Your 2025 RC Plans

[mtbkym01]

Now that we are into a new year, what are your RC plans for 2025?

I’ll start with (In no particular order)

- Complete resto of my OG Top Force, Big Wig, Fire Dragon

- Rebuild of my Mad Cap

- Complete resto of my OG Schumacher XLS CAT, Marui Samurai

- Build my Fighting Buggy, Bruiser

- Build some of my Kyosho kits (Tomahawk, Ultima, Beetle)

- Build my Yokomo 870c

- Buy a kit in Switzerland

- Hopefully acquire a Yokomo Works 91, an AE Graphite, an AE RC10GT (Dunno how I’ll manage all of them)

I’m certain there are more projects out there that I’m missing right now….

As well as racing my 1/8 buggies throughout the year. Think that’s gonna keep me busy for a while amongst real life.

How about you, what will you get up to in 2025 RC wise?

[alvinlwh]

Go on a 6000 miles trip to do RC shopping in HK next month. 

On the shopping list:

1. T3-01

2. XV-01 Subaru 

3. CC-01 Hilux

4. XM-01 

5. Arrow AM1S

6. Cero Ultra FWD

7. Execute FM1S

8. A pile of Mini 4WDs

9. A mountain of hopups

10. A load of static kits 

Used to be on the list but already bought, now being built

1. TT-02FT 

2. GF-01FT

[tamiya3speed]

Try to better control my RC Spend.  Focus on items that truly interest me and not just the hot new thing.  Continue to sell off impulse buys.  Actually build and run something instead of collecting an endless stream of hop-ups.

[MadAnt]

Sell some stuff and maybe do a restoration or two. Fix my OG Rustler maybe. Buy more ball bearings and hardware. Paint a few bodies and order a few more. Make a pizza pie. 

Edit: 

Maybe buy a 3D printer too.

[Kol__]

For me the 2025 RC is as below...

Complete latest Madcap mongrel runner update.

Make some tweaks to my Dyna Storm runner and update the build thread.

Finish up going through my DF-02 collection and sell on complete buggies. I've already built and sold 2, with another 2 very nearly ready to go and one is being built up for my youngest son to run.

Build my Kyosho Javelin.

Start the restorations on 2 Bear Hawks and move them on.

Get started on going through my Madcap collection, I must have about 8 in various stages of disrepair, from pretty much mint condition to rather battered from being run back in the day! Need to start to build those up and shift them on too. And I may find one for you @Sgt.Speirs😉

That'll likely take me to the end of year, when I'd like my Christmas build to be the Egress Black, which I also have a spare body set to do in the standard Egress silver with the orange etc. stickers so I can have a runner body set for it. In the summer I'll be spraying up a few shells for winter projects, such as the Egress.

[Wheel_Nut]

objectives for 2025:

1) Customised Grasshopper 2 build.  This one isn’t too far away hopefully.

2) CAD design and 3D printing of a 2WD gearbox using Tamiya internals and custom chassis bulkheads for an O.D. buggy.  This could be towards the end of the year as there are many unknowns.

3) Possibly get an 80s style 4WD buggy such as RC10 belt drive conversion or a Turbo Optima, ie. rear motor.

[Nikko85]

Restore an old taiyo, work up a plan for a TL01 scorpion and get a pumpkin body for another attempt at a 4x4 Pumpkin.

I've slowed right down recently so it is usually around 2 or so builds a year is all I have time for.

 

[Twinfan]

Try and get out with my cars more.  Weather in 2024 was bad when I was free so I didn't get out much at all.

Complete at least half of my build queue, leaving me the final few for 2026.

Only buy top end kits from now on - I'm done with the cheaper ones.

[Mad Ax]

My 2025 plans are still a little up in the air, as I'm still waiting for some dates to land and an official position on a race team.

