what got you started collecting Vintage R/C's

[Shodog]

what made you want to collect vintage R/C's? For me it was the desire to get back some of the cars I had in the past.

In 1983 I worked with a shop owner named Gary that sold about everything from Bicycles to skateboards to R/C cars. What ever the fad was at the tiem. he was there to fill that need. he was an avid model aircraft builder and flyer. I remember he bought a sand scorcher and built it up. The minute I saw it doing donuts in the dirt lot across the street from the shop, I knew I had to have one. For my 13th birthday my parents bought me a frog that was one of Gary's personal cars. It was ready to run. I ran the heck out of it. Probably replaced 4 gear sets before I figured out how to shim the diff so it wouldn't slip and strip. I built up many cars that the shop sold. Mostly Frogs, Hornets, Grasshoppers, Blackfoots, Monster Beetle and RC-10's. Eventually many of the cars came back in various disrepair and I inherited or bought some of them very cheaply. While working at the shop and buying cars at wholesale prices I was able to amass quite a collection. My older brother started to get into it also. By the time I graduated from high school I ahd about 15 cars. The fad had somewhat wore off and I was on to bigger and better things. I ended up giving the bulk of my collection to my brother. His garage was burglarized and subsequently all of the cars along with his tools were stolen. I only kept two things. An incomplete Hilux chassis and my fox. I ran the fox a few times then broke a piece on it. I couldn't get a replacement so I put it all in a box. In '90 I found two Porsche 959's at a second hand store. I used parts from one to make the other run. I remember going to a hobby shop and seeing four NIB 959 body kits on the shelf I passed them up as I thought $50 was way too much to pay for a body.[8)] Those 959's eventually became inoperable also. Then in '94 I started to get back into R/C I bought a pan car to play around on my street with. I had scabbed the radio systems out of the fox and porsche to make my pan car run. I always wanted to get the fox and 959 running again but every shop I went to said they didn't have any parts for them. I got tired of replacing those fragile foam tires on my pan car and started looking for something else. That's when HPI came out with the RS4. Man I lusted after that thing for a long time until I finally I was able to buy one. I ran that around for quite some time. I was talking to a guy at a hobby shop about my fox and he suggested Ebay. Well thats like showing a junky were to buy Heroin. It was all over. I found you could get Fox and 959 parts and all sorts of other car parts very easily. Then inlooking around the web I found out alot about Tamiya's older cars and the lusting started. Now I find I am getting too darn many cars and I need to thin my collection. The problem is that I pretty much like every one I got.

Jim

[rc-martin]

Hi Jim,

Think i'm pretty much in the same boat as you! Too many cars and can't seem to be able to part with any.

Ebay did it for me as well. I had my old Sand Scorcher and Wild One hidden away for years both broken and unable to find any replacment parts for love nor money.

Bought a computer about 2 1/2 years ago and after about a month though what can i look for now (bored with porn)[] Put Sand Scorcher into a search and bingo!!! It was like that bit on the matrix, Follow the white rabbit.... Would you like to see how deep the tunnel goes? Think i should have took the blue pill, it would have saved me a shed load of money!!![]

2nd Place? You're just the first loser!!

[TWINSET]

I started back into R/C generally after a wet fortnight in the Lake District (North England)

We picked a bad couple of weeks, and every day it was either raining or looking like rain.

The cottage we were staying at had a huge gravel area, and I said to the missus it'd be great for an old RC car I used to own.

Few more weeks passed and kept toying with the idea of buying another car (sold the Scorcher 15 years previous) and plummed for an Associated RC10 T3.

Few days later, I was blatting it around at work, when one of the guys saw me messing about. We got reminiscing and I mentioned I had a Sand Scorcher years ago.

"What's one of them"

"You never seen one, hang on, there'll be something on the net probably"

See showroom for continuing outcome []

[hua15]

Wow Jim, what a story.

