Why was your first Tamiya your first?

[Saito2]

There can be many factors, especially when we were younger, that led up to the purchase of our first Tamiya model. Aside from sheer desire, there's other things like price and availability to consider.

The first Tamiya that grabbed my attention (very firmly and still hasn't let go all these decades later) was the Monster Beetle. Sometimes its just love at first sight. With a price tag of $130 back then (not to mention radio gear, etc.) and parents pretty set against it, getting one was an uphill battle. Upon getting my first RC Car Action magazine, I was introduced to the Lunch Box which also landed on my favorite's list. I liked monster trucks, but also interesting and unique ones. The Blackfoot was the most boring truck they made in my eyes back then (though no longer). I also became infatuated with the Wild Willy. My one opportunity to get a Wild Willy (discounted as its discontinuation was eminent, unknown to me at the time) was shot down because my father dislike the looks of it. The Monster Beetle was too pricey, but the Lunch Box was one of the more inexpensive models fortunately.

I began saving over the course of a year and finally buying one off the high shelf behind the counter at my favorite LHS was an very proud moment for me. While it wasn't my number one pick, I loved the Lunch Box and it provided many many years of faithful service. I still have it today. What your first Tamiya story?

 

[MadAtComputer]

a couple reasons for my re-re Black foot . A friend had one growing up and I thought it was awesome, and the first vehicle I bought for myself was a 1986 f-150. So I am partial to the r/c and that body style of truck in general. And retro monster trucks rock. 

 

[MadAnt]

My first Tamiya was a Grasshopper that was gifted to me. It's been through multiple evolutions or forms over the years from a buggy to a truck, to a monster buggy, then back to a buggy, then an on road car, then finally back to a buggy. It's been repaired multiple times and has had major surgery to repair the chassis after a high speed crash. It has become one of those rc cars that I will probably never get rid because of how special it is to me(that's a story for another time), now it just gets used lightly and rarely.

[Gratuit]

It was a second hand Monster Beetle I bought in the 90's. I enjoyed it a lot but rapidly had problems with the hexagonal driveshafts. I had a Blackfoot body with it too, but prefered the Beetle. After 25 years, all I found back from all of this was some parts like a front c-hub and the rear guard with the "Monster Beetle" sticker...
That's why I started my Super Monster Beetle build, in order to get back to my younger times  

[Nikko85]

My first Tamiya was an MF01x, as I wanted something I could put under a Taiyo with a small wheelbase!

I went to Tamiya mainly as I had joined this forum to ask about some Nikkos (my childhood RC brand!) and I really liked the vibe, as the kids would say, of both here and Tamiya in general. My brother had had a grasshopper, so always had a thing for them too.

These days I'm mainly about trucks (less so buggies or on road) or more realistic off road vehicles.

 

 

[toyolien]

Not sure if I've told this before but here's a brief synopsis of how I got into RC. in 1983/4 ( I was 6 or 7) I had a radio controlled car from Tandy with a wire connecting the remote to the car. Then in 1986/7 there was a UK kids tv program called "Why don't you" in which there was a segment on radio controlled cars. They showed, what I later learned was a Subaru Brat. I loved it! I started buying RC car magazines, then Christmas 1987 I was lucky enough to receive a Boomerang and got hooked. The following year I wanted a Midnight Pumpkin which I had to sell my Boomerang to get.

Then in 1989 I started swimming at a local club and there was a kid the same age as me and he actually raced RC cars (he had an Avante). I found out the address of the club (2 miles from my house) and went along for a look. It was fabulous. In 1990 I bought a second hand Manta Ray from a Sunday supplement and started racing. I raced for the next ten years all over the country with my Manta Ray, then a Procat, then a Cougar 2 and finally an RC10 & RC10GT, before giving up. In 2009 my Dad and I started competing in RC Crawler competitions and I got the bug again. We then re-joined the same local club and started racing short course trucks and buggies. Our last race was in 2018 where I used my Frog and I built my dad a Wild One with a Frog gearbox. Unfortunately the following year my dad (and RC partner) passed away. We had some amazing times for which I'm very grateful for.

And, here I am immersed in the RC world again. It's great!

