tan msc vs black msc....

[chickenman242tk]

Does anyone know when the switch was made from black msc's the the tan ones?

Also i was thinking when did the motors get changed , from say the white/black end bell to the johnson and so forth.

I have a bunch of these and im trying figure out what model used which part..

[mongoose1983]

Can't go with total precision, but here's what I know about the subject. I presume other friends here in TC will be more accurate.

The black MSCs belong to most cars from the 1st half of the 80's decade. The Subaru Brat must have been the very first model to use that specific MSC. That pretty much makes the black MSC a 1983-1985 standard feature in off-road kits.

The tan MSCs are commonly seen in kits from 1986 and so on. I think I've seen cars from the 00's with those!

Now about the motors. Being 380 or 540, the first ones were Mabuchi with black plastic endbells. You can find them in the Sherman tank from 1974, or the Scorcher, XR-311 and most models throughout the first half of the 80's. I do believe I read somewhere about Holiday Buggies with white endbells but that is not something I have seen. The one I have here is black. I think by the time off-roaders like Boomerang and the Falcon were released Tamiya started using white plastic endbells. And then by 1990 or 1989 they stopped using plastic endbells for good. I know because I do not like motors without plastic endbells!

I hope our good friends Mokei Kagaku or Hibernaculum will come here and be more specific as to dates and models.

[Backlash]

Most vintage kits have blister packs, often with the motor and MSC on display..

Couldn't you search through the NIB or even New Built models in the showrooms and find what models had what?

[Saito2]

From what I remember (and this may be totally wrong) it seemed the tan MSCs first came in where a heavier duty application warranted it. The Clod Buster with its twin motors had one. The Vanquish, which was a higher end buggy (which one would presume might be fitted with a higher performance motor at some point) had one too. P.S., don't ask if anybody misses MSCs because when I did, 90% strongly suggested they hated them with a passion. lol.

[markbt73]

From what I remember (and this may be totally wrong) it seemed the tan MSCs first came in where a heavier duty application warranted it. The Clod Buster with its twin motors had one. The Vanquish, which was a higher end buggy (which one would presume might be fitted with a higher performance motor at some point) had one too. P.S., don't ask if anybody misses MSCs because when I did, 90% strongly suggested they hated them with a passion. lol.

The Clod is the first one I remember seeing with a tan MSC as well. And the early all-original Clod (Chevy logos all around) that I recently traded had white plastic motor endbells.

If memory serves, my Blackfoot came with a black plastic endbell, but my Falcon was white. Both had black MSC plates, as did my original Grasshopper (black-endbell 380).

I didn't get another new Tamiya kit after that until 1994, a TA01, which had a tan MSC, a Johnson-style motor, and the narrow resistor plugs, so the changeover must have been complete by then.