I got my first RC Car when I was like 14 or 15, back when I was still in Switzerland. With a job during the summer I bought my self a Grasshopper, later on I also got a Kyosho Lazer and Toyota Celica (which I still have the box of), that car was fast.

Before I moved back to the US, I gave all my stuff to my friends.

After I read the article about bruiser writte by Richard on Extreme RC Car, that's when I got my self in to the whole 3-speed craze.

While running RC4WD business, it gave me a lots of opportunity trying a lots of different cars, also making a lots of parts for them.

My dream right now is a build a 1:9 scale truck just like the bruiser with my own parts []

-Hua

[mr_pushrod]

Been playing with R/C on and off since I got a Kyosho Big Boss when I was about 7. Nearly got into racing a few years later with a Manta Ray then M01 but ended up killing the reciever in water so lost interest. Some friends then got into touring car racing around 4 years ago with me ending up getting a part time job in my LHS about a year later and it was downhill from there as I was able to pick stuff up pretty cheap. Picked up a C11 on the cheap which got me more into the old tamiyas (I had been accumulating others for a while) although being given an Avante really clinched it[]

[miramar]

Started early and never stopped.....[] All of a sudden (20+ years), my oldest models were "vintage", which basically means parts are expensive and hard to find!

Did I have a life inbetween? Well.....[:I]

Girlfriends? Some....[]

My own family? No space and time with so much Tamiya-stuff everywhere. Hope it never changes.

[oli1983uk(2)]

I started when i was about 8 or 9, my mum and dad bought a Ford Ranger XTL from my uncle for £50 (recently told him how much these can sell for u should have seen the look on his face!) it had everything with it including a Rough rider shell, i run it for a good few years before the Radio system broke and then just left it in is beatties bag until last year when i visted Live 2002, they had a tamiya stand their showing off some cars and letting you race a few TL-01's around a track they have made, and thats when things started for me i then got on Ebay to find parts for my Ford Ranger and also buying TA-01's and a Ta-02 and now my newest purchase a Blitzer Beelte from Whitewalls who is a member here, i like the off road cars mostly cos i have a Massive feild be hide my house where i can take them and also got a few car parks around where i live to take the TA-01 and TA-02 to race with my mate!

[DJTheo]

Well, it all started in 84 by a Tamiya brochure my dad brought me from a business trip abroad. After almost on year drooling daily over it I finally got a Holiday Buggy, later a Hornet, Boomerang and so on... Around 93 when I went to university I gave the hobby up, you see other interests [], but luckily kept all my cars []

In a hot August noon in 2000 I was bored so I searched for Holiday Buggy on the web and found Roby's site and was drooling again over the cars from the 84 catalogue I always wanted and never could afford... I remember I emailed Roby how nice it would be if I would have 1 Racing Buggy and a 3 speed. How things changed in 3 years from then, ain't life great? [][8D]

Cheers []

[Incredible_Serious]

Hey mr_pushrod, you started with a Big Boss??? I'm in the final stages of building up one from a NIB kit at the moment for my 6yo nephew!!! He kept breaking his Boomerang... [8)]

Just got to work out if I should build the other Big Boss NIB for myself....

Alex

[Scorchio]

1980 The usual cataloge gazing, staring at box art & videos at LHS (Beaties Kingston) Then.......

1987 (ish) bought trashed holiday buggy off a mate for £40 (really wanted ss), rebuilt it as a sand rover, had a great couple of years killing it. Got into beer & chasing girls & gave it away[:0]

1992 bought battered old Rough rider off the same mate for £30 (really wanted ss), it ran for a couple of months could not get bits, beaties just laughed at me.[V] Got into acid house and started chasing parties round M25[] (oh no, you guys really got my number now)

1994 (I think) Got off my head with a mate (yes him again)who had a frog played stock cars at 3am (rr now with only 3 wheels) both cars now at bottom of Thames[:0]

2002 Started building 3D CGI Baja Bug model in 3ds, Scanned internet for pics, went to ebay (always a good referance image source) and half heartedly typed in Sand Scorcher [][][] The rest is known by you all, bank manager now hates me.