 

[Snappy1]

A very second hand Hornet in the 90’s, it was in a pawn shop and my friends had a Hornet, SWB Wild Willy and a Hotshot when I was younger and I had to have it. As a side note the nickel cadmium battery was absolutely shot lol

[mtbkym01]

So I discovered Tamiya in a local toy shop (Toyworld for those of us from down under) where all that box art was on the wall, along with those fabulous promo videos from back in the day. I bought a Guide Book and studied that thing every night. The Frog is what I wanted, but my parents just couldn’t afford such a thing back then (I was 13 so around 40 years ago….wow). They did buy me a Taiyo Jeep (Very much modelled on Wild Willy) and then a Jet Hopper over the next couple years, but that elusive Tamiya kit still filled my mind. I had been saving and saving and by the time I had nearly enough money saved up, the Fox had been released and was now the latest and greatest RC from Tamiya and mum was able to chip in the rest to allow me to get one (A Package deal with Transmitter, Battery and Charger that the Australian Distributor Toy Traders put together at a bit of a discount) I was at school the day Mum was picking it up for me and that afternoon I remember looking out the window waiting for her. When she got home my excitement was off the charts. She told me the man at the store said It may take me a week to build it as I hadn’t built one before. Well this was built that night, and the body brush painted with PC the next day. By that afternoon I was driving that thing with the biggest smile ever.

Thanks for this thread @Saito2, although I think there have been similar before, and I’ve told this story before, but it always brings up great memories

[2qwik]

Ok so for me it was a 2nd hand Hornet from my father's girlfriends kid.

Mum and Dad knew I wanted a Tamiya when they went to Singapore a year previously, they bought me a Nikko when they got back to Australia, I wasn't very grateful as it wasn't a Tamiya and they got it here. It was ok until I drove it off the jetty and into the dam on our property accidentally....

Dads girlfriend ( his secretary, my parents were still married) wanted me to like her so she gave me her son's Hornet, stoked!! The cars gone, he's still with her though 40 years later...

[ADRay1000]

@Saito2 saved me from having to write my story. I could just copy / paste it. 

[Saito2]

1 hour ago, mtbkym01 said:

Thanks for this thread @Saito2, although I think there have been similar before, and I’ve told this story before, but it always brings up great memories

No problem.  I'm sure a topic like this has been done in the past but with newer members coming onboard, I figured we could all share our first Tamiya ownership experience and enjoy the memories.

6 minutes ago, ADRay1000 said:

@Saito2 saved me from having to write my story. I could just copy / paste it. 

Had a similar experience I take it?

[lupogtiboy]

I'd had several Nikko RC cars when I was a kid, and always loved them, but the way they ate batteries put me off running them too long. My school mate had been talking about getting a decent RC car for a while, and I'd wanted one ever since my first visit into a Beatties and seeing the videos running in the back ground and all the RC cars in the cabinets. There used to be an amazing model shop near me called Reigate Toys And Models. I went there with my dad one Saturday, as the owner used to have a thing where you could keep a kit to one side and pay off a bit when you wanted, and then when you'd saved up enough, it was yours. I picked a TA-02 Lancia Delta Integrale, and my mate picked a Super Hornet. On the road, the Lancia would leave his Hornet for dead, but off-road, a different story. He lived in Meadvale, and just across the road was a golf course, so on the short grass, the Lancia was great, but long grass, terrible. I smashed the shell up, bought a couple of Escort Cosworth shells to replace it, and ran it until the spur gear was so worn, it wouldn't engage with the motor anymore. So it was put aside for years until I went shopping in London with my brother and mum one day, and we went in to Hamleys, where I was surprised to find a nip TA-02 spur gear set, and that reignited the RC flame! And then it's gone from there really! I've managed to get back into the hobby recently after a long break, thanks to members on here and some work colleagues who have be bringing in their RC cars to work. 

[ADRay1000]

4 hours ago, Saito2 said:

 

Had a similar experience I take it?

everything but the Wild Willy part

[Hypoxic]

Never had an RC car before; I was always into slimer RC aircraft. After wadding-up a mountain bike downhill and having titanium plates and other bits added to my right shoulder, I needed something to do while couch-ridden waiting for post-surgery and other misc broken/fractured bones to heal. I was just about going mad sitting there alone being a normally active person. Reading all day just wasn’t pleasing my high-energy or mechanical side. I don’t remember exactly how it happened (probably the meds), but my first Tamiya was my DT-03 Neo Fighter via Amazon since I couldn’t drive anywhere. The build occupied my mind as I had to do it with one arm and turning a screw driver was super challenging. It even gave me the will to get up off the couch and start trying to move around again once completed. I was able to hold the controller wheel with my busted side via an awesome sling that my doctor gave me which had velcro straps everywhere; felt like Edward Scissor Hands. But, the DT-03 helped me heal and it kept my moral up. The dirt mound around the rabbit hole.

