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How was your first Tamiya?

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Blimey you folks make me feel like a noob!

Mine was/is a Mad Bull, bought in February of this year. It gets driven around the garden, the park and occasionally at the beach. I bought it after seeing how often it was recommended on this forum as a good beginner's car, and so far I am very happy with it. I see some oil shocks, a steel pinion and a faster motor in its future though.

One day I would like to have a fleet of models like most of the members on here seem to have, but it will be slow going. Unless I win the lottery of course! :)

 

 

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I had a Nissan King Cab.  It was going to be a Midnight Pumpkin, but when I saw the King Cab there was no way I'd settle for the Pumpkin.

My friend had a Blackfoot and my brother had a Monster Beetle.  We'd regularly take the trucks out and race at the local track, and the King Cab got compliments at its ability to handle the track.  A bit unfair to compare it to the ORV chassis trucks but it showed me the benefits of a chassis and suspension designed for more than just bashing.  I ran a faster motor briefly but I was already faster than the other trucks so I kept it stock, which is probably for the best given how much I have since read about the diff causing people grief.

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I remember I saved money for months to have the Boomerang.

I payed it, in 1986, the monstrous amount of 285.000 Italian Lire (148 €) for the car, 139.000 ITL (72 €) for the Acoms MK5 radiogear, 45.000 ITL (23 €) for the charger and 30.000 ITL (15 €) for the battery.
Total amount of 508.000 ITL (263,50 €).

Keep in mind that a very good monthly payment in 1986 was 1.100.000 ITL (570 €). A good payment today in Italy is 1.250 € (2.400.000 ITL) so 570 € in 1986 are like 1.250 € today. Basically I spent almost a half monthly payment of an adult worker and I was only 14 years old.

You can understand how I felt guilty.

I used the Boomerang for a long time with the white bushings consuming them until the arms did touch the inner of the rims and the tires became flat like Formula 1 tires.

Then, after months and months of use and abuse, I bought eight 1150 ball bearings, only for the wheels, because the ball bearings costed, at the time, the amount hot like lava of 8.500 ITL each, so I did spent 64.000 ITL (33,50 €).
The next step was the motor, I mounted a motor called Tech 21 that was (obviously) a 21 turns and 26.000 rpm and a steel pinion gear for the amount of 55.000 ITL (28,50 €). Then the ESC of the Acoms at 130.000 ITL (67,5 €).
In two years I broke many parts but I never bought a spare part (only the body, that is still in the box, and the tires/wheels) but I repaired everything. We did have a different concept in mind in that years.

After two years I passed to a used Vanquish. But this is another story.

Max

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On 6 August 2016 at 6:03 AM, TurnipJF said:

One day I would like to have a fleet of models like most of the members on here seem to have, but it will be slow going. Unless I win the lottery of course! :)

Sometimes I think to myself "I'd hate to be starting a vintage R/C collection now" because it's getting harder to find things. But then other times I see amazing vintage stuff for sale that I am surprised it hasn't been snapped up already :P  So take heart - dedicate a little savings each month, and you could be buying something great every few months, or each year. And the years do roll by very quickly.

As for "first Tamiya" stories...

The first I ever saw, was a Hornet being jumped in the backyard at a dinner party held by some friends of my parents. Their son was a few years older than me, and he and his friends were launching this (seemingly large and powerful) black buggy off a dirt jump. Being younger and not really knowing them, I just watched from a distance. ^_^

Around a year or so later, I was at another Christmas party at a park, where some older kids ran past in a group, all running behind what I think was a Frog, as it blasted along a path.

Some time later I got my first Tamiya - a Hornet - which was given to me. It was really worn out and unpainted, rear wing missing, tyres worn out, and wouldn't run. At the time I also had a tatty, torn copy of a Tamiya catalogue that some kid at school had loaned to me and forgotten about. And this was enough to get started. I learned how to replace the MSC, fix the Tamiya 7.2 Racing Pack it came with, and charge it up. I save up for some new tyres, which were still available at a nearby hobby store. After a few weeks, one morning before school I had the car ready to go - and took it out on the dewey morning grass to give it a proper run. The soft levers of the Acoms radio, but the instant and powerful response of the buggy, were simply amazing.