P.S. I do have more than one friend & I hav'nt had to think this hard for a while.

[gingerboy98]

First time around, I was bought a hornet for my 13 or 14th birthday, my dad had built it up charged the battery and I was ready to roll the morning of my birthday, I loved it, even though the batteries only lasted about 8 minutes, I bought extras for the car, the scorcher type tyre and then a lemans motor, fully ballraced it ah those were the days, I took that car every where, I spent hours in beaties (U.k LHS) watching the videos and just staring at the cars I oh so badly wanted but couldnt afford. New cars came and went. I got older and I lost the interest in the hobby.

Last November I was being asked what I wanted for Christmas, I was bored at work so started looking on the web for ideas, I looked on ebay for the Hornet just out of interest, found one in ok nick and thought yeah I will have that as a bit of nostalgia and being the big kid I am, I hate getting ties and "useful" stuff for christmas. It turned up I charged the battery up and all those memories of my youth came flooding back, so I thought, the lunch box was my second car, why not get one of them, back to the bay and there was one there.

After I had these cars I thought about the possibilty of tweaking them (what I now know to be called Hopping up)so I searched that new fangled interweb and found this site, well, 7 months 26 cars and over £3000 later here I am. I have almost reached the point of not knowing what car I want next.......almost[]

I hold this website entirely responsible for my addiction, but hope that it never dies because I dont know how I could handle having to go cold turkey. I have made friends and contacts through it and its good to have somewhere to share my thoughts, views and questions without someone saying......"but they are only toys"[!]

Rock-on tamiyaclub![8D]

[mr_pushrod]

quote:Originally posted by Incredible_Serious

Hey mr_pushrod, you started with a Big Boss??? I'm in the final stages of building up one from a NIB kit at the moment for my 6yo nephew!!! He kept breaking his Boomerang... [8)]

Just got to work out if I should build the other Big Boss NIB for myself....

Alex

---

id="quote">id="quote">

You know you want to! It's been about 10 years since I last drove it, need some bits and pieces. I'd love to get it going again though.

[njmlondon]

Started in 83 aged 12 with a SS... not too shabby for my 1st RC car! -all my mates had holiday buggies and the SS was the new thing. I loved building it, running it through the muddiest areas, stripping it and rebuilding it for another run!

Then my mates started getting Frogs and my poor SS was outclassed... I stated pleading with my dad for the new 959 but he was having none of it, and then beer and girls preoccupied me so the SS was put in storage.

19 years later I was having a truly awful weekend and it was raining and I decided to buy myself a model to build... just wanted to make something. I was going to buy a £20 static but then I saw the Wild Willy 2 and could not resist it. I never had a WW1 but loved the look of it.

Not long after that I wondered about my SS - my mum told me it had been given away during a house move [] so I thought I would check the internet... and then i found ebay and saw what a SS went for... staggered I quickly decided that I did not want to spend that much on one... but a 959 however was a different proposition!

So now I have my new built 959 and a desire for a robust runner has got me building a Wild One... dont know what will be next, but I think it is a safe bet there will definately be more!

[bholio]

In the early 1980's I went to Germany to visit my cousin. He mentioned that he had an RC car and that I should bring one of mine so we could race. So I showed up with my toy-store RC car. He showed me his Sand Scorcher. My car didn't get very much use that trip.

There was no hope for me to get a $250 toy from my parents, so I got a friend to convice his parents, and he got a Rough Rider. We beat it up for awhile and then ignored it. As we were about to leave on long 1300Mile family road trip, I was looking for something to do in the car for 24 hours of driving. On a whim, I called my old friend (who I had lost touch with) and bought the RR radio and all, for $50. I rebuilt the car on the trip. I had a great deal of fun with that car, broke alot of parts. Eventually the car was undriveable and pretty trashed. I always hated that radio box.