[Silver-Can]

My 1st tamiya was a grasshopper I got from my parents in 1985 (I think) for Christmas. My brother got one too. The following year we went racing at the Queens hall in Derby, followed by some old skool off road muddy field racing over the summer. I then bought myself a kyosho pegasus that I attempted to build myself (very badly) and then my interest fizzled as I found other distractions (females, mostly). 

Back in about 2010, I was reminiscing about the grasshopper days whilst at work and wondered whatever happened to tamiya and grasshoppers. Lo and behold, found the scene alive and well. Back when I was racing the grasshopper, my eye was always drawn to these bright red fire-breathing 4wd wonders, the hotshot. Had a quick Google, seen they had been re released and...here I am, 15 odd years later with quite a few more cars. But no grasshopper 🤔

[markbt73]

I was saving up for a WIld One, but I got impatient, and as soon as I had Grasshopper money, I went for it.

[Rinskie]

My first Tamiya was a TA-03F. I can't remember what I did with it but I know I didn't have it long. I think it got traded for a boat. It is the one I wished I had never sold. 

[junkmunki]

My first Tamiya, in fact my first ever radio controled model was a present. I had asked my dad for a Grasshopper for Christmas when i was about 12. I figured because the Grasshopper wasn't too expensive, i stood a good chance of getting it.

I was over the moon on Christmas day when i unwraped the big box and discovered he had bought me the Frog kit!

The first Tamiya i actualy purchased, was a second hand Thunder Dragon which i had for years. 

J

 

[magnumcyclonex]

My first Tamiya was the Mini 4WD Dash-01 Super Emperor (Item 18028), which I got during the Mini 4WD craze in Hong Kong in 1990. I must have seen the Dash! Yonkuro anime on TV and even the local Cantonese Chinese TV stations were advertising talk shows and races where they had 3 lane tracks with underwater challenges, multiple 360 degree loops, and launching them off a jump ramp etc.

I remember going to a Japanese department store (Jusco) which was in a local shopping mall and they had a huge bin of kits. Everyone and their mothers were rummaging around and after a few minutes, I or my mother picked up one kit, which I mentioned above.

Fast forward to 2017, where I have already been living in the United States for some time and I decided to branch out or "graduate from Mini 4WDs". I wanted to build my own RC car after looking at them on websites, Youtube, Tamiya catalogs etc. I went to a local hobby shop in the San Francisco Bay Area and saw a Lunch Box (Item 58347). I bought a transmitter, some batteries, charger from elsewhere and that was the beginning.

The Lunch Box to me is so iconic. Not because I had the nostalgia from the 1980s (I was a kid and had no money back then), but because it is unique and quirky and fun to drive and build. I had been so used to "on road" cars (more like on track cars in the Mini 4WD world), that the Lunch Box just screams offroad! Suddenly, I was not limited to the Wild Mini 4WDs that move at walking pace to go over cobblestones and pebbles, I could take this monster van over vast terrains, dirt, grass, pavement etc. With a Sport Tuned Motor, CVA Shocks, and of course Ball Bearings, it truly is Vibrant and Vannie would be proud!

[gordb]

From the minute I saw the Hotshot on the cover of the Tamiya Guidebook being passed around the back of the classroom, I fell in love with it's crazy-low stance, ridiculous monoshock design, and aggressive 4wd. It was the only car for me.

While I would never ordinarily get something as lavish as an RC car for Christmas (which at that point, were both new and expensive in Australia), my wealthy cousins already knew they were both getting one, and we were spending Christmas with them. So I set about explaining the educational benefits of RC to my parents, and hoped against hope, that I might be able to jget one too.

Christmas morning presents came and went, and no Hotshot. But then, my amazing Dad pulled out a large box clearly marked "To Mum" and told me it might have accidentally had the wrong name put on it, and was actually for me. I went from disappointed to euphoric - and couldn't understand how a simple misdirected name on the box could have made me so blind to the clearly Tamiya-shaped box under the tree.

I gleefully tore the wrapping off my new .Hotsh ... Hornet.

And then I realised how lucky I was to have any car - even if it was short a gearbox. I had it built and bouncing (as only a Hornet can) over the grass in no time.

