does the mystery of Tamiya add to the mystique?

[Saito2 6030]

Often times on this forum we bring up questions or theories about the engineering and development of Tamiya products. While we have some answers, shy of questioning a past Tamiya designer, there are a lot of holes in the history of the process. Being a 1:1 car-guy, there are plenty of history books that show what was going on behind the scenes back in the day. I notice that is missing with Tamiya. I've read the autobiography which does give you a good insight into mindset of the company and the struggles they overcame. Specific development questions tend to go without concrete answers, particularly in the realm of RC because, from the outset, it was not their main focus. So, while we can theorize (and likely come close to the truth in many cases), there's still much we don't know. Does this underlying mystery keep us coming back for more?

[Mokei Kagaku 2681]

Well, I think if we would be able to read a lot of books about Tamiya only available in Japanese language, we would have a lot less mysteries to guess about. Also, I think understanding the Japanese culture and know more about Japanese history would help.

As an example, I have a book about Japanese vintage micro-cars and -trucks, and one old picture shows a Nissan (I believe) small 3-wheel truck with a frogeye look of the headlights and a white over light pink factory colourscheme resembling that of the Frog boxart, which puzzled me. At the time I bought this book, I worked for a Japanese company (Hitachi Automotive) and had a lot of Japanese colleagues in the office. Most of them had a great interest in cars and when I showed the pic of the truck to one of them, he instantly told me that it was nicknamed "Frog Express" in Japan because of the look and the intended use as an urban quick delivery truck. Not a proof that this truck and its typical colourscheme necessarily inspired Tamiya when they designed and chose a colour scheme for the Frog, but not at all unlikely, especially when considering that white and pink aren't really the first colours you think about when thinking of a frog.

And I reckon that a lot of other Tamiya "mysteries" would be clear to us if we just knew more about Japanese culture, (automotive) history and so on. As for the technical development and evolution of the RC-models, I believe it to be well covered by all the Japanese literature available about Tamiya.

[Saito2 6030]

Excellent Frog insight! I agree Japanese culture barrier possibly more than anything could be responsible for this mystique.

[Hibernaculum 932]

Mokei, if you have a pic of one of those delivery trucks, that would be great. I searched, but couldn't find anything. I've always loved the pink/white colour scheme, but part of me always wondered why they went with it.

My only guess to date had been that frogs (the animals) come in a variety of colours, while grasshoppers are pretty much always green. Hence if they had a product timeline and knew they were planning to release two cars with those names, they really needed to reserve the green for the Grasshopper, and use a different colour palette for the Frog, to help differentiate them visually.

Perhaps this is still true to some extent, but case in point, it is just guesswork And regarding the question... maybe the mystery adds a little to the mystique. For all I know, I'm probably very guilty of making too many assumptions about the hows and whys of Tamiya history. But at the very least, I think we can accurately compliment the things they did which we know definitely worked. We know the Frog worked, as a product. And we know colours and shapes were key to that success, because they gave each car a really appealing identity that was easy for kids to understand. We know these were great ideas, regardless of how they came up with them.

A flipside to this question might be...if we knew all Tamiya's history in detail, would we be slightly less interested than we are right now?

I like to think the answer to that is probably no, because at the end of the day, the bulk of the appeal relates to the end product and how we enjoy looking at it, building it and running it. And I don't think that would change for me, even if I knew every Tamiya secret.

But between these paragraphs, I may have just contradicted myself Good question Sean.

[chevelle 996]

Just needed the right words Oh and its a Mazda K360

[Hibernaculum 932]

Well that sure looks like a similar pale pink, hey. And with the white on top. I think we have a winner.

[94eg! 830]

So is it true that H.R. Giger was chief design consultant for the Dyna Storm lower arms? LOL just kidding. But seriously.....these oddities really stand out to me. There is nothing like them in all of RC (that I'm aware of) before or since.

[Mokei Kagaku 2681]

SThere is nothing like them in all of RC (that I'm aware of) before or since.

Agree, but Tenth Technology had at least some organic look of their models and certain parts.