My original plans for 2025 were to do all 6 rounds of the Iconic Cup, plus any potential bonus rounds (maybe Cotswold, possible Mendip one too, bonus as they are both local), plus the Revival (or some other vintage off-road race meet), plus the Scale Nationals.  However the Iconic Cup doesn't have any local rounds this year, and between mid-May and end of June I need to do 2 trips up north and one right over to the east coast.  That's several hundred pounds in fuel alone.  All of that was coming from my 2nd hobby income, but thanks to Apple deciding they don't have nearly enough money and deciding they want me to pay them 30% of what I earn for dragging myself out of bed at 5:30am 7 days a week and working my butt off.  So my 2nd income has taken a big hit over the last couple of months and it'll probably only get worse in '25.

So, when a new endurance racing series was announced, with only 4 rounds in 2025 and most of them fairly local, I jumped right on it and started negotiations to join a race team.  But that was months ago, we were told at the beginning of December that the rules, dates and team registration would be open soon, and yet we still don't have the dates.  I can't really commit to joining a team until I can be sure that none of the dates conflict with pre-existing arrangements, and I still don't officially have an offer - just a few quick conversations.

It's kind of annoying because I'd like to book whatever hotels I need now, whether for Iconic Cup or BRCA Sportscar Endurance, before the prices go up too much.  But I appreciate the endurance club is still waiting on info from hosting clubs and other stuff, so it isn't their fault.

Also - the Club 380 looks like an absolute hoot, and it would be nice to go along to some of their meets, if I the spare time and money after all the other stuff.

Otherwise, 2025 has got to be about finishing stuff and working out what to do with it.  I worked hard in '23 to build some things I'd wanted to do for ages, but a lot of projects stalled when it came time to paint them.  I've got around 6 unfinished projects mostly waiting for paint.  I got almost no painting done in '24 because my paint bench was covered in junk and the workshop was flooded with dust from my wife's furniture projects.  What little painting I did, mostly outside, didn't go so well - some runs, lifted masks, and schemes that just didn't look as good in the flesh as they did in my head.  So I don't really feel motivated to do them.

I've got tonnes of ideas for new projects, and I'd love to start ordering chassis and parts right now to work on them through the year, but I'm 110% out of space now and really need to think about letting some stuff go.  Perhaps, sad though it may be, I could sell some of the unpainted projects and let others put their own mark on them.

I've also got to think about stuck projects, like the desert racer I started building from an Element Enduro IFS kit.  It looks fantastic and the silky-smooth suspension should make it a fantastic runner, but I was 80% into the project when I realised I couldn't get an open diff for the Element Enduro drivetrain, so now I've either got to completely rethink the drivetrain (maybe go 2wd with a different rear axle) or make it into a rock-bouncer style project instead.

I've been saying for years that I want to do more big rig running (I sure spend a lot on projects to run on the layouts, even if I never finish them) but I've also said I want to do more 1:8 rallycross.  This winter I've managed just 2 rounds, due to other commitments, and I'm not sure I'll get in any more rounds in Jan, as I've got to have the Hotshot ready for the Modelsport 50th in Feb.

On top of all that, I really, really need to get the Hillwalking Rig and the Arduino controller into a proper place for the end of 2025.  3 days ago I took it out for another test-run with an old head torch strapped to the roof, I went to turn it on as the sun went down and it didn't work, so I had to head home early.  It's that kind of failure that a properly-built solution will help to avoid, plus I'm getting tired of "test-running" an unpainted, unfinished, wobbly and temperamental rig when the whole point of a hillwalking rig is that it looks good, performs great and takes all the stress out of walking with a conventional trail rig.

The house is in a bit of a state, the garden's a mess, my office / bedroom has got a narrow channel I can walk down, so I need to think about putting some time into all that.  Building new shelves for the office to get stuff off the floor, replacing and repainting the garden fence, redecorating part of the house.  With so many race weekends in '24 and my wife also working on her own furniture projects, we did almost nothing on the house.  We might both have to dedicate some time to it, and we'll probably feel better for having it done.

Whatever the outcome, I'm sure it'll be a great year and I'm sure there'll be heaps of fun, successes and learning opportunities alongside the hard work, failures and inevitable disappointment.

I hope you all have a fab year, the weather gods smile on you all, and you get some great building and running adventures, wherever and however you like to RC.

