How many people (re)started RC with Wild Willy 2?

[Juggular]

After the 80s, Wild Willy 2 got me restarted.  It wasn't just me, right?  What is it about this chassis that so many restarted with it?  

 

[markbt73]

I never quit, so I never restarted, but I bought the first WW2 my local shop got in stock, and I've had a couple more over the years. Wonderful little things.

[toyolien]

I had one for a while. I didn't get on with it to be honest. Anything other than the silver can and it would wheelie on it's back. And, it rolled over at every turn. I guess on the right surface with a slow motor it would be bearable. But it just wasn't for me.

 

 

 

[Yoshisaur]

1 hour ago, Juggular said:

After the 80s, Wild Willy 2 got me restarted.  It wasn't just me, right?  What is it about this chassis that so many restarted with it?  

 

You can count me.

I remember me in the local modelshop when I was 13 or 14 (Volp, Amersfoort, the Netherlands) looking at he Wild Willy fully build on display. It was way to expensive so I never got one. My parents got me a Tamiya buggy later, no idea what it was, but it wasn’t a Wild Willy so I lost interest. Like half a year ago I stumbled on a youtube video featuring a Wild Willy 2. Don’t know why it was recommended to me, certainly didn’t search for it, but at that moment the little kid in me woke up and I just had to get one! Since then got the Wild Willy (obviously) Sand Scorcher, Grasshopper and a Lancia Rally 037 has been ordered  

[Saito2]

1 hour ago, Juggular said:

After the 80s, Wild Willy 2 got me restarted.  It wasn't just me, right?

Weird, lol. Have you been watching me over the years?

I never really left the hobby, but kinda withdrew from the new stuff after off-road ebbed and touring cars began to take over back in the 90's. I just fiddled about with my "old stuff".  I had stopped subscribing to RC Car Action, now splitting my attention between college, RC, 1:1 cars and of course, girls. Later, married for the first time and a new home-owner, life was, we'll say "bumpy", with the first wife. I was in a bookstore while she was shopping for romance novels (lol) when I spied a new issue of RC Car Action, which I began to thumb through. I came to some ad that had something about the Juggernaut being the new Clod replacement (how wrong they were) and the "Wild Willy 2000" as it was sometimes known in print as.

I bought the magazine and went home and ordered it as a birthday present to myself. The Wild Willy was the one that got away when I was a kid. I searched everywhere for one and this looked like an opportunity to sort of remedy that. I hadn't cracked open a new kit in at least 5 years. I had a great time putting it together. I still remember my dear departed black lab trying to crawl into my lap as I assembled it, lol. Then came a enviable divorce and the WW2 sat, undriven for probably a couple more years. When things settled, I brought it down off the shelf, bought a new Twin Detonator too and began rolling along spurred by the cool stuff I was seeing on sites like Roby's Old Tamiya Database, Blazer Frazer's and Theo's Tamiya Temple. Tamiyaclub and the rereleases came later, and down the hole I went.

[Dakratfink]

I didn’t start or restart with WW or ww2 but one of the first couple of Tamiya I bought when I restarted the hobby was a Kumamon tractor based on the WW2 chassis.
I think that chassis splits the difference between wacky wheelie stunt action and still being drivable and controllable.

I do remember when Tamiya kits were sold on ten top shelf of KayBee toys in the U.S. . I think they were even called KayBee toys and Hobby then. The Original WW loomed above the Atari systems behind the counter.

 

[Gebbly]

Wild Willy 2 got me back into RC but I didnt get a Wild Willy 2...exactly 

My wife is hugely into history and I've been getting into it too over the last few years. Whilst on a holiday we went to an RAF museum in the UK and as well as aircraft, barracks and memorabilia they also had some ground vehicles including a couple of really nicely restored Willys jeeps which they actually used to get around the village. All the staff were dressed in world war 2 uniforms and were very friendly and one of the chaps saw me taking photos of the Willys and told me I was allowed to sit in it. Whilst sitting in the jeep and reverting to about 10 years old I remembered the photos of the Wild Willy in the old Tamiya catalogues I used to flick through. I decided to treat myself.

When I got home I started reading up about the new Wild Willy 2. I decided in the end to go for a GF-01 as it felt like a 4wd version of Wild Willy 2. Now that it is built the intention is to get all the Wild Willy 2 body parts and put the Wild Willy 2 body on my GF-01

16 hours ago, toyolien said:

it rolled over at every turn

I was worried about this when reading up so I swapped out the arms for some longer ones, TL-01B. I got the idea from a thread on this forum. I still get the wheelies but no rolling.

 

[toyolien]

5 hours ago, Gebbly said:

I was worried about this when reading up so I swapped out the arms for some longer ones, TL-01B. I got the idea from a thread on this forum. I still get the wheelies but no rolling.

I did look at a few wide arm conversions, but didn't like the look of them, so moved on to something else...