I then made a deal with my younger brother. If he bought the car, I would supply the radio/battery/charger etc. We debated between the Falcon and Pajero. We got a Falcon. Great car. was fast, easy to handle and durable, except the body. He then went on to buy a used Frog RTR. It was junk and it never ran.

Eventually we both lost interest. In college, I used the Falcon a little. Eventually a wire fell of the MSC and I could never get it soldered on properly.

This whole time, all I ever had was a Tamiya overnight charger and a set of car battery charging cables. My original battey and one or 2 bad ones which came with Frog.

10 year later, my son was 4. I got the idea to find the old Falcon and see if I could make it run. So, I resoldered the wire, charged a battery and it actually worked. My son loved it. I then realized that parts would be impossible to get and that I should get something new.

I went to the LHS and asked for something like an old Hornet. They

recommended a Traxxas Stampede. So I bought one, along with a 58173 Beetle they happened to have one the shelf. Then I found ebay. I now have about 25 rc cars. My son is now 5, and entered his first race a few weeks ago (with the Stampede).

[wildwillydriver(2)]

That's a long story so take a beer and some popcorn and read.....[]

I was at the park when i was 7 years old (24 years ago) and i saw a guy running a red and white RC car, i was astonisched of how fast and powerfull that "toy" was. I completely fell in love with that and wanted one, i asked immediately one to my parents and after some search we find a shop that seems to have what i asked for. We went together to the shop, the first thing i remember is a box with a off road beetle white and light blue that immediately had my attention........[]

Speaking with the guy at the shop i learned somethings about what i saw at the park and it tourned out to be a RR and he explained to us that is the brother of the beetle he had in the shop that was a SS!!

I said to my parents "ok that's what i want" they asked the price for the total RTR pack and nearly passed off and told me " OMG!! it's a toooo expansive toy for a 7 years old boy and you will not be able to assemble it". I've been a very sad boy for some days after, and every time i passed in front of the shop and looked inside the window the SS box was there looking at me.....[]

I was able to have some RC car but they are all RTR car like Nikko but they were so slow... and made me dream for the SS even more.

The BIG moment arrived in the 1982 when my parents after years of continuos pray by me, decided to end my suffering took me to a LHS to choose my REAL RC car for Christmas (82/83). What a wonderfull day i can remember it as it were yesterday, the guy showed to me a lot of KIT but two in paticular catched my attention a Ford Ranger (no SS they were sold out [V]) and a gas powered buggy made by Playtron (manuspain has one in his showroom) with a vintage Mercedes lexan body.

Don't ask me why but i choose the Gas buggy even if also my father was telling me that they were difficult to use and mantain. As alwais my father was right, i had that car running 2 times in a year........it was alwais out of jetting and i wasn't able to regulate the carb. Bad experience......[!]

After a year of fight with the car, my father decided to stop the problem and took me back to the local shop and let me choose another car. And you can't imagine what the LHS guy have to sell, a NIB Wild Willy!! Absolute love at first sight i didn't even looked at other kits..[]

I loved the willy so much and after a year of suffering with the gas buggy i had just to charge and GO wheelie! I had just one battery and i charged it 2/3 times a day....... ouch![]

I completely took the soul out of the willy for more than a year to the point that it wasn't able to wheelie and that made me sad to the point that i sold it (what a stupid decision it just needed a new battery......) for anoter gas buggy that gave me the same problems as the first one. After that i started an in and out of RC stuff and i had, Subaru Brat, Scorpion, and some more that i don't remember.

After that period of madness i stopped my hobby for a while and just played with models of my best friend (he has a lot of Tamya and kyosho) and started Motocross but that's another story.

The love in the hobbie never stopped and around 90 i got a King Cab for my birthday it looked amazing but i used it only a little and selled it 1 year later. Some years later i found through a friend what i alwais dreamed a used SS and i bought it for around 20$ (what a bargain!!) put an old radio on it and played it around very carefully since was nearly impossible to find spares. After some good runs i put it on the shelf in my room and never sold it, now it's nearly completely restored.