[Nicadraus]

There were limited options in the 80s and Tamiya was already the popular choice. Availability for parts was an important factor too. My first Tamiya was the F150 Ranger XLT (SRB chassis) which was a hand-me-down from my dad and next was the Subaru Brat, a hand-me-down from my brother, which I eventually converted into a Frog. Then my followed by the Astute, FF-01 and TA-04R, which are also Tamiyas. My first non-Tamiya was an HPI Pro4 in 2005.

[urban warrior]

Honestly, my first Tamiya was a static model. But I am sure this thread is about RCs. Okay, although I already wrote something similar in another thread, my first Tamiya RC was the Bruiser. I was in the early 20's and made the switch from static to RC. A friend bought himself a Kyosho 4x4 Buggy with somekind of a "rattle chain" between the front and rear axle, and I thought by myself "No, this cannot be the RC I want to drive!". So I turned the pages of my Tamiya catalogue back and forth. I realized, the Toyota Hilux was already out of production and the next "realistic" model was the Bruiser. It featured mostly what I was used from my real 4x4 cars at that time: Ladder frame, leaf springs, rigid axles, shiftable transmission and a body that had no competitor at that time. That's why the Tamiya Bruiser was my first RC.

[El Gecko]

Well this turned out longer than I expected, bear with me folks 

Like many of you, I started with Nikko vehicles as a very young kid, which were a great first taste of RC, but severely lacking in many ways. Our family was never able to afford a brand new hobby-grade RC like Tamiya, so I did a lot of spectating at RC races back in the early 90s, as well as watching my cousins testing their new race machines in the driveways and streets.

It seemed like RC was everywhere back then, and it was such a fun atmosphere, even on the fringes. I wanted so badly to be a part of it. There were Nikko/TYCO commercials on TV, those same toy-grade RCs in every Radio Shack or Kaybee Toys (later on, Toys R Us, and thus every kid's room), and there was the whole hobby side of it. Legit hobby shops and tracks everywhere (dusty and/or muddy outdoor dirt tracks, tarmac parking lot tracks at random unrelated events, as well as temporary tracks in school gyms, etc.), tons of choices with parts and race cars, and sponsors actually putting money toward marketing, race programs, and developing new innovations. I'm definitely nostalgic for that era of RC, even though I couldn't really participate in most of it.

It had somewhat fallen out of fashion with racers who preferred Associated and Losi at that point, but Tamiya was still well-known through word of mouth not only in our neighborhood, but also among my older cousins, who were out there racing and bashing RCs long before me. The Frog had become legendary with my age group because it was the fastest RC we knew of up to that point, and because it was capable of beautiful powered drifts and easy donuts which made it really fun to drive.

I don't know the exact circumstances that led to it, but you can imagine my surprise and excitement when one day, at about 10 years old, I was gifted my cousin's actual Frog! The legend was mine! It was missing the body shell (still is) and had been thrown into a big box of random RC parts with a similarly abused and partially disassembled Traxxas Sledgehammer, but that day was the start of my Tamiya journey (and my journey in true hobby-grade RC as well).

Later on when I was in high school, my dad gave me a used Grasshopper and Hornet that he found at a secondhand shop for ridiculously cheap, all mostly intact and with the boxes and hump batteries (which still work perfectly to this day), so those were added to the junkyard. And eventually I was given the remains of my cousin's Mud Blaster, which has now been transformed into a Toad (along with what was left of a few Traxxas Hawks and a Brat). So my first 5 Tamiyas were basket cases, but I have always considered myself very lucky that they were gifted to me, because at that point in my life I had no other way of acquiring anything RC related.

Then they went into storage after high school for about 20 years, but I still have all 6 original cars and all of the parts that were in the box that first day. I don't think I could ever let them go. That Frog was the first RC I ever built (thankfully the instructions were included) and it's the one I continue to have the strongest sentimental connection with, although all of the "originals" (including the Traxxas) are pretty important to me. I still have my "one good radio" from then as well, and the additional junker radio I acquired later on. At first only one car could be set up with electronics and driveable at a time (later two), and they all had MSCs.

After all that, the first Tamiya I actually bought for myself was the used Grasshopper I got from @Bash shortly after I signed up to TamiyaClub in 2020. I have still never bought a brand new RC! 

[Exit13]

The Frog was my first because it was the frog !

[TurnipJF]

Mine was chosen purely on the basis of being legal for racing at the closest (only) club in the area.