Most unusual places you saw R/C cars for sale in the 80s?

[Hibernaculum]

Back in the buggy boom of the mid-1980s, R/C buggies regularly appeared in "hottest toys" lists around Christmas time, and were generally in such huge demand that they weren't just sold in the numerous hobby stores that were around. R/C buggies were available in quite a few places that it would be hard to imagine seeing them today. Like Department Stores, Electronics Stores and even some Supermarkets.

As most were good quality (made in Japan, Singapore, USA, or Europe), from the expensive kits right down to the smallest RTR cars, I am just interested in hearing any examples we can remember. As time goes by, this lost era of popularity (combined with good quality) only gets more interesting*

What are the most unusual places (compared to today) that you saw R/C cars for sale in the 80s?

Possibilities may have included: drug stores, car parts stores, news agencies, gas stations etc etc etc.

On top of hobby, toy and department stores selling tons of great cars, I remember things like:

- Jet Hoppers being given away as prizes on TV shows.

- Tamiya kits like the Fox for sale at Woolworths (which is mostly a supermarket)

- Tomy and Taiyo cars for sale at Furniture/Appliance stores, like Harvey Norman

- Mugen kits for sale at general electronics stores.

- Test driving loads of great Japanese Nikko models, in the toy aisles at K-Mart, which also had huge Lego displays.

Compare this to today...

- Most hobby stores are gone.

- Of the remainder, few sell Tamiya (or anything good)

- Most quality R/C brands are gone, especially at the RTR end of the market.

- Toy shops only sell Chinese landfill

- Upper-grade department stores only sell Chinese landfill

- Lower-grade department stores only sell lead-contaminated Chinese landfill

- In some countries, big department stores don't even have toy departments any more.

- Places like K-Mart would rather sell me a "home brand" toaster for $9, which will make me toast for a few weeks.

H.

* In the sense that it allows you to quietly ponder how far society has crumbled, while staring off into space with an empty expression.

[markbt73]

The Sharper Image store in Chicago carried the 1/4 scale Raco cars, and I think some Tamiya kits as well.

The one I still kick myself over is a Cox/Kyosho Gallop Mk2 kit, at a Sears outlet store, on clearance sale for something like $69. But RC cars were off my radar by then...

[yogi-bear]

I bought my Fox from Franklins (A Qld super market chain that's no longer around), but Toy Traders quickly put a stop to that! Which was a shame as they were nearly half the price of a hobby store at the time.

I also remember buying car bodies and batteries from someone's house, he had a shop setup in his spare bedroom. I think I found him in the yellow pages. In those days yellow pages came as two thick books and was pretty much the only way to find anyone! Now is small little book that no one reads.

[Hibernaculum]

Raco cars (Jac Rabbits?) at an image store = amazing. Gallop Mk2 at Sears for $69...

Foxes at Franklins...

We had Franklins in NSW as well, and the thought of those places stocking Tamiya kits blows my mind. Franklins stores were usually medium-sized, densely packed supermarkets that felt almost like food wholesalers, particularly in the 80s. Often there was little room for trolleys to pass each other due to boxes of goods on the floor at the base of the shelves on either side. They usually had a small selection of toys somewhere, but I can hardly imagine them finding the space to sell Tamiya kits, so that is truly impressive

[Backlash]

BITD, I only ever shopped at 3 stores for my RC needs. My local ToyWorld, the large hobby shop in town, and Pitstop RC cars and accessories in Sydney Australia..

Pitstop RC Cars Accessories I believe was run out of the back of the Grenenger families Hardware store..

As H has said, RC cars were the thing to have in the 80's.. Now it is video game consoles, and if you take note, Games consoles, games and accessories are not only being sold in dedicated "Gaming" stores, but also in various Grocery, Department and Electrical (think TV's and whitegoods) stores, and many other smaller stores who have an interest in the item, or figure that they can make a quick dollar from their sale..

Yes, many smaller hobby shops have now gone, and so has the after sales service.. Most of the larger Hobbyshops that are left seems to be more interested in making money than making the customer happy or providing any after sales service (and then you need to pay for it).. Thankfully there is now a lot of help available on the internet from various websites and forums like TamiyaClub, RC10Talk, HobbyTalk, and the many, many RC groups that are now on Facebook..

Sadly now things have changed, and I cant ever see the RC world being as it once was.. But, is that change really a bad thing?

[chevelle]

In my small home town in New Zealand we didn't have a hobby store, but the local Ford dealership was also a Tamiya parts supplier. So in 88 when I got my Striker I loved visting the shop after school to drool over the catalogs, the only car they had on display was a Bruiser which enamoured me for years.

[Thommo]

Myers Department Store in Perth had package deals that included a Techniplus radio a slow charger and 1 x NiCd battery. I only remember them stocking the Frog, Grasshopper and Hornet, but I remember there being rows of them stacked three shelves high. Mr T was killing it back then !

[chickenman242tk]

back in the mid to late 90's you could get a stadium blitzer or super hornet as a package deal at k mart.

back then they used to advertise rc cars to tv too....

