What was your first kit?

[matisse 1581]

6 minutes ago, Busdriver said:

A Sand Scorcher from Beatties in Bristol. Had made loads of static models including a couple of large scale Tamiya Porsches . Went into Beatties looking for a model to build and ended up at the back of the shop where all the RC stuff was. The usual videos were running of the Scorcher and the Ranger. I really wanted the Ranger but it was not in stock and in those days you couldn’t just go on the internet and find one so I settled for the Beatties package of Scorcher, hump pack battery, fast charger, Acoms radio and the all important Beatties bag!!!! Also an application form for the post office to buy an rc licence.I was 21 at the time and although I had a half decent job it was a lot of dosh. Around 79/80 I believe.Had that followed by a Brat and two different Celicia’s , inc the holy grail then stopped. 

Picked it up in 2018/19 and haven’t looked back. Now got about 35 cars, most Tamiya  but a few others as well. No pictures of the early cars I’m sad to say🙁

God i loved that shop, the Tamiya display was epic…sigh, happy memories 

First car a wild one, and which i then sold to buy my first actual kit, a Madcap.

 

[ThunderDragonCy 7873]

Unsurprisingly it was a Thunder Dragon. Some friends at school had Grasshoppers they used to race around the little wood near their house, and the Grasshopper was in the Littlewoods catalogue, and I really REALLY wanted one. Then I joined a model club to paint Airfix models and there was an RC section. All these other kids racing around with all sorts of cool things. I needed an RC! Then in the local toy shop which stocked Tamiya, one Saturday morning, hanging the in the window slightly nose down like it was going to land jump was the Thunder Dragon. And that was it. That was The One. Very fortunately my parents were in a position to buy it for me, so on my 12th birthday in 1988, we trooped down to Longhurst and Skinner and bought the beautiful silver Thunder Dragon that was hanging in the window. So, I didn't actually build the kit, but that was it. Loved it, ran it, kept it all these years. My Thunder Dragon now probably still has a couple of bits from that original, and I still think of it as that car. It certainly still lives in the very battered original box. 

Thanks for posting this thread. What a lovely walk down memory lane.

[markbt73 5310]

Grasshopper for me. Spent the whole summer of 1986 doing odd jobs to buy it, finally got it in August. I actually wanted a Wild One, but I got impatient saving up. Once I had enough for the Grasshopper, I pulled the trigger.

Originally I fell in love with the Kyosho Pegasus, but the local hobby shop guy talked me out of it, saying the Tamiya models were higher-quality. Having since had a couple Pegasus/Icarus/Bandido models, I'm not sure that's strictly true, but the 'Hopper was a fine first car.

[Gebbly 587]

1 hour ago, danimaldaisy said:

I missed out but I really didn't in the end

Embrace that inner child and our childhood never ends. We just get more disposable income

58 minutes ago, Busdriver said:

Beatties in Bristol

I remember the Beatties near us and it was THE toy shop to go to. All those models and RC. Made up for trapesing around after mum whilst she did the weeks grocery shopping even if we just looked but didnt buy. The other shop I used to love was Tandy which was my first introduction to anything remote controlled. There were also all the electronics components shining on the shelves.

[Gebbly 587]

51 minutes ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

Thanks for posting this thread. What a lovely walk down memory lane.

Your very welcome. Its great to read all these stories and enjoy everyone elses childhood joy

A memory I have when building my Hotshot was my dad helping with the suspension. He had some spare time at the weekend as he had just finished redecorating the dining room including putting up some rather fancy wallpaper my mum had chosen and this bought him some play time from mum. We were building the car on the dining room table and he got a bit heavy handed with the little suspension oil container and it squirted all the way up the new wallpaper and left a permanent streak on the wall. Boy was I glad it wasnt me

[Saito2 6673]

It was the Tamiya Monster Beetle that grabbed my attention and held on with a steel, vice-like grip that hasn't let go in decades. But, its price hovered high in the stratosphere for a kid like me. I settled on pursuing my second favorite Tamiya, the Lunch Box, after first seeing one in an ad on the back cover of RC Car Action magazine:

My parents kinda scoffed at the idea that I'd be able to save my pocket and chore money for that long but I think they were in for a surprise at just how determined I could be when it came to the drive of a special interest. After about year...

My dad was impressed enough to kick in for the radio after I saved enough for the kit. We assembled it together but after that, I was off and running, eagerly assembling every kit I could procure. I still have it and it still runs despite the "high miles" from constant play. It was a great first kit and made me a Tamiya lover for life.

[Elbowloh 1126]

As I said, never had a kit when younger. I did however get one of these Tandy/RadioShack specials one Christmas. I did tinker with it, removed the prop shaft and made it 2wd.