After some years of Motocross, girls and a lot of internet surfing were i discovered ebay and all the good stuff in it, the October of 2002, i decided to bid on a WW2 on ebay Germany, i won and that's the end of my bank account........[]

The rest of the story is in my showroom.

Bye

WWD

[]

[Ferris]

I used to work in a model shop in Bristol, UK in the late 70's and early 80's.  I gave up RC in 84/5 and never thought about them again.  One day, 18 months ago, I logged onto Ebay and typed PB (as in PB Racing Cars) and found some old 4x4 buggy (turned out to be a Mustang X3), I won the car for £65 and that was the start of something...

My woman, who knew nothing of my RC hobby as a kid, didnt know what his her, or our office in our tiny house.. :-)

At one point I had about 20 old 1:8th buggy's and circuit cars stacked in her office.  I have sold most of them now baring the ones I really want to keep.  At the moment I am still looking for a couple that I owned back then (Ishimasa Rat Buggy and a Sigma BMW M1), but all but my new Mugen are going to be banished to the loft until we have the space for me to have a workshop :-(

 

Ferris

[richytanimal]

I had a second hand Kyosho Scorpion when I was about 11, then a Grasshopper and a Hornet, all 3 got sold/lost etc for several years until I went into a model shop in Bristol and fell in love with a Kyosho Shelby Cobra 427. Thats when the nostalgia series had just been released. I used it a lot and it really started me off into radio control. Then when Beatties closed I went in and bought as much as I could including a nib King Blackfoot, 2 Fighter buggies (one for my bruv) a TL01 Focus and a TL01 Peuguot 406, cost me £200 for the lot!!!!

Built them all and they got used hard, then about 3 years ago I "discovered" ebay and started looking at tamiya stuff a bit more. Sold everything apart from the King Blackfoot and the Cobra and bought lots of other things, then I found tamiyaclub and finally exchanged the Blackfoot for a project Scorcher.

Thats when the obsession really started!

Rich.

[rajicon]

For me, my interest started when my father started getting into RC

helicopters. There were a few people playing around with cars at the

feilds. A Zerda doing jumps over people. Wild Willys were popular too.

It was the Willys that captured my heart. I received one for my birthday, my eighth I think.

Later, a long time after this was crashed, stolen, return ruined then

thrown out, I went to an RC shop called Hobby Hanger for another

birthday. I was looking around at some general Tamiya Kits when my

mother suggested the 959. This was on the shelf behind the counter. It

had just been released and never even thought I had the slightest

chance of taking home this one.

This was used heavily, until I broke the suspension. Unable to replace it, I gave it away.

Later on around in my early 20s I saw a magazine in the newsagents

about the latest RC fad, touring cars. So I visited the LHS and

purchased a Audi TA03F. I intended on entering races, but couldnt

accept driving across town to to it. This car then sat around for a

while.

A few years ago, my brother was telling me about eBay, and another cool

site, Tamiyaclub. He said it was manily dedicated to vintage. I

'thought' I wasnt interested in older cars. But I decided to ring some

stores to see if they had any second hand vintage. One had a runner

Wild Willy for $50Aud. How could I saw no. Then came my dream car, a

David Jun TA03F Pro (yes, my weakness is TA03s) from eBay. Then some

more vintage (most not in my showroom) and new purchases.

