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TheMidnight Pumpkin

What was the first RC that you ever purchased?

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What was the first RC that you ever purchased?

 

My first purchased RC was (as my username suggests) a Midnight Pumpkin. I was 12 years old and I saved for months to buy it. This was in the late 80's. My second was a Lunch Box. Third was a Blackfoot.

My first ever RC was given to me, and it was a Radio Shack RC quad runner. It was weird in that it had front atv wheels that didn't steer it. They simply worked like swivel caster wheels. The steering came from the rear wheels skid steering like a tank. I still have a couple pieces of it, as when it broke I stripped it to make other toys from the parts. I have a Estes rocket powered car made from pieces of that quad runner as shown in this picture. The rear rocket car wheels are the front wheels from the quad runner RC. Yes that is a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle on the rocket car!  -lol

Rocket_Car_001__WinCE_.jpg.252429f846aeeeaeec6c4e0e3b91d7ca.jpg

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The first I bought was a Nikko Venus 3, my best mate had the original Venus and that turbo thing on the tx was amazing. Before that I had an Apache but don't know the make and that was a present. It was 14th scale so pretty big at the time and prompted my mate to ask for one for xmas and his parents got him the Venus. Mine broke and I saved up for the Venus 3 to replace it.

First hobby grade was a Boomerang which I bought off a mates older brother. That was amazing, it was ball raced and had an esc which was unheard of back then. His older brothers both had Boomerangs but had upgraded to an Ultima and Salute. I hope to buy the matching Boomerang to the one I had but its moved to Australia so probably won't work out.

Does the first second time round count as well? That would be a pair of TT02B Plasma Edge II's which were a huge success and lead to 4 more...and counting

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I'm still very new to RC, having got my first less than a year ago. It started out that my girlfriend wanted an RC car first. We would go on hikes through the woods, and she kept dropping hints like "This would be a neat spot for an RC car". Eventually, I caught on to those hints and encouraged her interest in a new hobby. A bit of looking around, and we discovered Tamiya kits. The first one we got was a Lunchbox.

 

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Just now, Kingfisher said:

I'm still very new to RC, having got my first less than a year ago. It started out that my girlfriend wanted an RC car first. We would go on hikes through the woods, and she kept dropping hints like "This would be a neat spot for an RC car". Eventually, I caught on to those hints and encouraged her interest in a new hobby. A bit of looking around, and we discovered Tamiya kits. The first one we got was a Lunchbox.

 

Why is she still your girlfriend and not your wife or at least fiance by now?!?

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1 minute ago, Jonathon Gillham said:

Why is she still your girlfriend and not your wife or at least fiance by now?!?

We explored that route 12 years ago and equally decided it wasn't for us the day before the wedding. Why take a chance of breaking something that's been working great since the start. 

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The first RC I can remember having was an RC KITT from Knightrider. That was a birthday present when I was about 6.

First hobby grade was a Hornet that I got for Christmas '89.

First kit I bought myself was a Super Sabre, bought after my birthday in the summer of 1990.

Second one I bought was my Blackfoot.

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The first I bought was a second hand TL01 Subaru in December 2015. 

As a kid, I had a Mini Hopper - still got it, boxed and intact, in the loft.

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24 minutes ago, Kingfisher said:

We explored that route 12 years ago and equally decided it wasn't for us the day before the wedding. Why take a chance of breaking something that's been working great since the start. 

Of course you would have a perfectly reasonable answer that also makes my joke look out of place, well played!

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My first was a Mad Bull buggy, bought little over a year ago for beach running. It is a great basher, but not the most precise of models in terms of handling.

So for my next model, I went to the opposite end of the spectrum and bought an F103 formula 1, with no bashing ability whatsoever but razor-sharp handling.

Model number 3 (still under construction) is a DT-03T truck, which is more of a middle path, as it ought to have more precise handling than the Mad Bull, and of course more bashability than the F103.

My long term aim with my fleet is to get one of each broad category of car (touring, mini, wheelie, drift, etc) to see which I like best, then diversify within that category. (So if I find I am really taken with touring cars for example, I'd want to add belt and shaft drive examples, a FWD or two, maybe a couple of vintage ones, and so forth.)

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My first RC was a thing called R101 it looked amazing but was rubbish really! but it still got me hooked!, My first "proper" RC was the ford ranger and I used it to death! Never raced it but because I live only a few miles from the beach it spent most of its life in the sand which was rubbish for the metal parts but good for the body I never had it looking battered or tired always cleaned it and looking good!😀

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57 minutes ago, Jonathon Gillham said:

Of course you would have a perfectly reasonable answer that also makes my joke look out of place, well played!

Sorry, I got the joke. I guess I have answered that question so many times over the years that a reasonable answer just comes naturally.

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My very first R/C car came from BHS - remember them ? - cost about £8.

It was a BMW M1 with forward / reverse turn function only - was fun for about 30 seconds...

Shortly after I bought my 1st proper R/C - Tamiya 58028 Toyota HiLux 4x4.