 

 

 

[lukej 319]

Mine was a Kyosho Ultima RB buggy, back in 2002 which lasted about 10 days before I bent the conrod, seized the engine & watched it barrel roll into a grass bank which did for the body.

Not long after my misadventures with the Kyosho, I bought Castrol Toms Supra 2000 TL-01 (58264) which I gradually hopped up and played with on the street until maybe 2006.

When I can get a replacement shell & engine for the Ultima it’ll be rebuilt and looked after better. The TL-01 needs an overhaul and a new shell too, so those are on the refurb list.

Luke

[Gebbly 587]

7 minutes ago, lukej said:

lasted about 10 days

Always upsetting when a new creation dies. Many many years ago I built a balsa wood model plane with a propeller powered by rubber band. Spent ages building and painting it. Then on my first attempt I cast it into the big blue yonder and it promptly nose-dived and crashed. It hit the ground with enough force that the propeller embedded itself in the wood framework. Clearly I should stick to ground vehicles

[lukej 319]

34 minutes ago, Gebbly said:

Always upsetting when a new creation dies. Many many years ago I built a balsa wood model plane with a propeller powered by rubber band. Spent ages building and painting it. Then on my first attempt I cast it into the big blue yonder and it promptly nose-dived and crashed. It hit the ground with enough force that the propeller embedded itself in the wood framework. Clearly I should stick to ground vehicles

One of the things I’m fortunate for, is that I had the foresight to retain the boxes and assembly instructions for both cars.

Whilst the boxes are a little worse for wear now, I thank 12 year old Luke for his obsessive completionist nature as it allows me to restore them to their former if brief glories!

Luke

[lukej 319]

20 hours ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

Thanks for posting this thread. What a lovely walk down memory lane.

Seconded, it’s nice to remember how I fell in love with this hobby and it makes me appreciate the opportunity to now own so many special cars I dreamed of owning when I started out.

Luke

[Juhunio 6830]

21 hours ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

Thanks for posting this thread. What a lovely walk down memory lane.

Agreed...it's amazing how vivid those memories can be...you can almost feel them 

21 hours ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

My Thunder Dragon now probably still has a couple of bits from that original, and I still think of it as that car.

Aaah, the 'Trigger's Broom' principle in action 😂

[Wooders28 4718]

My first car, was a 2nd hand Tamiya Frog.

Arrived from Santa ,Christmas '85, who gave me the car, but nothing else, so I used my Christmas money from relatives, to buy the Acoms Techniplus (£60, which was alot back then!) , plus a battery and charger.

 

On 2/22/2023 at 10:00 AM, Gebbly said:

What was your first kit and what made you choose it?

My first kit, was the kyosho Ultima.

I chose this kit, as I was sick of getting beaten by RC10's, and also the Frog gearbox was breaking itself for fun.

Loved that car 

 

 

Must add, the last kit i built ,was the Kyosho Ultima, re release! 

So, first and last atm 😀

 

Edit - 

Kind of irrelevant, but, my mate in the Hornet T shirt, has pulled out the Mid Custom , I've given him modern 2.4 radio gear, a 1060 and an Imax B6, to get the thing running again 😀

 

 

[Ray_ve 1043]

It was a Marui Big Bear, loved the look of that car and somehow my parents bought it for me.

My father assembled the wheels/tires, I did the rest.

It chewed up 2 gear sets from all the driving. Made lots of kilometers with it.

Don't have it anymore, as it was completely worn and broken at the end of it's live. But I now have some other ones to rebuild for nostalgia's sake.

 

2nd was a grasshopper, as it was cheap (below 100 buck back then) and I could recycle the bear's radio and battery. Also ran that one to the ground, but had lots of fun with it after the 540 motor and 15t pinion.

[Nikko85 3439]

On 2/22/2023 at 4:34 PM, danimaldaisy said:

Im the late 80's wanted a monster beetle or a grasshopper so bad as a kid.  it never happened.  I did end up with a Radio Shack golden arrow. I got rid of it when it developed a glitchy receiver.

Fast forward to 2010 I bought my daughter a Stampede and myself an XTM X-cellerator.  Then built a HPI MT nitro to the gills with Masher2k's and a baja bug body.

During the pandemic I pulled them all out after 10 years. I sold the HPI because parts were non-existent. The Xcellerator was in perfect condition (almost mint) and the stampede blew the transmission after converting to Lipo after sitting for 10 years (must have been the HOT trinity 15T motor).  I rebuilt the transmission with metal gears....and Swapped out the rotten tires for sledgehammers. Bought a flysky gt3b and swapped out all the receivers.

Then I missed my Golden arrow...So I built a DT03 Racing Fighter in black. Then I bought a re-re grasshopper. Next a sand viper. Finally a basic tt02b that is almost a tt02bR.  just waiting for the new damper stays to be released as they come with longer turnbuckles.