[moffman]

Me my cousin and a few of our mates were just mad on RC back in the early 80s like you say they were the hot toy and the fact that the guide book (which we drooled over while waiting for our batteries to charge!) had on the first page "toys they're not" just made them more special, but I can't remember ever seeing them been sold in unusual places the local chemist did have the grasshopper in the window but I never knew if it was put their to sell or sell hay fever tablet's?, we just used to go to beatties and people who knew beatties knew that it was the Mecca for tamiya RC and static models but I do remember the first RC model shop opening and selling hop-up parts I was amazed that you could buy better (or told it was better) parts for my ford ranger. Such good times!!!

[Thommo]

back in the mid to late 90's you could get a stadium blitzer or super hornet as a package deal at k mart.

back then they used to advertise rc cars to tv too....

That might help explain why there are always Super Hornets for sale on Aussie Gumtree. Sometimes at least 3 or 4 Super Hornets on there at once A.

[kasparov]

Uncle Pete's!!! Not unusual but brings back memories...

[Snappy1]

Funny that you mention Franklins, I went to school with the owners of Franklins son Paul, he had a Hotshot, the first I ever saw, I was so jealous........

[Novastar]

Toyworld (as mentioned by Backlash) had a Fast Attack Vehicle in their window here in the 80's but I don't think they sold much of anything else Tamiya.

The local Hobbies and Electronics which is not a chain store did stock Tamiyas and Hirobo but only the boxed kits, I never tried ordering parts there. They still exist but now only stock electronics as in computers etc.

Big W had Tamiyas boxed, that's where I bought my Stadium Blitzer in the 90's, now they only stock Chinese landfill Actually that was the last time I walked into a Broken Hill shop and bought Tamiya, now I have no choice but to order online despite being told I have everything I need here by the "shop locally" advocates..

[markbt73]

There was also a cool higher-end store here in the US called Service Merchandise that carried some RC vehicles. Tamiya and Marui kits, as I recall, as well as Cox airplanes (so maybe Cox cars as well?). They also carried the 1/8 scale Pocher static model kits.

[Yonez]

The local bike repair guy sold Kyosho's from his basement repair shop.

[Saito2]

I wish I had something to add, but here in my corner of the States, I never saw a hobby-grade RC (kit or otherwise) anywhere but a hobby shop or in an RC magazine. In some respects, I suppose I liked it that way. It made RC kits seem more exclusive and "adult" being in hobby shops and not just a toy store. Every kid had a Tyco, Nikko and Radio Shack car but even something as basic as a Grasshopper was considered exotic and "mature" lol. I did see Tamiya Thundershot QDs and Super Sabre QDs in Kay Bee toy stores. Even with those small RTRs, it was odd seeing the Tamiya logo in an actual toy store for me.

[chickenman242tk]

Im sure toyworld sold the super hornet package as well

[Hibernaculum]

In my small home town in New Zealand we didn't have a hobby store, but the local Ford dealership was also a Tamiya parts supplier. So in 88 when I got my Striker I loved visting the shop after school to drool over the catalogs, the only car they had on display was a Bruiser which enamoured me for years.

Ford dealership selling Tamiya kits, that's awesome

Myers Department Store in Perth had package deals that included a Techniplus radio a slow charger and 1 x NiCd battery. I only remember them stocking the Frog, Grasshopper and Hornet, but I remember there being rows of them stacked three shelves high. Mr T was killing it back then !

Myer did indeed sell loads of those three buggies, but it didn't stop there.

In NSW, the store was called Grace Bros of course (as all Sydney-siders will remember) for about a hundred years (but Myer and Grace Bros were always partner stores).

Here's a page from a Grace Bros catalogue from 1986 that I recently posted...

(More here as part of a look at wider toy trends).

That might help explain why there are always Super Hornets for sale on Aussie Gumtree. Sometimes at least 3 or 4 Super Hornets on there at once A.

The popularity of Super Hornets here even caused Tamiya to lengthen the kits production run, purely for the Aussie market - I think it was probably the last truly widespread, popular Tamiya R/C kit (in the vein of those of the 1980s), with production continuing until the mid 2000s. I bought one from a hobby store as recently as 2008.

Uncle Pete's!!! Not unusual but brings back memories...

For anyone who remembers Uncle Pete's Toys.... an article I wrote a couple of years ago about Uncle Pete's Toys ended up drawing numerous former staff out of the woodwork, with old stories about the popular (now almost gone) Sydney-based toy stores that were heavily into Tamiya. The stories and memories keep coming too. You can find them here.

Eventually, Peter Pigott - aka Uncle Pete himself - got in touch with me and we shared many emails. He even passed my details onto his longtime friend Dick Smith, of Dick Smith Electronics, who also wrote. Now in his 80s I believe, Pete still actively flies his plane (formerly helicopter), and is long since retired and out of the toy game. But it's lovely to know he is still active and living life to the fullest. He still has a connection to his former stores, a few of which survive under the Uncle Pete's Toys name. But one more disappeared last year.

