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Bearhawk_Boy

Can You Remember Your First Rc Car - Kit Or Ready To Run

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The other day my nephew whos about 8 spotted my Bearhawk and wasn't that impressed lol but there you go :rolleyes: anyway he asked me if was that my first proper rc car and it got me thinking...

Back in the hazy era know as the early 80's I remember getting my first RC pick up from Tandys, it was brilliant but it was good. It went everywhere and the following year I got another slightly better Tandy special in the shape of a fake Midnight Pumpkin.

Wast till the mid 90's when I was bought the Bearhawk (secondhand at that point) and its still going now (just)

So can you remember your first rc kit or ready to run outa the box?

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On my birthday in sept - cant rem which one - some really rubbish porsche that had five wheels, the four on each corner and one underneath that raised the two fronts off the floor rendering them useless. In order to steer you clicked a button and it reversed which cause it to turn left in reverse.

I cried.

Three months later for Christmas I got the Tamiya Sand Rover Beaties special never looked back :rolleyes:

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Mine was a Taiyo Porsche 935 Martini in the 70's. And I still have it, abiet not in it's original form. I've fitted 1:18 radio and a mamba25 to it and built a front steering and suspension (would brake one front wheel to turn), it's still being repainted. Second was a Lamborghini Contach also by Taiyo that only steered in reverse. I'm still to modify this one.

First hobby class was the TA02 Repsol Escort, awesome rally car.

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my first r/c was my nikko diplomat. I remember seeing it in the window of Reigate toys and models, then excitedly telling my parents that it was on special offer (think it was 30 instead of 60.). I got a black one and my brother got a white one for christmas that year! think i sold my one to fund my first tamiya, a lancia delta integrale, bought after about a year of saving up. Came with the whole kit, radio gear and spray paint. i seem to remember it costing around 220ish, but that was when i was 16! i've still got the chassis, but destroyed the shell about as year after i bought the kit. Now has an escort cosworth shell which cost 50 way back when!

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My First R/C car? I can't remember exactly, but I think it was a toy R/C car which could go in a straight line forward or cornering in anticlockwise circles in reverse.

My first PROPER R/C car was a Tamiya, a TL01 Subaru Impreza '97-er. Lots of fun back then, Pity I didn't realise back then that the Mk.I Impreza spare bodies would be quite sought after (for it's age)... :rolleyes:

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It was a Nikko. A buggy thing that was white, took 8xAA batteries and eventually died. It just jittered when you put batteries into it, never moved again.

I totally forget what it was called though. It was white, 4wd I think, came with the ubiquitous black Nikko stick controller that took a 9v battery. Had a floating gearbox as per the Hornet/Grasshopper I seem to recall. Can anyone help me out here?

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Mine was a 1/14 scale Nikko Mosquito 2wd "frame buggy" as they called it. It took the 8 AAs and 9v as well. With the "turbo" gate on the transmitter and what I think was a 360 motor, it went alright. The suspension was a horribly stiff trailing arm front and rolling rigid axle out back. Had alot of fun with that buggy. I remember the sheer joy of being able to fit a few Tamiya parts on it (Hornet front tires and softer 959 springs to aid the front suspension). It was later remarketed as the Lobo 2 and given real stick pack capability.

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I had several tyco/nikko type cars, but my first hobby quality kit was a futaba fx-10, which I still have, in about a hundred pieces. I'll get it back together one of these days. Followed by a kyosho raider, then my first tamiya kit, toyota hilux monster racer.

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my first was the winch by radio tron i think. i must have been about eight at the time. i used it until it eventually broke. then for christmas in 1984 i had my first tamiya, the pajero. i thrashed that faithful little car for years. awsome. i still havn't grown up.

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After 6 months saving my newspaper round and car washing wages for my first R/C car, and resisting buying a toy, I finally got enough readies together for an XR311. I had the Tamiya catalogue and cut out the page with the XR311, stuck it on my wall and kept reminding myself that was what I was aiming at. Anyway, on the way to the Midlands on holiday with Mum and Dad and Sister, we stopped off halfway for lunch in a small town (can't quite remember what the town was), and to my joy there was a model shop there with an XR311 kit in stock. I bought the kit, and spent the majority of the holiday week building it. It was a brilliant car at the time, the best offroader you could get, and it was the envy of my mates who all toy rc cars.

Shamefully, I sold it for a song when I was 18, and regretted it later on. But now I've got another one and I hope one day I will get the time to restore it to running order.

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It was a silver Lamborghini Countach from Radio Shack. I believe it was around 1:16 scale, had full forward/backward/right/left control, but not proportional. I also seem to recall that it was one-wheel drive; only the left rear wheel was driven, I guess so it didn't need a differential.

Many years later, I stole the body shell from it and grafted it onto a Big Bear chassis. <_<

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On my birthday in sept - cant rem which one - some really rubbish porsche that had five wheels, the four on each corner and one underneath that raised the two fronts off the floor rendering them useless. In order to steer you clicked a button and it reversed which cause it to turn left in reverse.

I had that too!

It was a Porsche in (I think) metallic silver, and it wasn't actually radio controlled - it was "click-operated". This was quite popular in the mid-80s - the controller was basically a plastic trigger that made either a "click" or a "click-click" when you fired it. (I think the trigger was designed so the first pull would click, the second would double-click, etc). The car had a thick antenna, with what looked like a very small microphone on the top.