[Howards]

- Help my son get his Mojave Grom around a track without binning it (probably Mill End)

- Do some 'vintage'* buggy racing with a Works '91 or maybe a DF01/TFE depending on what I want to sink in to it 

- Get my TD2 buggy in to a 2wd A final

- Do some 17.5 stock touring car racing at WLRC with a TC-01. Win some finals. 

- Do a load of fun stuff like Tamiya Junkies and Mill End 

* big bore shocks, lipo, brushless on all the things

[VagabondStarJXF]

Happy New Year!

My plans are the same as they were at the end of 2023, unfortunately. I'm intent on getting all my unfinished RC projects finished, recording vid footage along the way and, after editing, uploading vids to my YT channel. I'd intended to start this at the beginning of 2024 but it turned out to be a lot more involved than I was prepared for...

Then the rest of the year was taken up with getting used to my [then new] 3D printer, adapting my workspace to be add the "video recording" capability, accommodating stuff for the 3D printing 'hobby' that I'd failed to resist falling into, (i.e. making a never ending, self perpetuating mess that I just can't seem to tidy  ), rebuilding my custom Detolf cabinet with 3D printed parts relearning how to 3D scan stuff, and a plethora of other methods of procrastination that life presents. (TBH 2024 was mostly me finding out I need stuff, then waiting for money to appear in my bank to order stuff, then waiting for said stuff to arrive, before working on stuff to find out what other stuff I needed to order next... repeat ad infinitum.)

So, yeah, same plan as then for me in 2025 so... Happy Same Year Everybody!  

[Saito2]

Aside from any "surprise" re-releases (like a Falcon), I'm going to try not to buy any new vehicles and concentrate on finishing what I've got. I've been scratching the new vehicle itch by piecing together stuff I already have, like the pseudo-Astute I'm slowly working on and hopefully getting some Evo parts to merge my Hornet and DT02, which separately haven't seen much action.

I'll be looking at cheaper ways of doing things as the financial situation here looks dicey for the future. I've been holding off on painting because I loathe it and now Tamiya PS paint is up to $7.75 a can, so it might finally make sense to get my airbrush up and running. Truthfully, I want to complete some projects because I don't know if it will be economically feasible down the line. I've given up all my other hobbies at this point. The long term goal over the year is to buckle down and once projects are buttoned up, return to cheaper hobbies like writing, art and (poorly) banging away on guitar. To that end:

-finish 9 RC10 projects

-finish Astute project

-paint Bruiser, Clod Buster, Lunch Box, Double Dare and possibly Blackfoot bodies

-if TBG has another sale, while the post office isn't on strike, try to get King Cab/USA-1 bodies to finish those off

-merge DT02 with Hornet

-pie in the sky entry: start 3 axle Clod-based "Monster Mack" project

 

[River19]

For me 2025 will be my second year back in the hobby and racing again.

So for 2025, continue to build on my dirt oval success with Losi and my TLR based Street Stock 17.5 as well as try and get into the middle of the mix this winter with indoor clay off-road with my 13.5 4WD and possibly back to my 17.5 2wd as well......then take most of the Summer off for other hobbies.

Meanwhile I will continue to enjoy my new Hornet EVO around the house while I have pulled my good friend back into he hobby as his EVO is arriving this week.

I entered back into the Hobby in March of 2024 and now have 9 cars.....8 of which have been actively raced regularly at some point through the year (only the Hornet has not been raced):

3 TLR 5.0s (Carpet, clay off road, dirt oval)

Schumacher L1R 13.5 4wd

Euro Truck

TT-02R

AE TC4 (old school gateway drug back in)

LOSI Nascar

Hornet EVO

[markbt73]

Like lots of other folks, I'm concentrating on using what I have rather than buying any more. I went on a bit of a spending spree after our big move, and I added about 10 cars to the roster, putting me up to nearly 60. That's enough, especially since I can't stand the hassle of selling things. So no more new kits, no more eBay rescues, and no more parts lots that turn into a quest to complete 3 more chassis. It's fun, but I'm running out of room. I need to buy more battery packs, and probably a couple of bodies, but that should be it.