[Mokei Kagaku 2681]

As covered here in the forum before, sometimes Tamiya design and name their models with a “deeper meaning”. From the top of my head, I remember;

- The pink/white colour scheme of the Frog.(from the similarly “froggish” Mazda K360 3-wheeled truck, with its white and pale pink standard colourscheme)

- The names of RC- and Mini 4WD models inspired by WW2-era Japanese airplanes (e.g. “Thunder Dragon”, “Storm Dragon”, “Shooting Star”, “Fire Dragon”)

ymd3a1977 on X (formerly Twitter) might be onto another clue though.:

Or is the shape of the Dash-1 Emperor just by a remarkable coincidence quite similar to the fins of the Chiroteuthis imperator, also known as the Emperor Squid?

 

   

 

[Mouc-RC 32]

For me yes the mystery adds to their appeal. I mean the mystery of their technical choices... Good or bad. Often very different from others company, I truly respect this

About the Frog... Not sure but I think it's a bit less complicated than the Mazda K360. Seen the following on the facebook page of Blockhead Motors (not a Watanabee fan at all but, this one was relayed on a french RC forum at the time of the Wild One BHM release):

 

What I can read on the picture (if it's not a fake?)  is:

- Glenn Harris 1982 (this date is anterior to the Frog release)

- California Gold Racing Team.

Googling those 2 items doesn't help much, but... If the document is true, why wouldn't this buggy be the 1:1 reference?

[ADRay1000 119]

1 hour ago, Mouc-RC said:

 

 

What I can read on the picture (if it's not a fake?)  is:

- Glenn Harris 1982 (this date is anterior to the Frog release)

- California Gold Racing Team.

Googling those 2 items doesn't help much, but... If the document is true, why wouldn't this buggy be the 1:1 reference?

Ha, I just spent 15 minutes looking for this pic. No doubt a solid reference 

[Mrowka 474]

No. At least, not for me.

[Kowalski86 2167]

10 hours ago, Mokei Kagaku said:

As covered here in the forum before, sometimes Tamiya design and name their models with a “deeper meaning”. From the top of my head, I remember;

- The pink/white colour scheme of the Frog.(from the similarly “froggish” Mazda K360 3-wheeled truck, with its white and pale pink standard colourscheme)

- The names of RC- and Mini 4WD models inspired by WW2-era Japanese airplanes (e.g. “Thunder Dragon”, “Storm Dragon”, “Shooting Star”, “Fire Dragon”)

I can't think of any planes named "(element) Dragon", but there was the Shooting Star jet fighter, and the Sabre. Both American planes.

With Top Gun being a big hit in 1986, and Tamiya having done quite a bit of semi-realistic buggies at that point, they probably looked to fighter jets thinking that would be the next "big thing".

It's not hard to tell that American car culture was a significant factor to Tamiyas early models, this would both help them create something that resonated with the American market, and give their home market a slice of American culture (back when that was a cool thing to do).

The Frog theory makes sense, wasn't the Pumpkin name taken from a Japanese nickname for older American trucks? And from the success of the Frog, we'd get a good handful of other "animal" named buggies like the Hornet.

[Kowalski86 2167]

It doesn't make me come back per se, but it does give me more to think about compared to a number of the other companies that are currently in the RC market.

My theory has always been that they began creating "fun" RCs, something meant to resemble full size buggies and trucks of the time, something to resonate with the culture. Much like the current (shockingly expensive) bikes and ATVs of Losi, or short course trucks.

On a side note, short course trucks are technically 1/8 scale, so you can't run them on your typical 1/10 scale carpet tracks. This is probably why Tamiya never made a "proper" one.

In time, they shifted to on-road (as I guess there's more places to run on-road cars in Japan), where the engineering baffles me more than anything else. Sometimes they'd invent a whole other idea for a scale driving experience (FF line up), but then...we'd get FWD Miatas. Whatever the case, it let them play into their reputation for scale RCs.

But for me, the real oddities are things like like the Acroshot, Vajira, and Super Levant (a brushless RTR truggy thing!).

 

[Mokei Kagaku 2681]

5 hours ago, Kowalski86 said:

I can't think of any planes named "(element) Dragon",

https://www.tamiyaclub.com/forum/index.php?/topic/101963-fire-dragon-karyu-and-super-storm-dragon-donryu-a-deeper-meaning/&tab=comments#comment-922803

[Kowalski86 2167]

.

