getting into model trains. They are a rare breed but they sought them out because something about them grabbed them. I think our type of "Tamiya" RC will always have some followers to carry on but the numbers will of course dwindle. One benefit of the internet is the ability to discover such things that we would have missed out in our pre-internet youth.

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I met a man, a consulting engineer for various auto manufacturers, probably early to mid 30s, who will not own a car made after 1970. 

His daily is a 1930 Ford with a 1950 Mercury flathead V8. He told me that, other than consumables, nothing on this car was made after around 1954. 

Because his consulting work takes him.all over the US, he constantly trolls Craigslist in various locales, searching for interesing and spate parts, and he keeps lists for parts that his buddies are looking for for their cars.

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I think some of the “virtual” life of younger people has helped at least the RTR hobby of not the collection and building side of the hobby .  A lot of people who were just kids in the early days of viral YouTube caught wind of RC through videos of some yahoo launching a buggy over a house and bought RTR bashers as a result . 
Some states with the hobby and collect like us old curmudgeons do, and others moved to something else . 
I think the crawler and scale scene also attracts modelers who tend to collect more than extreme sports RTR crowd do. 
I don’t want to sound like a hipster or “mr retro”, but my wife and I bought a mid 60’s co recited home lately and have been mostly finishing it thrusted mid century modern kitsch. 
There is a certain tactile and aesthetic satisfaction to using and feeling objects that were not built with planned obsolescence in mind. 
I have an old skinny wheel 10 speed bicycle that needs brake pads and Still rides better than a suspended mountain bike.Likewise I shave every couple of days with a double edge safety razor and most of my cooking is done on cast iron . 
When I tinker on my older nitro cars , I get that same aesthetic , tactile feeling as the above things . 
 

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From what I've seen in youtube, seems plenty of young ones who are still into RC in Tamiya's homeland. Not just boys but girls too (Mini4WD seems bigger there though). Now anyone who actually live in Japan should correct me on that but yeah advantage of home market, huge marketing push plus existing culture allowed that to happen but not something that can be repeated in other region.

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I don't recall seeing Tamiya adverts on TV, or hearing any on the radio? (Toy grade, Tyco stuff ,near Christmas, yes)

Even back in the 80's heyday, you needed to venture past (or in) a modelshop on the high Street (both in decline now...) and watch the cars jumping sand dunes on endless loops or see a local kid playing (?) with one in the park, to get the tamiya bug.

At the club, we've not had a kid yet (or adult I don't think), who's ever said , "naa I don't want a shot" when they're stood watching , and I offer them my controller.

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I'm sure that some of the crawler crowd will start collecting them, especially the 1/24 scale. I don't know much about vintage RC specifically though, most of them seem more into Traxxas/nameless Chinese stuff.

I'll admit that when I was younger I became distracted by videogames and my Rustler started to collect dust.

Once the PS3/X360 Era started to flame out I lost interest in modern games. I got into older games which led me to Re-Volt, which led me back into RC!

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