So I missed out but I really didn't in the end.

If you ever want another golden arrow they can be converted to a hobby grade electronics super easily! I had one, nice cars, a little nicer than the grasshopper with the right motor!

 

 

[David B 66]

My first kit was a Grasshopper in 1984 because it was what I could afford, my second was a Kyosho nitro Datsun pickup.

 

[Rally! 150]

The 959. I still have it. 

[Sogogi 3215]

Ta-02 F150…

[naturbo2000 1261]

A Hornet. But I can reply with a little more colour than that.

My actual first kit was a glider. 2 channel, glow engine etc. Probably for my 10-12th birthday, Something like that. I built it with a bunch of assistance from my Dad - he and I both used to build scale model aircraft. He'd built balsa band-powered planes many years before. Several weeks/months of build, and covering film application etc. Some gentle tests to get a handle on appropriate trim etc. Then all ready for the first flight. Wrestle with the glow engine to get it started, then the biggest "chuck" my Dad had ever given a plane. Trim was way off. Up it went - very aggressively. A massive stall later and it came back down quicker than it went up. We probably could have repaired it - though there was a whole bunch of damage. Thankfully all of the RC gear was intact so I had a Hornet kit that Christmas. I built that myself, crashed and repaired it a lot and eventually sold it to buy a Madcap.

We can skip over the Optima run as a BMW M3 touring car and my significant time away from the hobby. When I came back, my first kit was a rebuild of that very same Madcap.

[bRIBEGuy 3032]

My first kit was a Tamiya Stadium Blitzer back in '92 or '93?

I grew up in a family with very little disposable income (and with two younger siblings), so my first decent RC Car was Tyco Turbo Hopper around 1986-87.  My (much better off) friend down the street had a father who raced pan cars, and liked RC, so as a result he had a Tamiya HotShot and Porsche 959 to run.  My Turbo Hopper couldn't even remotely keep up, but it kept me occupied while I spent my free time thumbing through Tamiya catalogs dreaming of pretty much every car they made.  Eventually I wore out the Turbo Hopper, and was lucky enough to get a second one for Christmas to keep my RC addiction fueled. 

I had been saving my money for years, just waiting to get a Tamiya, but when my Dad finally took me to the hobby store, I hadn't nearly enough to make a scratch in the price of a kit.  I was young and dumb, and desperate to buy something though, so I ended up using my cash on a Nikko Big Bubba, and started my saving cycle all over again. 

Over the next 5 years or so as I saved, I watched my uncle buy a Midnight Pumpkin and a ClodBuster (both of which I was forbidden to drive), had my family move to a different city, and finally managed to save enough to take another trip to a hobby store.  I was hoping to bring home a Clodbuster or some 4wd buggy, but the only kit they had even close to my price range was the Stadium Blitzer.  It wasn't what I truly wanted... but it was what I could afford... and so I picked it up, along with a Futaba Radio/ESC combo (that my dad had to kick in a few bucks to cover), and the rest was history...    

[mtbkym01 4008]

I’ve told this story a number of times here over the last decade, but here goes:

Back in the mid 80’s, I discovered Tamiya in a local toy store known as Toyworld here in Australia, they had a number of kits on display and the original promotional videos playing. I was there one day with a mate from school and his mum, she asked him what one he wanted and he said Hornet, so she grabbed it off the shelf to “layby” it for him for Christmas. I couldn’t believe it as my parents were real bottlers and I knew there was no way I could ever get a Tamiya.

I did have enough money to buy a Tamiya Guide Book, which both of us bought one, and back at his place we were reading it and both decided the Frog was the choice. That Xmas he got a Frog, and a neighbour of mine got a Hotshot, and I got a Taiyo Jeep pictured here

Not a Tamiya but was all my Parents could afford and I drove that thing like crazy. I was at my neighbours place with his step dad when they started building the Hotshot. It frustrated me coz I knew I could build it, but they struggled and it ended up sitting there for ages before that had a shop finish building it.

I then got a Jet Hopper which I also drove like crazy

The whole time I was still fawning for a Tamiya, and I remember leading into Xmas the next year my mum mentioned whats the Hornet like, I got really excited as although it wasnt a Frog, it was a Tamiya……I unwrapped a 1/32 Hornet Jr that year, my first Tamiya.

I continued saving and saving every penny, then one day a large chain department store had a sale on package deals including ACOMS radio gear, 7.2v racing pack and quick charger, I didnt quite have enough saved but my wonderful Mum chipped in the rest and picked up my brand new released Tamiya Fox, I remember sitting at home on a Friday after school waiting for her to get home with my new kit, when she did I ran out and grabbed that thing and set myself up on the dining room table. She said the man in the store said it will take a few days to build, I built that thing that night, painted the body (PC brush on paint) the next morning and was driving it by lunchtime on the Saturday

I still have it and still love it to bits. I raced that thing at my local club, finishing 2nd in our club championship, then eventually bought a Schumacher CAT XLS from another racer 2nd hand (along with a Big Bear a bit prior).

