Cars you once enjoyed but now don't

[Saito2 6678]

There have been cars I bought and love to this day. There have been ones I never "clicked" with and then there are those I did enjoy but now don't anymore. How about you? I can think of several that I just went cold on.

Frog. The Frog was the first re-release buggy I got back in the day (seems like yesterday). I happily assembled it and was promptly surprised at how bouncey it was out of the box. After all, this was supposed to be a popular racer, mixing it up with Scorpions in the pre-RC10 days. I loved it anyway. The girlfriend at the time had a Hornet and the two of us would go out every weekend and race around ball diamonds back then. Something changed and the Frog's been on the shelf for 5 years now. I think when I got my Nova Fox, I kinda liked it more. More refined but not perfect. I hope to get back into the Frog someday.

The Hot Shot. I drove a re-release Hot Shot everywhere back when it came out. This one's use trailed off as soon as I got a Super Shot runner. I still love the Hot Shot and it gets occasional use but the Super Shot is just tops.

Madcap. This buggy drove like a dream. Its one of my first Tamiyas to crack apart and turn to dust. Its retired on the shelf now

Dirt Thrasher. I got this one NIB and it too crumbled while in my care. I keep them in climate controlled areas away from UV light, but this one just split apart bit by bit like the used Madcap. Its a parts car for my Top Force now.

Lunch Box. This one reeeaallly hurts to admit. This is the one that started me in Tamiya and I still love it more than anything. One of the downsides of driving any vehicle for over 30 years is it becomes predictable, even a Lunchie. I've had a LB in just about every terrain and scenario possible at this point. I know exactly where its handling limits are and can drive right up to the edge of them without much thought. I still get one out every once in a while just to enjoy the sight of it in motion. I still love it. Driving it just isn't a thrill anymore.

[Wooders28 4720]

I got a frog as a first car (first time around...👴), bounced it off a few curbs, took it to a track, gearbox fell to bits. Would like a re release,  but would need to build the gearbox to be strong.

Bigwig - wanted one bitd, got an original before the re release, it was just 🤷‍♂️, sold it.

Rough rider - again , one I wanted bitd, but didn't handle, and again,  didn't light the fire so, sold it.

HPI Savage - good fun truck, but as with all nitro cars, attracted too much attention, and couldn't run it at the local BMX track on the way home off nightshift! , sold it.

Mauri Ninja's / Coors thunderbird - cracking looking car (ninja), but really hard to get parts (hence 3 complete chassis), made 1 out of the 2 ninja's (build thread on here) 

Monster Beetle - Same frog gearbox woes, solid body and high centre of gravity don't mix... sold it

Kyosho Maxxum - was really nose heavy, sold for more money than my interest in it.

Mardave Meteor - had great plans for full resto etc, it just sat , sold it

Some cars are like pack animals, they come alive when there's more than one running at a time, the lunchbox is one of those, handling etc doesn't matter when when all the pack handle bad, it just fun! 

[markbt73 5311]

Not so much specific cars, just aspects of the hobby that I don't enjoy any more...

1. Racing. There's an indoor carpet off-road track not too far from my house. They have open practice on Monday nights. Sounds like a great place to go exercise some vintage cars without getting them dirty, right? But somehow, while the idea sounds good, I have no interest in actually going. Trying to decide what to bring, packing it all up, driving all the way there, having to deal with both the Traxxas yobbos and the "serious" racers trying to actually "practice" for the next club race... I just can't. Been there, done that...

2. Speaking of getting cars dirty: I used to have a pattern when I finished a restoration of an old car. Take it outside, take some nice stills of it when it's nice and clean, then drive it around for a pack, get some good action shots of it, write a blog post about it, and then retire it to the shelf, dirt and dust and all. Somehow I thought... I don't know what I thought. It seemed cool at the time. Most of them have been subsequently cleaned up, but there are still some dirty cars on my display shelves, and I don't like it, but it's just too much trouble to tear them down and clean everything. I have a couple of cars that have not been run at all since being built or rebuilt, and I can't bring myself to run them, because then they'll be dirty too, and I won't feel like cleaning them.

3. Scratch-building: I'm very proud of the Land Rover I built, but it took me four years. During that time, I've started a couple of other builds, and completely lost interest in them. Unfortunately, I also bought a LOT of parts for those builds... which is why I'm sorting through it all and planning on selling most of it. But there are still a couple of scratch builds I really do want to tackle eventually, and if I can pull them off, they'll be amazing. But I need to get rid of everything else that keeps pulling my focus away from those.

[SuperChamp82 743]

Frog - for all the reasons above

Hotshot - again ...

Cat XLS - pita to build with old failings unfixed / ‘never meet your heroes’

X Maxx - fun but repetitive with no soul 

All sold 🙄

[Mad Ax 9306]

Good thread

Frog (ish).  I bought a re-re Brat when they first appeared, but I actually wanted a Sand Scorcher, so I used the Brat body on a CC01 project and built the Brat chassis with re-re Grasshopper wheels and tyres and a Kamtec Baja body.  Actually it might have had a very old matt black Monster Beetle body on it to start with.  I ran it with a Super Stock BZ and it was absolutely insane.  In fairness the gearbox never gave me trouble and actually the whole car was very reliable, even if it was impossible to drive.  Then it started to drop the front axles, like the re-res do.  At some point I took the motor and electrics out for something else and it's never gone back together since.  In fact I don't even know where it is.  I'm sure I haven't sold it, so it must be up in a box somewhere.  I think I cannibalised it for a few other parts.  It's a shame I don't go to gravel / beech bashes anymore because it was an absolute hoot on dust and sand.