Funny that you mention Franklins, I went to school with the owners of Franklins son Paul, he had a Hotshot, the first I ever saw, I was so jealous........

Maybe Paul influenced the decision to stock Tamiya's

Big W had Tamiyas boxed, that's where I bought my Stadium Blitzer in the 90's, now they only stock Chinese landfill Actually that was the last time I walked into a Broken Hill shop and bought Tamiya, now I have no choice but to order online despite being told I have everything I need here by the "shop locally" advocates..

Well said I know exactly what you mean. I've seen ads on TV here where someone from a country town store goes "If we don't have it, you don't need it!"

I suppose as Backlash said, some things have changed for the better. Online access to vintage items, or just communities and parts in general, has opened up the world and revolutionized the hobby and particularly, the ability to collect.

Except that there was just something great about being in the midst of it all, in the original R/C boom, when everything was new and original. A bit like being there when Star Wars first happened, or Nintendo NES, or Alien, or...(basically anything great that is forever being rebooted).

H.

[chevelle]

Ford dealership selling Tamiya kits, that's awesome

I just did a Google search & the dealership is still there It seem's the only things that have changed are the cars & the colour of the building The green box shows the window of the parts dept where I pushed my nose against to stare and dream of the Bruiser Funny thing that even now I could afford A Bruiser, I like keeping it as an enigma

[kasparov]

Ford dealership selling Tamiya kits, that's awesome

Myer did indeed sell loads of those three buggies, but it didn't stop there.

In NSW, the store was called Grace Bros of course (as all Sydney-siders will remember) for about a hundred years (but Myer and Grace Bros were always partner stores).

Here's a page from a Grace Bros catalogue from 1986 that I recently posted...

(More here as part of a look at wider toy trends).

The popularity of Super Hornets here even caused Tamiya to lengthen the kits production run, purely for the Aussie market - I think it was probably the last truly widespread, popular Tamiya R/C kit (in the vein of those of the 1980s), with production continuing until the mid 2000s. I bought one from a hobby store as recently as 2008.

For anyone who remembers Uncle Pete's Toys.... an article I wrote a couple of years ago about Uncle Pete's Toys ended up drawing numerous former staff out of the woodwork, with old stories about the popular (now almost gone) Sydney-based toy stores that were heavily into Tamiya. The stories and memories keep coming too. You can find them here.

Eventually, Peter Pigott - aka Uncle Pete himself - got in touch with me and we shared many emails. He even passed my details onto his longtime friend Dick Smith, of Dick Smith Electronics, who also wrote. Now in his 80s I believe, Pete still actively flies his plane (formerly helicopter), and is long since retired and out of the toy game. But it's lovely to know he is still active and living life to the fullest. He still has a connection to his former stores, a few of which survive under the Uncle Pete's Toys name. But one more disappeared last year.

Maybe Paul influenced the decision to stock Tamiya's

Well said I know exactly what you mean. I've seen ads on TV here where someone from a country town store goes "If we don't have it, you don't need it!"

I suppose as Backlash said, some things have changed for the better. Online access to vintage items, or just communities and parts in general, has opened up the world and revolutionized the hobby and particularly, the ability to collect.

Except that there was just something great about being in the midst of it all, in the original R/C boom, when everything was new and original. A bit like being there when Star Wars first happened, or Nintendo NES, or Alien, or...(basically anything great that is forever being rebooted).

H.

Wow thanks Rob!!!

After seeing that add I want that Nikko frame buggy black fox!!))

[Shodog]

in my home town I had a friend who owned a shoe repair shop but sold anything that was hot stuff. From roller skates to BMX to skateboards and then R/C. I worked there doing bicycle building and repair so it was only natural that I started building and repairing customer R/C's when that fad hit.

[Pablo68]

My first ever hobby grade RC (a Hornet obviously) I bought from the local Toyworld. At the time I think they had the Frog, Hornet and possibly Wild Willy.

A few years later two of my friends were in a dept store (Kmart I think) and it must have been as they were switching whatever series of Tamiya RC they were selling, they picked up a Hornet kit each for 50 bucks a pop. Right time right place I guess.

[berman]

In my small home town in New Zealand we didn't have a hobby store, but the local Ford dealership was also a Tamiya parts supplier. So in 88 when I got my Striker I loved visting the shop after school to drool over the catalogs, the only car they had on display was a Bruiser which enamoured me for years.

Surprised they had a Bruiser and not a Blackfoot (even though we didn't get the ranger here in NZ).

I remember a bookstore having some Tamiya stuff up the road next to woolies when I was a kid. I asked mum for a radio control from that shop and got a little 1/18th mercedes 190e thing with cord remote that ran off two C size batteries, I was mortified, but I couldn't begrudge my parents as they had very little money. And I managed to wheel and deal my way into a second hand turbo hopper a year later and then a boomerang and porsche 959 later anyway.