A click made the car go forwards, and a double-click made it reverse. A fifth trailing wheel underneath would steer the car anticlockwise when it went backwards but was mounted on a cam, so it retracted when the car went forwards.

At that age (probably about 4-5) I didn't make the mental connection between the number of clicks and the car's motion - I thought it was just random (and rubbish). The car couldn't really be "driven" anywhere because it couldn't be steered while moving forwards. I only made the connection a few years later when I saw an episode of Blue Peter, in which the presenter was demonstrating click-operated cats. He had half a dozen electric ginger cats following him around the stage and was clapping his hands to make them change direction. I'm not really sure what the fascination was with electric cats...

I must have been quite fond of my rubbish Porsche tho, as I remember carrying it by its rear spoiler so often that it snapped off.

My first car with actual radio control was a Nikko Turbo Panther - mine was the red one. IIRC it was 1/16 or 1/14 scale, was powered by 8 AA cells and had the turbo gate on the handset. It was 2wd, had basic suspension, and both hi- and low-ratio gears for speed or torque. Even with ni-cads it never had the power for the higher gearing, but even in low gear the speed really was awesome for me at that age.

I got it on Christmas day, and had been excited about it for ages. Sadly it was one of those incidents where the Parent In Charge had completely failed to understand the basic principles of "you get what you pay for" and had bought a set of Ever Ready Blue Seals (remember the really cheap lead-acid batteries that were wrapped in blue paper? They were OK for torches but utterly useless for anything else, and they always leaked and corroded all the contacts of whatever favourite toy you left them in.) A brand new set of Blue Seals didn't even have enough power to move the car across my living room. On full throttle the non-proportional solenoid-operated front steering just juddered and it went nowhere. This was back in the 80s when shops actually shut for the Christmas break, and I had to wait until the New Year before the parents could get me some rechargeable Ni-Cads and a slow universal charging deck, which could charge everything from AAA to D cells and had a toggle for PP3s as well, but could only charge four AA cells at a time.

All in, it was a very frustrating experience (but an awesome toy-grade RC once we got it running)

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Can't remember my very first R/C, I remember having various Nikko's and Tyco's when I was young. My first proper car was a very well used and abusted Hornet which was on its last legs when I got it about 1994, was devastated when I broke it and went to the local hobby shop who told me that they couldn't get parts for it :D

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Wow what cool memories, mine was a Wild Willy M38, it was for christmas when i was 13 in 84 i think, old age jeez my memory is going lol. My dad and i stayed up all Christmas day night and into Boxing day morning untill is was built. Need i say it had much hammer up and down my street. I still have it now, still in v good nick too. :D

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Tamiya TA-03F and should have come with a Penzoil Nismo Skyline body, but i prefered the Alfa 155 so the shop gave me that instead..

i loved the build, as it came with some bearings and hop up parts, but about 2 weeks later, after running it through dusty conditions (MSC remember..) it died.

ive gone full circle though and now have the Penzoil Nismo NIB! :D

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My first car was a nikko subaru impretza. Simply put, the worst 20 ever spent! Although now I think about it, it was actually quite fun and it did go quite fast. I think i pulled it apart and binned it afew years back.

Glad I didn't bin the 959 I had lying at home :D

dazaa

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mine was a mk1 golf driving school car made by corgi or someone like that ,it came with cones and L plates it was bright orange

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I too had the **** five wheeled Porsche!! Mine was gold :D

My first was a TL01 Mercedes DTM2000 D2. I told the girl friend that I had wanted a radio control car for years, and bless her, she come up trumps! She is now the wife :lol: I drove the wheels off it, even had a go at racing it, but found it somewhat lacking compared to the TC3's, etc of the time. So, bless her, the next Christmas she bought me a TC3 team kit :lol:

I still have the Mercedes to this day, and recently had a lucky find, and bought a complete NIB kit, and restored it. I still have all the original bits, but the bodyshell had pretty much had it. I hate to admit it, bit it's a shelfer now. Sentimental value, and all that :lol:

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I remember like it was yesterday. After watching/driving my friends Brat, I decided to give it a go. Bought the Blackfoot the day before Halloween in 1987. My buddy helped me during the build.. Nearly 9 months later bought a Monster Beetle.

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Friend of mine had a Hornet. Had to have a Tamiya RC car. Was incredibly lucky and spoiled and was given a Frog for Christmas. Hooked for life.

That is all.

- James

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Tamiya Hotshot 2...still have it and its the one i keep pestering everyone with questions about.

Got it in 1987 from a model shop near where I live for christmas and my dad & i spend 2 days building it....looking back now he missed all of his christmas TV & chilling out.

Building it was new for me and i think thats a big part of the memory.

I remeber the speed of it compared to all other 'kids' toys - brilliant.

I need an excusse to spend money and buy another for the build alone...hoping to get my son interested and off PS3's with the Hotshot restoration..!

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My first car was a Kyosho Peugeot 205 GTI, still have it in a box in 1000 bits.

I bougth that for my own money at the age of 15, turned 33 today...

My second was a Lunchbox, followed by an Bullhead and then a Celica Gr.B, Hornet etc......

After these cars, I've had plenty, mostly Tamiya..

But I regrett that I sold my Bullhead with Clod body for allmost nothing for many years ago.

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