My best purchase, RC related?..... suscribing to TC

[jesterdude]

It all started when i was about 9 or 10 (2nd year at junior school) im 29 now , it was a school fete day and the big playground was out of bounds for some reason. Anyway sometime during the day some guys turned to do a little racing for show with R/C buggies. It was a basic figure of 8 track with a jump box type thing in the cross section. I couldnt take myeyes off these powerful buggies doing doughnuts, doing wicked jumps and landing with ease. Days weeks months went past and everytime i played with my lame cheetah thing with lights all i could think about was these buggies. Then one day i heard a very destinct noise coming from the next street so i legged it round the corner only to find some kid playing with a black buggy (hornet) i asked where did you get it from he said Winners models. So that started the first part of tamiya and R/C in my life. I then pestered parents until igot a ministock rtr which i raced for a few months and i loved it. Then iwanted something off road and i had a sega megadrive when they first came out and i had quite a few games so i ended up swaping 5 games for a monster beetle rtr (5 games was about £150 worth back then) with a mate at school I thrashed the little beetles butt off it i absolutly loved it. Then i bought a 959 off a mate for £20 and a original 1990 tony hawk skateboard. I kept breaking the rear wish bones so i sold it. Then got into girls, drinking, then became deepsea fisherman so the beetle got sold as i dont thinck they float so i couldnt use it at sea []. I have a family now so gave up deep sea fishing as there was no money and way to dangerous. One day went to carboot sale and saw a tamiya bush devil. I thought it looked like a monster beetle chassis and when iturned it around i read that ever imortal word TAMIYA my eyes went wide i said how much the stall holder said £20 and the deal was done. Now there in the cupboard, on my sons shelves, under the bed and in the shed. Now im a carboot addict just in case i find a tamiya car and now ebay when will it stop!!!!!!!

[focus1]

My first ever wireless car was a Nikko Super Fox 4wd. I gott it from my parents when I was on summerholiday in Sweden in  1987. I remeber I realy wanted a faster car but when I think of it now I can't understand how my parents could afford to give me this at that time. I rember giving it a hard time, but cant remeber what broken it ore where it whent. My second car I can remeber was a camoflague painted Tamiya Striker witch I bought from my coussin after he had bashed it hard and taped it togheter. It still was a great car, and took alot of beating from me before i jumpt it out of a window in second floor. That stoped it for good. From this period I also remember that older guys in my street had tamiya cars. One guy named Jonatan had a smal track in his garden where he would run hes Pajero. Another coussin of mine, they where actually manny brothers, owned and sheard a Cheeta. I also remeber a super fast ballraced Fox witch was like the hotest car I ever saw, cant remember who had it thoe. A good friend of me, still is, named Christian had a hornet witch containd a homemade bumper made out of some sturdy and flexing platic. His father was a bout builder and had made this hornet almost unbreakable! I gott this Hornet from him to recover, but I sold it for him instead when the re-re came out. I regret know as I slovly understod that lousy painted crackt up runners with homemade parts are verry charmy! I also was a big fan of Lego at the time, so when my Striker broke down I put it in a box and forgott about RC cars for avile. I remember saving up money for a Comandore 64 with casette player. Also in Norway we have long winters, so the interest in RC just went away when the snow came. When the spring came in 89 I heard some noises from a street a couple of hundred meeters away. It was a man named Rune witch was about twenty years old, testing he's two wheel drived Kyosho Burns! Ore was it a Turbo Burns. Man that was a crazy car! Verry fast and verry hard to controll! I hang around Rune all spring. His girlfriend most have hated me in the end as he may have used me as an excuse for driving and repearing. Rune also had a old car, a 1/10 Kyosho 4wd nitro car with a Ford RS200 body on it. I bought this of him after saving up the money for it. The car was used and I am not shure if I gott a good buy, but Rune sudenly had to tune and repear two cars! Al the time, I guess he did not see that coming, he he. After that summer this car also ended up in the box with the Striker and stayd there for some years. When I was 15-16 years I was shure I was not going back to that childish stuff. I had more than enough with testing real motorbikes and boats witch where in the possesion of my coussins. So I sold the whole box for next to nothing. Know I am hunting the used RC marked in Norway for kids who want to sell their stuff for next to nothing because they just have to have a motorbike ore somthing. I must have been 21 years old when the ball started roling again. I was making money and found myself in a hobby store with two Kyosho Pure Ten Alphas EP1. Also with two transmitters and batteries and charges it was quite a buy. I gave one to my younger brother on his birthday. And we had verry much fun with this cars that summer. For me it never ended. The Vintage Tamiya Virus cought me when I saw the Hornet re-re in a hobby shopp, I bought it on impulse and builded it that same evning. What a great set that was, does dampers and wheels, it all came back to me. Oh man that was quite a time. Discovering TC and Ebay and bought almost everything I saw. At first I thought it all was suer rare. Lucky for me the first wave is over and I have some sort of controll again. But I also have no more space for cars so that stoppet it naturaly, have to sell now to buy more, and I don't like to sell!