[GTodd 1278]

Three items drove Tamiya's success in the heyday of RC of the 80s and 90s.  Compared to the Nikkos and Tycos of that erra Tamiyas were faster, stronger, they were in ALL the hobby stores and you could buy spares for them.  For whatever reason(s) hobby stores stopped carring Tamiya Spares, Traxxas came out in a big way, and the only people who buy Tamiya's in large numbers now are us.  RC is now comprised of (2) groups; serious racers and bashers.  Tamiya doesnt make serious Offroad racers anymore and Traxxas owns the basher market.  Nastalgia and appreciating the attention to detail keeps me in the game, once my son is older ill like sell all but my childhood cars as Ill have no one to enjoy them with. 

[Kowalski86 2167]

@Mokei Kagaku

I think that the "Dragons" were a tie in to the manga "Radicon Boy", which would explain the Saint Dragon. The Thundershot was ultimately a Thunder Dragon meant to tie in with the popular Hotshot series.

1 hour ago, GTodd said:

 For whatever reason(s) hobby stores stopped carring Tamiya Spares,

@Saito2 Didn't MRC distribute Tamiya parts for a time? I wonder if their break up didn't have an effect on LHS's not carrying Tamiya parts.

Of course, it didn't help that m RTRs took over the market.

[GTodd 1278]

Id bet that's accurate for USA, but that's just isolated to us Americans. Hasn't spares for Tamiya in general become very difficult And near 100 percent online sourced!

[Saito2 6030]

2 hours ago, Kowalski86 said:

@Saito2 Didn't MRC distribute Tamiya parts for a time? I wonder if their break up didn't have an effect on LHS's not carrying Tamiya parts.

Yes, MRC was Tamiya's importer here in the States. IIRC, any hobby shop carrying Tamiya vehicles also had to have spares on hand. MRC would break up kits and/or re-bag parts in their own yellow/red MRC/Tamiya bags. I also think MRC might have assigned their own part numbers to the Tamiya part nos. Every hobby shop was furnished with an interchange parts book that had exploded views of all the cars.

[GTodd 1278]

Does anyone know why MRC split from Tamiya? Seems like it was a mutually beneficial relationship.

[Saito2 6030]

1 hour ago, GTodd said:

Does anyone know why MRC split from Tamiya? Seems like it was a mutually beneficial relationship

I don't know the details for certain, but from the rumors I've heard around the LHS's BITD, Tamiya became increasingly dissatisfied with MRC and there might possibly be some wrongdoing on MRC's part. If anyone has more specific details or info to the contrary, I'm all ears, as I'd like more specifics too.

I do know dealers were not particularly happy being "stuck" with all those MRC mandated spares. Some spares sold quickly because the parts were wear items or frequently broke. Other spares, from broken up kits, languished on hobby shop spinner racks because there was no market for them. The Vanquish motor mount plate I got from Fleabay was in some kind of MRC bag labeled Vanquish tool parts bag or something. MRC stuck the motor mount in with the tools, like a box wrench, from the Vanquish kit. Now who is going to want any of that stuff back in '89 or '90? The motor mount isn't really a wear item unless your dog ate it while the buggy was down for service. Hobby shops would frequently have bins of this stuff discounted heavily, just to get rid of it. Over a decade later, this left over stuff starts appearing on Fleabay.

When Tamiya America first fired up over here in California, I don't recall any immediate issues. Today, I get the gist, T-USA is very much at the mercy of Tamiya Japan. They get what they get from Japan and that's about it, not exactly a two-way street. Again, I am happy to be corrected by someone with greater knowledge. The High Lift for example was one situation where something from T-USA had an impact on Japan. It's prototype was created by a T-USA employee who used to post on here a good bit.   

[GToddC5 681]

1 hour ago, Saito2 said:

Yes, MRC was Tamiya's importer here in the States. IIRC, any hobby shop carrying Tamiya vehicles also had to have spares on hand. MRC would break up kits and/or re-bag parts in their own yellow/red MRC/Tamiya bags. I also think MRC might have assigned their own part numbers to the Tamiya part nos. Every hobby shop was furnished with an interchange parts book that had exploded views of all the cars.

Something like this, that I picked up recently:

 

[Saito2 6030]

That's it! That's the book I remember. I used to hassle the LHS clerk to get me one of those books but that was verboten. I did get an entire parts listing sheet for every vehicle and spare available at the time however. I attempted to piece together a Wild Willy (which was discontinued by then) from spares but gave up when the price crested $350.

[GTodd 1278]

I remember that fondly! The Astute kept me a frequent visitor.