I want to actually complete my side-yard track this year, with pipe barriers and all. The weeds grew back over a lot of it in the fall, and then we had a tree removed, and the tree company parked a truck right on top of it and ruined the front straight. We have some other largish projects to do outside in the spring, for which we're thinking of renting a bobcat or a small excavator, and I'll add the track to the list of things to do while we have it. If I can abate the weeds, put up barriers, and landscape around it, it will look like it's supposed to be there, and maybe no one else will drive over it. I'm also considering adding a scaler/crawler course adjacent to the track; my property is almost completely level, and driving scalers around on flat surfaces gets kind of boring. I need to make some obstacles.

Once the track is finished, it's drive time. I have at least a dozen old restorations and survivors that I've never driven, and it's time I put some dirt under their tires. My goal is to eventually have action photos and possibly running video of every model I own.

I also want to start designing parts to be 3D printed, rather than just downloading other people's files. There is also that 3018 CNC machine that I assembled and tested but haven't made anything with yet. It needs a better spot on the workbench before I can really get into it, though, which means rearranging the garage/workshop is higher up on the priority list.

So yeah, keeping my head down and concentrating on a deeper rather than broader hobby experience this year, I think.

[Tamiyabigstuff]

1. Not buy any more kits...won't happen

2. Sell off some kits I will never build...might happen

3. Finish off the unfinished projects from 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018...might get some of them done !

[Tamiyastef]

I'd like to update my showroom on the main page, finish (put decals on and interiors/lighting in) some already painted bodies and paint a lot of other bodies and build kits I already have. Getting back in touch with the nearest club and get acces to their off road track again. 

[ADRay1000]

I have my eye squarely on a Hornet Evo. 

I also need to get a radio for the CC02. 
 

But going to get the 1:1 fun car up and running before I indulge in anything Tamiya. 

[GToddC5]

Yesterday I made the mistake of counting my NIB and came up with 100! Then there's a bunch of project boxes and an array of purchased/partially finished before they are ready to display. So I think rather than make a strict plan that I know I will stray from, I'll just let my gut guide me on which ones I choose to tackle. One goal I'd like to set is an average of one build/finished-to-display model per week. Even at that rate I have two years of steady hobby work. 

[ThunderDragonCy]

Thanks for starting the thread. I am going to write this down to try and give me some accountability.

1) Be honest and sell the cars and spares I am not going to use again/not that bothered by. That almost certainly means my TB03R, DT03 truck, one of my FF01s and quite possibly my TD4. Stash half the money raised in a little RC fund for new things

2) This is more of a maybe, but given the warm reception of the Hornet EVO, and a potential requirement for a little extra income, I am thinking about formalising one or two of my "Ultra" conversions into kits, writing manuals and starting a webshop. Probably need to sort a version for original Grasshopper and Hornet, but that is probably easily done.

I have always held off in that slight fear of turning my hobby into a business, but the demise of shapeways means I can't sell any of my designs at the moment, and I think it might be nice to get some more cool buggies out there. 

3) There is a 2wd buggy to my design somewhere in the future. I just really like 2wd buggies, and my only running these days is at track meets where they run well. Maybe something with an Astute body? I rather like that buggy, but there are a lot of flaws with them. I have been playing with a design of something Astute shaped using a lot of TD2 bits for ages, but it's never quite gelled into something i want to build. We'll see.

4) Get to as many track meets as possible.

[Kowalski86]

1. Stick to cheap used RCs, or brand new ones if I must buy more. Too often I'll buy a used RC in a more "middle" price range, and end up replacing a $20 part here or a $30 part there.

2. I'm currently at 8 RCs, I'd like to trim my fleet down and sell/giveaway spares.

3. Trim my collection of three Traxxas RCs to 1, I don't need more than one "basher". This leaves more funds for upgrades and batteries.

4. My only real project will be getting a WPL C34KM going once it arrives. After that, I don't anticipate any more real RC projects for a while.