I am always surprised when people talk about running their cars to death and "having" to change a myriad of parts and fix a ton of breakages. This Hornet was already old, yet I ran it weekly for about 8 years of childhood. Yet I only replaced the plastic bearings once, the MSC once, and another gearbox plastic bearing once. Never thrashed it like some did. I ran it along bitumen roads a few times. But my Dad and I built a backyard racing track, and the Hornet spent almost all of it's time doing lap after lap of that track, on smooth, hard packed dirt.

Another thing was, I actually loved it when something needed to be done to it - it was like a pit stop. Maybe I was too patient or something? As a little kid I had zero money - no regular allowance. Occasionally I'd wrangle some pocket money from doing chores, or get birthday money from relatives. Yet using what little money I had to go to the hobby shop and buy a replacement part, and then fit it to the car, was enormous fun. So much so, I kept every empty Tamiya packet from those parts I bought, and even kept the worn out parts I replaced - just in case they were needed for something later. ;)

In fact, I still have a little set of plastic drawers on my work bench, that I've had since I was a kid in the late 80s. At that time, I barely had anything "Tamiya" - just my  Hornet, and whatever handful of parts of I replaced on it. But it seemed lucky to have any of this stuff, and I couldn't bear to throw a single screw away. So I stored any worn out parts in those drawers, and even labelled them....

NS33saC.jpg

That is literally the MSC my Hornet had come with, which I replaced at one stage in the 80s. The instruction sheet is from the newer MSC that I fitted to the car. I have a rack of 16 other tiny drawers here, just like it, most with leftover/used bits in them.

H.

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1986. Boy was I rough on my first Tamiya.
It was a Hornet, bought from a the local Toyworld. It came with a battery, trickle charger and radio set.
All for the princely sum of $279 AUD. The Frog was 299 at the time, on the shelf next to it. Probably should have got that instead, but I loved my Hornet.
There might be one part somewhere on my current Hornet, somewhere from that original car, ******* if I really know which one it is though.

Over the next few years other Hornets came my way for cheap, parts were replaced, anything and everything, batteries exploded because I was a dopey ****** who didn't have a timer on his charge leads and used a car battery for this task.....

Running the Hornet out the front, into curbs, off curbs, across lawns, over jumps, ahem...under the odd car.

The bodies used to fly apart back then, it ended up with a Grasshopper body on it for a few years.

When I finally got back into the hobby after something like a 15 year Hiatus, after building two new Tamiya Buggies for my boys, I dug out what I could find of the Hornet and got it going again.

My first Tamiya was the hook that got me into all this, I still love it. It's sitting on a shelf in my room looking pretty ok. I did run a Traxxas VXL system in it for a little while.....that was a bit silly, but it handled it.

All mostly standard now, new ESC and different controller.

Salute to my old Hornet.

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Super Champ! Loved it to pieces. Also drove it to pieces after a couple of years. So as soon as the Fighting Buggy came out, I ordered it right away. My brother had a Wild Willy (M38), now I have the successor, the Wild Willy 2 and love that thing.

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The summer of 1989 my parents bought me a Fox for my 8th grade graduation gift.  I had the LHS assemble it and I'll never forget when I walked in and saw it sitting there all fresh and new.....it was great especially knowing that it was mine!  Over the next few years I added a Lunchbox (my first kit assembly), Blackfoot, and a Hilux Monster Racer.  Unfortunately I no longer have any of these.

After being out of R/C for a long time, the Tamiya bug bit me again in January after I saw all of the re-releases.  I would love to have my cars back in re-released form....really hate that I missed the Novafox because I have searched ebay and the buy it now prices are crazy for these.

Currently I have : RC10 Classic, Re-re Hotshot.

Coming Soon : Clodbuster, Blackfoot, Lunchbox.

Wish List : Novafox, Hilux racer, RC10T

This is getting expensive but man is it fun to relive the past Tamiya style !

