My Mid 90's Toys 'R' Us Job is Still Paying

[sfinsf]

In the mid 90's I had a job at Toys R Us and it's still paying off. While searching for my missing Blackfoot in my parent's attic (the truck is still MIA), I stumbled upon an MRC/Tamiya shipping box with Toys R Us "do not inventory" labels on it. Inside I found an original Grasshopper II, a fully working display untouched since the 80s when TRU sold Tamiya RC stuff. I had forgotten about it entirely. I originally found it (in 1995 according to the receipt) cleaning up the store room and since it was a display and had "no value" I was allowed to take it home for the grand total of $5.28. Fast forward to today and I have a pretty cool project that needs some TLC. Some rubber wrapping and electrical tape turned brittle and gunked up a couple of spots and the body has a couple of brittle areas around the edges, otherwise, it's in great shape. Everything is there, driver, electronics, controller, manual(s), battery, charger and a few spare parts since I'm guessing someone had to build it for display. I'm probably going to skip trying to charge the old NiCad though.

Nobody shared my excitement, so I had to post here–-now if I could only find the truck. Here's to new projects and hoping my parents didn't gift someone my Blackfoot.

 

[Re-Bugged]

Cracking find mate, it must have felt like Christmas 🎅. I hope that BF turns up soon as they are great trucks 👍🏻

[Mad Ax]

Wow, that's a cool find, and a great story!

[ADRay1000]

very cool. I don’t remember that Toys R Us carried Tamiya (or any other hobby grade rc) 

[Marchie]

Nice find! Congrats.

I would be curious to know how much it weighs- I’m currently adding ballast to my re re GH2 and it would be interesting to know how much the extra servo, msc (and batteries?) add up to.

Whatever else, I hope you enjoy the restoration!

[GToddC5]

Dude, you should be even more excited because that's a Super G!

[sfinsf]

On 4/29/2024 at 6:03 PM, Re-Bugged said:

Cracking find mate, it must have felt like Christmas 🎅. I hope that BF turns up soon as they are great trucks 👍🏻

I know I'm not crazy, I found two of the BF tires in the box with the grasshopper.

On 4/30/2024 at 3:43 AM, ADRay1000 said:

very cool. I don’t remember that Toys R Us carried Tamiya (or any other hobby grade rc) 

There were some stores that carried higher end stuff–Stock was either tested at these stores or they carried some pricier stuff because of the clientele. Certain bikes, video games, larger lego sets, rc, etc.

4 hours ago, GToddC5 said:

Dude, you should be even more excited because that's a Super G!

I had no idea. Yeah, extra excited now. That's awesome.

[GTodd]

Wow a fairly rare and great condition Super G!! It's not even just a Grass Hopper 2. 

I love in good old America and I remember seeing Tamiyas in Toys R Us and Sears. Maybe that's how I got hooked on them and not AE.

[bRIBEGuy]

Nice find!

Ya, the Canadian Toys R Us used to stock some hobby grade stuff once upon a time too.  I remember going there once and a while to pick up 6-cell stick packs, and to look at all the display vehicles (they had a long glass display case down the aisle with each vehicle built up and shown in it).

[markbt73]

That's really cool! I always wondered what happened to those display models after they were done.

[Dakratfink]

$5.28 ? 
I’ll give you double what you paid for it 😂 

[sfinsf]

On 5/3/2024 at 1:59 PM, markbt73 said:

That's really cool! I always wondered what happened to those display models after they were done.

Most of them were either thrown away or sent back to the manufacturer. Sometimes they would give them out. When the Star Wars prequals came out we had a 7' Naboo fighter and two 2' foot Vulture Droid ship.We raffled them off to employees. I got the larger one and one of the smaller ones. Still have them and have no idea what to do with them, they are huge.

 

[sfinsf]

On 5/5/2024 at 6:45 AM, Dakratfink said:

$5.28 ? 
I’ll give you double what you paid for it 😂 

I won't go any less than $11.48.

[Anthroxoid]

How awesome! Driving a friend’s OG Grasshopper in the North Carolina sand dunes when at a highly impressionable age totally poisoned all male members of my family (Dad was a naive 30-something, hah!) and it’s such a special buggy for a lot of folks I think for the same reason.

Finding one of your lost and forgotten originals though? That’s got to be a wonderful thing and a super too! It looks brand spankin’ new!

somewhat related: my father threw away my Yokomo YZ-10 but kept my JRX-Pro when I moved out, and gosh I tried hard to find it and other special toys in our attic decades later before he mentioned “cleaning out” my area of the shop edit: censorship, I recall the only thing wrong with the Yok was a broken front suspension arm and it likely had tires removed. It was on one hand a score to realize that the vintage Losi was intact as like with your Super G I had no idea that it was even there, though none of any of our vintage Tamiya buggies, trucks, or pan cars survived the purge. I can’t even remember how we rotated them out of the family—perhaps going to friends at hobby shops or something? Maybe Dad threw away a lot more than we both recall because my little brother loved his Boomerang and Wild One edit2: oh I do recall him losing interest in RC after his Carl Goldberg Eagle trainer flew itself off into the wild, so right, maybe he sold his.

Anyhow, what do you plan for your Grasshopper restoration? Bone stock with just the necessary replacement of the biodegraded plastic parts that you mention? It really does look straight off of the shelf to me. How fantastic of a collectible to land. I’d say that your attic crawl is a huge win despite the elusive Blackfoot chassis and body. Perhaps they were specially boxed in similar fashion and are in fact still hiding from you since you found those tires? More hunting is required! Hah, have fun with that guy. 

Edited May 11, 2024 by Anthroxoid
Censorship and afterthought

[GToddC5]

Re-reading this and see you mention not wanting to charge the battery. If you want to sell it and the charger, shoot me a message. I'd love to display them among my growing vintage battery and charger collection.

[Anthroxoid]

On 5/11/2024 at 6:51 AM, GToddC5 said:

Re-reading this and see you mention not wanting to charge the battery. If you want to sell it and the charger, shoot me a message. I'd love to display them among my growing vintage battery and charger collection.

I mean…a real MRC part, right? NIB. One man’s trash and all that, I hope that you guys work it out. At the very least you could reproduce the labeling and have some custom heat shrink produced. I’ve badly wanted to do so for some of the vintage Sanyo cells and period tuner packs like the early Reedy parts, the first 1500s, 1200SCRs, etc. Add some cell average decals to it and a Monster Horsepower decal to your can, or stay pure MRC with an RS540-VZ? Heh. Not exactly a new idea around these parts though I’m relatively new to reliving the glory days. 

[sfinsf]

4 hours ago, Anthroxoid said:

At the very least you could reproduce the labeling and have some custom heat shrink produced.

Love this.

I used to do print production, so totally familiar with building stuff like this out. Going to give it a shot!