Thanks

Anders

[cureautismnow]

relive childhood memories that actually never happened,i was a teen and wanted a clod and a lunchbox,the year was 1987 i was 16 17,then i found girls more interesting and just forgot all about it,then many years later ebay came around and i starting browsing around and saw a nib clodbuster,it was then my interest in the hobby strated all over again at age 33 lol

[Live Steam Mad]

O.K. Here goes ;-

The first R/C car that I ever had was when I was given a Corgi cat. no. H376 "Austin mini-Metro" R/C model for a birthday present, I think it was in 1982 when I was 8 years old, it was bought from one of the "Toy & Hobby" chain stores (in St.Helens, Merseyside, England), that was a beautiful little car. I destroyed it by accident when I was being a bit daft and playing with it on top of the coal bunker outside and it fell 4 feet onto solid concrete (the patio) and I was heartbroken :-(

Then when I was 13 years old my Mum bought me the 1987 Tamiya catalogue from a medium sized hobby shop in the coastal resort of Southport, England. This was just about the most influential thing that has ever occurred to me in my whole life, the impact that it had on me was enormous. I knew from that day on that I had become totally in love with and obsessed by R/C models. I have been in love with Tamiya R/C models ever since, but in a 'didn't do anything about it' sort of way - the problem was that I came from a relatively very poor family. Back then I never had the money to buy ANY of the kits, I just used to dream and stare at the Tamiya 1/10th R/C kits that were in the Southport model shop window on the left hand side, like Vanessa's LunchBox, Subaru Brat, and Hornet and they really were stacked from floor to ceiling in the window, as I seem to remember. Those were the days!

For those of you who are from the North West of England, and who may remember this model shop, it was called 'The Hobby Shop (Southport) Ltd.', and was at 17/19 Bold Street, Southport, PR9 0DB, 'phone # was (0704) 532337, they sold 'Model Aircraft, Railways, Boats, & Cars, Hobbies and Handicrafts', but unfortunately this shop is now long gone and is instead called Queenscourt Hospice, a charity shop.

I then got a 4x4 yellow R/C monster truck "toy" from Tandy (RadioShack) and enjoyed that very much. My friend Andrew had the Audi Quattro GR4 by Tandy (Radio Shack) and that was great, I was jealous! Then I got my first ever R/C kit, a Kyosho Raider, not too bad. Then I got a Schumacher Cougar 2, great quality but understeered like you wouldn't believe no matter how I altered it... Then my Brother got a Tamiya Toyota Celica 4WD. Very good. Me, I always wanted a Tamiya original Blackfoot after I saw one new built in about 1990 in a LHS (G & I Models) in Wigan. I finally got one a while ago, only 18 years late.

Nowadays I have a Hirobo Shuttle helicopter and I also interested in model 3 1/2' gauge miniature live steam locos.

About 1 1/2 years ago I was trying to find out about some Tamiya R/C models in a web search and Google came up with TamiyaClub.com quite a lot (thank God) and I found out about it and just knew that I had to become a member of it, it is easily the best Tamiya R/C website ever created. I'm 31 now and R/C vehicles and 1:1 vehicles now consume me completely LOL (my time and my money), I am completely obsessed by them, it's like an addiction 8-)

Cheers,

Alistair G.

[cardesigner]

I met Toykid at work.  I saw his showroom on TC and it was all over from there.  Been an ebay addict since.