 

Rob

 

 

 

 

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I feel like I've told this story a hundred times lol. Aug. 20th, 1985. My 12th birthday. Dad takes me to the hobby store (previous to RC, I was an avid static modeler). I see a Hornet and Grasshopper on the shelf and immediately fall in love. Then I see the price tag. Dad reassures me that I had received straight A's in school, so it's ok to get one. The Hornet just called to me. It appeared cooler and more sophisticated (whatever that means to a 12yo boy) so that's the one I asked for. Spent 2 days meticulously building the kit and then painting and stickering the body. Finally, my gorgeous black buggy is ready for it's first run! I go out to the front stoop, turn the buggy on, and imediately realize my mistake. I had not turned the transmitter on. It was a millisecond of dread, and then the buggy shoots forward. i manage to trap it with my foot to keep it from screaming away, but alas, this burns out the resistor. All of 2 seconds of fun, gone up in smoke. Dad takes me back to the hobby store to be told it'll take 2 weeks for the resistor to come in. It was the longest 2 weeks of my life!

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My First car was the Striker, I lived in New Zealand at the time and my Father went to Australia for the 88' Expo. He asked if I wanted him to bring anything back, All I wanted was an RC Car :D

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As a kid I went into the model shop every Saturday and stood there staring at the huge Tamiya kit boxes.  They were a million miles away from the reach of my pocket money though.  I had a couple of toy-grade RC's which were great, but it wasn't until I had my own full-time job in 1989 that I bought myself a proper one.  As I walked into the shop I suspected that I was probably too old for 'toys' by then, but I still wanted a Lunchbox.  I'd never seen one running or even built up, it was just the pic on the box that did it.  Weird then that I walked out with a Midnight Pumpkin instead...

It was everything I'd dreamed of and more.  I loved it.  When it got battered (it never actually broke) I'd buy parts for it and make it like new again.  I still have it and it still runs fine, even down to the headlight bulbs (not LED's).  I'll never get rid of it.  I finally got my first Lunchbox last year.

pumpkin4.jpg

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It started when I saw my friends Brat in 1987, so fast and looked cool, he gave me the controller and I was hooked!!  It took awhile to save up, eventually went to a LHS later that year and saw the Blackfoot - SOLD!!  Building it was an experience that will never be forgot, thankfully my buddy with the Brat helped me out sorting the MSC and radio gear.  Had fun with it and made the trip to the LHS and I saw the Monster Beetle on display and a kid behind the shop was racing one (got the racing bug - no pun intended).  Well, bought a Monster Beetle with a few hopups a week later and sold my Blackfoot to my cousin.  My cousin and I raced and bashed our trucks weekly and breaking everything imaginable.

In 1990, we saw two of the coolest trucks we have yet seen fly around the track with ease, a Kyosho Outlaw ST and the King Cab and like they say "the rest is history".  He went with Kyosho and I stayed with Tamiya.  My cousin GAVE the Blackfoot back to me and we had one of the most fierce rivalries on the track (good ol' days)!  My avatar pic is from 1992.

I still have my first three trucks in my collection and featured in TC showroom..

Blackfoot thread  - http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.asp?cid=61532&sid=14859

Monster Beetle - http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.asp?cid=61431&sid=14859

King Cab - http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.asp?cid=61314&sid=14859

fSWCc0.jpg

i6equ.jpg

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My first kit was a Hot Shot II and I think it must have been late 1987 - it was the birthday and Christmas combined present (we like most other families at that time were poor).

I loved that car it saw a lot of action and never really had too many issues - I remember there was one parts tree which I did have to buy now and again, possibly one of the wishbones? But it was not expensive.

Eventually I progressed to a Schumcher CAT and I think the Hotshot was given away by my mum when I was at Uni (I did say she could). I'm sure it provided loads of joy to whoever got it and I'd like to think it's still going today. I think the Schumacher may have also been given away.