Going back to that guide book I bought, I still have it too despite being a little worse for wear, but that thing got read every night while listening to Dire Straits “Brothers in Arms” cassette. Everytime I hear “So Far Away” it takes me back to my early teens bedroom laying in bed reading my Guide Book, such awesome memories.

Nice thread

[mtbkym01 4008]

@bRIBEGuy your story is very similar to mine, we wouldve been typing them at nearly the same time

[ChrisRx718 4470]

Wow some of you guys must be like... Really old! 

I didn't get my first Tamiya until I was earning my own money - at 15 I started working at Time Tunnel Models (ssshh don't tell anyone, it was a few months before my 16th birthday!) 

Earlier that same year my dad has treated himself to a 58263 Opel V8 Coupe TL01. This captured my imagination a bit and I was keen to get my own. 

I was myself absolutely captivated by Fast and Furious movies and Gran Turismo at that age, so plumped for the 58264 Castrol Tom's Supra TL01. 

I remember it fondly; I made a royal mess of the body shell and never did end up "finishing" it, opting to try my first paint job using translucent blue and silver instead of box art. It was a horrible mess. The TL01 was great and I added a bunch of Hop Ups, earning money on a Saturday in the model shop only to spend said money at closing time on my RC addiction! Neil did give me a nice 20% staff discount, which was nice. 

It ended up with a Quikdrive Subaru Impreza body which I bought from a mate for £20. I quickly realised the QD chassis was pap, so that ended up in landfill.

I added all the parts to that TL01 that I could, ultimately storing it away as life took over. I actually sold that very car some years later, looking very different, on this very forum:

Sporting a nice R32 GT-R body shell:

Why did I sell it? I don't really know, I needed the money more I guess. I regret it, so as a result I'm gathering all the parts to build a like-for-like replacement - TL01 bits are a lot more expensive now than they were back then however!

Watch this space, I'll try to make a Build Thread.

[BuggyDad 4405]

Mine was a Falcon, round about 1986/7. My buddy had already got his Grasshopper and his little brother a Sand Rover. So my desire for a Tamiya would've been glaringly obvious to my mum who just went and found The Model Shop in Northampton (it's still there, still has the same neon sign and the same 2 guys working in it), asked for advice and came out with a Falcon. Many trips back over the next year or two for bearings, faster motor, order and wait for a new tub or two, bulkhead, likely many driveshafts etc, I remember a dig through the stock blank lexan shells for a saloon body of about the right wheelbase, bending paperclips to use in place of body clips. Similar level of break, replace, modify as my 35 years later DT-03. I really have regressed to childhood. My dad wasn't very good mechanically so I was on my own, which suited me down to the ground actually. There was an unused old stable on the farm which I repurposed as my workshop and would disappear to. 

Subsequently appeared a hand-me-down Pajero which I fixed up and ran a bit, and an Optima bare chassis I bought used, which never got a body but I got running and thought was mechanically fabulous. And sometime a tank which I don't think was meant to be RC and I don't know where it came from but I got it going with 2 MSCs and a load of garden wire. So yeah, I really have regressed, because my 2021-23 has been not far off a repeat of similar. 

Don't know where any of these models ended up, unfortunately. But long may my age continue to run backwards... 

*having written this I've got to hold my hands up and admit that if the Falcon does get rereleased I probably will buy one and build it box art. Maybe even pop into the same shop and see if he can order it (he doesn't do much rc now but I got some Tamiya paint from there the other week). 

[yogi-bear 2315]

I like reading threads like this.

Sometime in 1985 I got hold of the Tamiya 1985 catalogue  and there was a lot of cars in there I wanted. Man, I think I went through that catalogue nearly every day. But like most, I didn't have a lot of funds, I didn't even have a part time job, so money saved was from chores and pocket money. Friends had a Hornet and Brat and I remember yearning for the Frog, Hotshot, Sand Scorcher, the Audi Quattro and many others. At that time I lived a long way from school, so I'd usually go into Dad's work after school. Along the way I'd quite often stop in the nearly hobby shop and gawk at all the RC cars and even models I couldn't afford! Back in those days I only remember seeing Tamiya cars, there were certainly a lot more.

Anyway, eventually I have enough money to get something and I remember trying to decide between the Grasshopper kit I could afford, or maybe trying to save more for the Frog kit I wanted. The I came across the Marui Galaxy, and I had just enough. So thats what I ended up getting. Overall it was a pretty good kit and I had a lot of fun with it.