What A Great Forum! (my Intro And Wild Willy Pics)

[cannondale1974]

Wanted to introduce myself, I'm 36 years old, live in Lexington, Ky. and was introduced to RC by my dad around the early 80's. He flew RC airplanes and bought me a Wild Willy around 82-83'. He helped me build it and I used one of his old Futaba airplane radios, it was awesome! I then moved on to a Hornet, Optima, RC10 then got an 1/8th scale nitro 4WD buggy called the "Hunter". I was hooked on nitro from that point but I got so much enjoyment from those earlier years playing with my electric cars. I used to read the Tower Hobbies catalogs front to back, I even did a book report in the 6th grade on radio controlled RC cars, I was addicted to them.

I then moved to planes in my teenage years and got out the hobby for many years during college. Fast forward to present day and I got into actual racing a couple years with 1/8th nitro buggy, truggy and some indoor 1/10 electric touring. I'm also into helicopters and airplanes again so you could say I've jumped back in with both feet. It's weird but I get real nostalgic every time around Christmas and start looking up all the cars I used to own. I bought a Wild Willy 2 a couple years ago and carefully put it together but still haven't run it. (don't want to scratch up the body and Willy) I did buy an ESC and electronics for it, maybe I'll get it going one day. I have a bunch of videos from the 80's, some of me opening up my Optima and RC10 on Christmas day, another of me driving my Hornet in front of my house. I'll have to convert them to DVD and upload to youtube sometime. Anyways, sorry for the long post but glad to see I'm not the only one that shares the madness for vintage RC cars. Here are a few pics of my Wild Willy 2, take care guys.

[tamiya monkey]

hi there and welcome, im of similar age, and been back into the hobby now for around 9 years, cant get enough of it, started collecting the re-re, scorcher etc.

pardon the pun, but you have a nice willy lol.

[mike_o]

Welcome - and thanks for the long post! ;-) Good to get a little background info.

[cannondale1974]

Thanks guys, it's cool to finally see/talk with other guys who value this vintage stuff. I put my Wild Willy up for display only in a local hobby shop and virtually no one was interested in it. If it wasn't the latest greatest thing for racing it seems (at least locally) the interest is non-existent. I'd love to collect at least the cars I used to have but finding them in decent shape isn't cheap. (as you already know) I think I'd be perfectly happy with a Hornet, Optima, RC10, Hobby Lobby Hunter and Kyosho Burns. Those were the cars I had as a kid.

[wildwillydriver]

Welcome, nice long post and WW2!

We share age and RC love.

Bye

WWD

[HunterZero]

Wow, first post on this forum and you've already got yer Willy out.

Nice job, welcome to the forums!

- James

[Gruntfuggly]

Nice Willy (no, I can't believe I just typed that either).

This entire thread is going to end up on "Forum quotes of the week" isn't it?

[HunterZero]

This entire thread is going to end up on "Forum quotes of the week" isn't it?

I've tried many times to no avail to make a comment worthy of that thread. There's an over-representation of Willies in the forum quotes of the week thread. It seems I tried too hard, when all one had to do was bust out a comment about how wild their Willy was.

- James

[dan12]

Lovely Willy mate!

[cannondale1974]

Thanks again guys. Just emailed the guy who bought my original Wild Willy when we were kids, evidently it was sold long time ago at a garage sale. Oh well, I'll have to pick one up used on Ebay looks like. I really want to get an original, the newer version seems to be build with quite a bit more plastic and seems like it may be more fragile?

[mongoose1983]

Welcome to the Club, cannondale1974! Your Wild Willy 2 looks very neat.

I don't believe the newer Wild Willy is in any way more fragile than the original one. I'm surprised as I thought it was the opposite. Anyway, one thing that I like about the new one is the tires, that you can use for AGES before getting them worn.

Anyway, good luck finding the Wild Willy. Don't forget to upload pictures when you find it -always great to see Wild Willies!

Have a great weekend!

EB

--

[Tamiya Tamer]

Is it scary or is it just that we are approaching our grey years at the top of the hill that we are getting into what we loved as kids.... it seems a pattern here is that we are around the mid thirties... I'm 36 years old too, I'm from Australia and i have just got back into RC after a long stint (school, girls, career, girls, family, having girls, work, chasing boys away from girls) and now we can sit back and think what did i love?

I gave my 10 year old a hornet that i used to race but opted (yes a traitor to my age group) for a newer model.. he is right into it and he is interetested becuase he only thought that it was as simple as driving and thats it.. he is now realising that there is more to it... especially when i made him build most of it though i was dying to take over, thus the reason i bought my own. He smashed his chassis the other week and we have ordered a new one and now his hornet is in pieces awaiting the rebuild, he is looking forward to putting it back to gether... thats nice.

Me i can't wait to start suping up my Sand Viper and have it running like a lightning bolt.

Once again we can sit back and show of who has the bigger and better looking Willy.... or Hornet, or Grasshopper

Talk soon.

[bad andy]

That's one sweet willy! Welcome to TC. You'll find a similar obsession among us all. It seems a common theme that many of our rc sparks have kicked in about the thirties too. Looking forward to seeing more projects as you acquire them... good luck.

Side note: Mr. Cannondale - throughout this new-found resurgence of RC interest, do you still ride your bike?

[cannondale1974]

That's one sweet willy! Welcome to TC. You'll find a similar obsession among us all. It seems a common theme that many of our rc sparks have kicked in about the thirties too. Looking forward to seeing more projects as you acquire them... good luck.

Side note: Mr. Cannondale - throughout this new-found resurgence of RC interest, do you still ride your bike?

Sorry it took (almost exactly) 5 years to answer your post. Back in 2011 I got into road cycling a little and loved Cannondales. I ended up buying a Specialized Allez however. RC dominates my free time but last summer I did manage to log 400 miles so that was an improvement over the previous years. Nothing ground breaking mind you.