I've recently come back to RC with a CC01 Unimog which I built with my daughter. I felt the need to buy another buggy and picked up a Cat K1 Aero (with race spec electronics) - the speed today compared to the stuff we raced back then is rediculous !! It's taken a real bashing and is proving expensive with all the fancy carbon parts and rediculous tire wear - still a lot of fun though hitting a jump at 50-60kmh or drifting around street corners. I'm considering buying another to keep in good condition and only use on carpet or astroturf.

My return to RC seems to have kicked off others in the village - we now have 3-4 cars running in the evenings here which is great! My niece visited (she is eight) and loved the Unimog so much that I've been asked to build her something for Christmas...so I'm thinking what to do for her. Maybe the pink Neo Scorcher? Or the TT02B MS version? Or another CC01? Whatever it will be I'm looking forward to it.

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I've probably told this a few times and I mentioned a bit in my Tamiyaclub profile but here goes:

I first heard about real (ie buildable) RC kits in High School in the late 80's. One friend lived on a station and had a Monster beetle which he often spoke about and another had a Marui Big Bear and ran it on the Menindee lakes beach. I listened with wonder and started buying the Aussie Dirt & Track magazine plus the US RC Car Action. Making my mind up about which was to be my first was extremely difficult but a lot of fun. I decided "definitley" it was going to be a Lunch Box or Clod Buster or Mad Cap or King Cab or Midnight Pumpkin or Fox or Monster Beetle or... the list goes on :rolleyes:. Anyway I settled on a Mud Blaster, saved all my pocket money, had it all ready to spend on a trip to Adelaide in 1990 then the local paper had a For Sale ad: Avante. That one name changed my mind like a light switch. Here was a chance to own a Tamiya I could only dream of affording before. So it was pretty much bought before I even went and saw it. It was really rough, had lived a long life and needed a lot of attention but who cares it was still an Avante with a Technigold motor plus controller. So I parted with $400 cash which was an astronomical amount of money to me back then and I had my first Tamiya. 

I had a lot of fun with the Avante but I also spent a huge amount of time just keeping it running. The MSC was so worn out it needed a rubber band around it to keep the switch in contact with the board. I sold it for a song and a Chilli peppers CD about a year later. If I ever see my old friend who bought it again I'll ask him what happened to it.

Someone needs to give me a good kick :lol: I was just thinking tonight how if I had the patience to keep it I could have fixed it up by now and still had one more thing from my childhood to cherish. 

I'm hoping to get hold of a 2011 example one day, but I can't afford to at the moment. 

 

Edited by Novastar
added text
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On 5/8/2016 at 5:44 AM, Tamiya Era said:

My First Tamiya was the Vanquish. That was in 1993

Now it is upgraded to Hop-Ups.

Vanquish was my second Tamiya.

After a couple of years of fidelity to the Boomerang I got bored of the technical limitations of the model. The Thunder Shot had overpassed the Boomerang and my sloppy and worn out model was paying its age, its use and its design. The front end was a disaster with the outer ends of the lower arms scraping the inside of the wheels, the steering that did not respond adequately, slow and limited, and the top speed that was a dim memory of the original. The new desing of the Thunder Shot seemed a good solution and, at the era, we all had no the state of mind to buy parts and spares or replace the worn out parts. So I tryed to modify my front arms and I cutted one of the lower arm to accomodate a Thunder Shot C-hub. The experiment failed and I ruined an arm so I retired the Boomerang. After three year I decided to resume it so I went to the model shop to buy the spare arms.

At the model shop I met a guy that was selling his Vanquish but the shop refused to buy the used car. The touring era was approaching and the buggies were getting old. Vanquish, for me, always had been a mythical model on the Tamiya catalogues so I left the shop chasing the guy in the street and I bought his car that was in excellent conditions with a Technigold installed. I payed it something similar to 35€ if I remember well. I did come back to the shop with the Vanquish in my arms, I bought the Boomerang spare arms, I repaired the Boomerang, I definitely retired it for the shelf and started with new energy on my new Tamiya, the second one.