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First RC I bought for myself was a Tamiya King Cab, bought from my cousin.  I guess everyone grew up around a kid who was famous for breaking his toys, well that kid was my cousin.  I think I paid about £10 for that King Cab back in '92 or '93.  He'd owned it a year, and built it from new.  When I got it, it was pretty much fit for the bin.  It had no shell, no tread on the tyres, and most of the parts were junk.  I bought a random monster truck shell from the local hobby shop, painted it up with the wrong sort of paint so it never looked right, and drove it until it broke.  Which was about a couple of days.

It broke a part every time it drove, literally.  Back in those days, with no hobby shops keeping parts and no Ebay dispatching parts same-day, it was a call to Riko with mother's credit card and a 6 week wait for parts from Japan.

First RC I bought new was a Tamiya Mud Blaster, bought with saved up and birthday money from the local shop.  It was pretty much the cheapest car they had in stock besides a buggy (might have been a Mardave, I don't remember but I didn't like the look of it at all).  After buying the Mud Blaster I wished I'd held out for a buggy instead, as the MB had a tendency to roll over all the time, and that hard shell lasted only a few weeks.

In retrospect, my child experience of Tamiya was of fragile, expensive, hard-to-maintain cars that spent more time in pieces than in use.  It's a wonder I ever got back into the hobby at all, although my adult experience of Tamiya has been much different: I drove my DF03 like I stole it, did things that would have destroyed my childhood cars, and still it kept coming back for more.

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My first RC was a Tamiya Rough Rider, bought in the winter of 1980 at Robin Thwaites, Arundel Street, Portsmouth; I saved for it from my first three months pay (pittance, more like) as a Dockyard Apprentice.

That car went through just about every upgrade available... ball races, diff gear, coil-over shocks, double thickness grp chassis plate, lexan radio box etc. It was the start of an obsession!

Eventually me and my friend Robert joined Portchester Rough Riders (think that was it's name) club, as bashing around the local area became boring.

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I had a couple of toy-grade ones as Christmas presents.  The first 'proper' one (and the first I bought myself) was a Midnight Pumpkin back in 1989.  It had an awful lot of abuse for a few years, but I've still got it, it still has its MSC and headlight bulbs (not LEDs) and it still runs fine.

pumpkin4.jpg

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1989 the Taiyo Jet Hopper. Well, I didn't purchase it, my parents did as I was 9. Used it constantly 

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The first RC in our house was a DF03 Dark Impact bought in 2010 for my son's 11th birthday.  I liked it so much I bought a DB01 Durga, and many cars have followed since then.

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I got my first RC, a MacGregor Digimax 6 "pre owned" for £85 back in early 1979, I fitted it in a RC glider that lasted about a month before it got re-kitted, so  I installed it  in a Tamiya Porsche 935  around summer 1979. This quickly got hopped up to a proper 540 motor and a ballraced rear axle with a fully variable MSC and foam tyres.

It lasted until mid 1980 when it was written off and scrapped after an argument with a kerb at full speed...

Of course it would still be worth a fortune today!!

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My first proper rc was a grasshopper, I can remember going to the shop and drooling over the frog and salesman showing my parents how the suspension works by dropping from head height to the floor😀

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My first R/C was a Grasshopper circa 1985.  That was followed by a Hornet in like '86 after I trashed the 'hopper and that was followed by a Falcon in like '88 because I wanted to race.  I raced it for about a year then took an extended R/C vacation until a few years ago.  I got my son a Grasshopper and myself a Frog.  I think we have like 16 or so different models now.  I really should stop...  :o

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7 hours ago, TurnipJF said:

My long term aim with my fleet is to get one of each broad category of car (touring, mini, wheelie, drift, etc) to see which I like best, then diversify within that category. (So if I find I am really taken with touring cars for example, I'd want to add belt and shaft drive examples, a FWD or two, maybe a couple of vintage ones, and so forth.)

That was my plan, but I'm not able to keep my compulsive purchasing in check so since December 2015 I have amassed 

TL01 Subaru (Bowler project), CC01 Parejo, Hornet, M04 BMW 2002, Hotshot, Wild Willy 2, Wild Willy M38, Dual Hunter (x3), ORV mongrel, M03 Mini, TT01 - bare chassis, TB01 - bare chassis, M chassis dual motor project, HPI Mini Recon

No more, please no more..

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Grasshopper here as well, in the summer of 1986. Followed quickly by a Blackfoot, a Marui Big Bear, a Falcon, a garage-sale-find AYK 566B, and a very beat-up Optima that my neighbor threw in the trash after ramming into one too many curbs.

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Super sabre was my first car probably around 86 or 87. I then got a monster beetle, astute and avante.  A few years after the avante i got an rc10t

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My first R/C was a toy

 

s-l1600.jpg

 

my first r/c was a MantuaModel AMIKA

 

81421d1274952465-mantua-amika-kit-ritorn

 

my first tamiya

 

05615183597164.jpg

 

and my first RC Tamiya... missed in a photobucket's black hole.

 

But I have a lot of video

 

 

 

 

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My first purchase, with my own hard earned cash, was in 87-88 ,a kyosho Ultima, still a beautiful well proportioned car today (re re please! 🤞) 

20160927_192303.jpg

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