5. Buy paint and assemble a Tamiya Mini 4wd.

6. Return to my main hobby, sketches and doodles.

[Sgt.Speirs]

For 2025 there is the following to-do list:

1. Finishing and running (extensively) my new Super Astute.
2. Build up my neovintage Dyna Blaster with less as possible original parts for running purpose.
3. Re-build a second Dyna Blaster with the remaining original parts for the shelf.
4. Finish some bodies (Avante 2011, Dyna Blaster, HKS Skyline R32,…)
5. Try to participate more than one event of the Tamico Offroad Cup 2025.
6. In general as @tamiya3speed mentioned: „Try to better control my RC Spend… Actually build and run something instead of collecting an endless stream of hop-ups“ and cars😜

 

8 hours ago, Kol__ said:

Get started on going through my Madcap collection, I must have about 8 in various stages of disrepair, from pretty much mint condition to rather battered from being run back in the day! Need to start to build those up and shift them on too. And I may find one for you @Sgt.Speirs😉

I would appreciate this😁

[El Gecko]

Sounds like everyone is getting into some good things this year!

Like some of you, my RC budget has dropped to basically zero since late 2023 and I've been concentrating on the stuff I already have. Thankfully I was able to buy enough parts earlier to get all 9 of my old cars running again, this time simultaneously with their own radios and ESCs rather than swapping servos/Rx/MSC between 2 or 3 runners. Even managed to pick up a new-to-me GH2 and DT02 (thanks @Saito2!) and get those running solidly as well. So things are finally getting fairly sorted mechanically on all the cars, and they're as reliable and fun as ever.

2025 will be probably more of the same, tweaking and tuning and driving, and finishing what's here instead of buying anything new. If fortune smiles upon me, perhaps I'll be able to start on a scaler/trail chassis for the 90s Chevy pickup body (TBG Sledgehammer), as well as starting to figure out a chassis for the RJSpeed Jeep Scrambler crawler (both also need paint and trimming/detailing). The DT02 could also benefit from some decent shocks and tires, and I'd like to get a couple fast and efficient (low amp draw) ball bearing servos for the lightweight buggies, which would allow me to repurpose the slower/stronger ones to use in the crawlers.

In the meantime, there's lots of bodywork... I'll be trying to finish fabricating the custom body for my Frog, and once the weather warms up, finish the paint/detailing on my vintage Grasshopper. I also need to repair the Brat body after its vicious highspeed rollover, and possibly fabricate some sort of interior for it, but before that I need to do some nip/tuck surgery to modify my homemade hot rod as an alternate runner body for that chassis. And if I get around to it, possibly attempt repairs and repaint the old lexan body for my Traxxas Hawk.

If I somehow manage to get all that done, maybe I'll finally concentrate on the new suspension design for the Nikko Big Bubba, as well as the adapters for grafting the Traxxas gearbox in.

Still lots to do, and I'm not putting any pressure on myself to get it done, just going my own speed whenever I have time and trying to have fun along the way. Happy new year!

[Rinskie]

My goals are simply to enjoy what I have and concentrate on the experience and not the chase. I have a DT-03 to build and apart from that, my focus is going to be on exploring the junk I already have. I will be undergoing brain surgery in March and I will not be able to do a whole lot for about 2 months after. No lifting, no bending over, no having fun (take that as you wish) so RC stuff will be pretty low on my priorities list but as they say, there is always a next year. 

[Guest]

Happy new year boys & girls

 

I will buy a few more kits, Squash Van, an M07/08 and a midnight pumpkin to name a few.. I need to upgrade to Lipo power, idiot proof lipo power & charger and then work on where I am going to store those lipos, so a possible shed build could be on the cards. I need a few more parts for my lunch box, monster beetle and I want to  modify my blitzer beetle to run hex wheels on the front and fit some steering upgrades and some custom body posts. 

I could do with selling a couple of kits as I don't use/hate, the MB01 being one as it handles like a pig and a TT02 with a high speed gear set that my mate has his eye on. That should free up some funds as most of my wages will be going towards paying off the holiday booked for July of this year. 

[kevinb120]

Either fix, paint, or finish what I have incomplete or sell off a lot of my diecast cars and buy 50 more R/C projects. Or both, or neither.  Something will happen for sure though...maybe