Max

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My first Tamiya was an Avante 2001, great car until the next neighbour drove over it and damaged the front carbon damper plate. The spares for the model in the UK were very limited and expensive so the option was to buy a brand new kit and use it as spare parts. I'd worked hard and saved enough to get another kit; the funny thing was that at that time my friend who was visiting Japan at the time bought me an Egress because he thought it shared the same chassis with upgraded components so I got a rather good bonus. I still have both cars today except that the Avante 2001 still needed TLC whilst the Egress I think is still in a reasonable good condition (stored away since secondary/college days); so I think a good clean up, some new lubrications and radio checks may get the Egress up and running in no time. Of course now I have my new love; the TRF419X with the NSX and the Subaru BRZ R7D Sport 2014 Rd.2 Fuji body kits in preparation, I just might start maintaining my old cars too.  

Edited by Totoro
typos and spellings
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i never owned a new tamiya....

i was hooked on tamiya when my friend got a monster beetle and brought it to school as a show and tell type thing (c. 1989)

so being poor i started with a hotshot (i think) as it defo had the rear engine cage (which i thought was yellow) and the bend up battery holder on the side BUT i don't remember it only having the single front shock. 

then i sold it and bought a clod buster 4x4x4 and remember having issues with the wheels tearing up the hubs and having to modify them

then i eventually sold that and bought a terra scorcher which i fitted a dynatech was may fave model by far but the gear box died so easily

then i had a 20yr lay up until i requested my first new kit - lunchbox re-re for xmas and i was like a school boy again

JJ

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I had a Hornet for my 10th birthday in 1986. I absolutely loved it, when I got home from school my parents had me alittle party and there was my Hornet sat on a shelf by the window in menacing black and no decals. My Dad had the shop build it and it was all charged ready to go with a Futaba Attack control. 

The next morning I was up at 5.30am on a school day stickering it up before school. I loved it, bashed it, wore the rear tyres down regularly and even took it to school as there were a handful of kids getting them at that time and we used to bash them at break time. Even made a chest to store it and the controller in in woodworking class. I had many memories with the Hornet, the dog used to chase it around the garden, every now and then he'd just catch the spoiler and it would flip up into the air!

2 years later I upgraded to a Turbo Optima on my 12th bday, the lhs had one in black with a double red pin stripe and I fell in love with it. Of course after the Hornet the Kyosho was so fragile, it broke the front upright virtually every run, it was a precision race tool not a basher but back then you thought dearer meant better in every way, it was frustrating to own, it was fast, handled amazingly but couldn't take any knocks or bigger jumps. In the end I craved the reliability of the Tamiya after the Hornet and swapped it at school with a guy who had a HotShot II complete with Technigold motor and 8.4v battery, that thing flew, quicker than the Optima and way more robust. 

In 1990 I got a Manta Ray which was the first RC I built myself, followed later on with a clod buster and MP in pieces which I bought from a friend cheap. Sold the lot to fund a motorbike at 16, except the Hornet which was stolen a few years earlier :( I believe by the son of a family friend grr.

In 1996 I revisited with a jgtc Supra TA02, then a year later an Imoreza WRC TA03F. Then later around 2002 went through a nitro phase then a fighter buggy RX for myself and missus closely followed by a pair of Mad Bulls later ebayed. Then another break until buying a Dual Hunter in about 2009 iirc. Next a WT01 Mud Blaster II in 2012 (my first introduction to Lipo and Brushless :) ) when we got my sons Mad Bull and then that xmas I was properly hooked again with a Jun Hornet and Lunchbox, now I'm upto 30+ odd Tamiyas!

 

 

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On 25/08/2016 at 8:09 PM, Novastar said:

started buying the Aussie Dirt & Track magazine

Remember how great it was when you went to the magazine stand at the newsagent, and found there was a new copy of Dirt & Track? It only came out bi-monthly from memory...

On 25/08/2016 at 8:09 PM, Novastar said:

I had a lot of fun with the Avante but I also spent a huge amount of time just keeping it running. The MSC was so worn out it needed a rubber band around it to keep the switch in contact with the board. I sold it for a song and a Chilli peppers CD about a year later.

Love RHCP, but man... that's gotta be tough to look back on.

 

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