Hotshot.  I had a very well-used original Hotshot back in the early '90s.  Well, I say "original", it was given to me as a box of bits including front and rear gearbox, suspension and wheels, and a chassis made from FRP bottom and sides.  It had a Fox body.  Front and rear shocks were both banana'd and cracked, and most of the other parts were toast too.  It wasn't really repairable without a lot of new parts.

Anyway, come the re-re, I felt I had to have one, to know what I had missed out on all those years ago even if it was just to build and shelf.  I didn't want to run something so fragile.  Sure enough, I built it, ran it once, and those beautiful shocks had started to banana.  So it was retired to the shelf to look cool.

Fast-forward around 5 years, and I wanted to enter in the 2015 Iconic Revival.  The only eligible car I had was the Hotshot.  So I stuck in a brushless motor and some modern tyres and turned up on race day, a 4 hour drive away, with no entry.  The organisers were kind enough to find me a spot.  I went out with the Hotshot and stripped the spur gear in the first heat.  I hadn't mounted the pinion properly and it had chewed its way through the teeth.  Nobody had any spares, but there was just enough meat left on the spur for me to re-mount the pinion and go out again in the second heat.  Surprisingly, it held up.  More surprisingly, it lasted all the way to the final.  More surprisingly, I got 3rd place in the D final.  The Hotshot D final was the first final to run, so I had to hang around for another 2 hours to wait for racing to finish before I could collect my trophy, and then felt obliged to hang around for another hour while the rest of the trophies were presented.  I got home way later than planned that night, and it ranks as one of my fondest RC memories.

Well, anyway, I continued to run the Hotshot at bashes and at the next year's Revival, after which the front shock was in real bad shape.  I figured it was best to convert to a 4-shock arrangement, so I ordered the Radshape conversion.  Then I couldn't find a good set of shocks to fit.  I finally have Turnigy shocks installed, but it's a few years down the line and it's never been reassembled or run.  The Turnigys have the right length but I'm not sure they have sufficient stroke.  I don't know if I'll be able to tune them for the Hotshot's weight.  Plus I don't think the Radshape conversion is eligible in the Hotshot class rules at the Revival.  Since nobody is running proper bashes any more down my way, I doubt it will get much more running.

Traxxas E-Revo 1/16 VXL.  This was a big purchase with a cash windfall around 10 years ago.  I loved it.  But the Traxxas-branded NiMHs didn't last long before they started giving me trouble.  I cut into the battery tray so it would accept a little soft-case 2S LiPo that I had been using in my SRB, which solved the problem, but unfortunately those LiPos puffed and were disposed of quite some time ago and since I no longer use that size in anything else I haven't bothered to replace them.  So that's a really fun basher sitting on my shelf that I can't drive because I don't have any batteries that fit.

Traxxas E-Maxx.  This was a used purchase from a friend.  I'd wanted one for a very long time but it was way out of budget.  I used to borrow his all the time.  Well, around 2 years ago he was having a clear-out, and he desperately needed a new office chair.  I was getting rid of an expensive office chair because it wouldn't fit me.  So we did a deal.

A week later I took it out for its maiden run.  Being sensible, I decided to run it on 4S, not the full 6S that it was capable of.  It was epic, awesome, superb, righteous and fantastic.  And then the ESC went critical and caught fire.  I'd had to use long flyleads to get my Deans-equipped LiPos to fit the Traxxas-equipped Castle Creations ESC.  I didn't know about back-EMF then.  I didn't know that long flyleads are a bad idea on a high-power brushless speedo.  I managed to blow the capacitors, which in turn shorted out and fried the entire speedo.  It got hot enough that the solder on the main power lead melted, which was probably the only thing that stopped my LiPos going critical and setting fire to the entire chassis.

I replaced the Castle Creations with a Hobbywing ESC.  I test-drove it a few times and it seems just as fast as it was before, but I don't know, ever since that first run I've been a bit scared of the same thing happening again.  That's a heap load of money to lose if the ESC burst into flames...

TXT-1.  I didn't get this truck when I bought it.  I couldn't really figure out what it was for.  It wasn't fast, and wouldn't take a fast motor.  But it was too imprecise to go slow.  It looked great but never really seemed to do anything.  Then I swapped out the TXT axles for Clod axles and threw on a 14.4v HPI speedo and suddenly it all made sense.  Basically it was an overweight Mod Clod.  In stock trim it was way to short and would do 360 degree flips off the throttle.  I stuck on some longer 4-links and for about a week it was great.  Then all my NiMHs died at about the same time.  I remember travelling an hour to a bash only to find none of my cars would run.  That was probably the low point of my adult RC enthusiasm.  Eventually it triggered the switch to LiPo from which I've never looked back, but the heavy old TXT was the worst affected of the NiMH cars and somehow when everything else got new speedos that one got overlooked.  I suppose the cost of a LiPo-safe 4S speedo put me off.  The Clod axles found themselves on a different chassis and the TXT languishes in a box of junk, untouched and unloved for a very long time.  I'll rebuild it one day, although I've already cannibalised the shocks and links for something else, so I'll have to buy new parts and make new links.

Wild Dagger.  Wow, they keep coming, don't they?  Mine started life as a Blackfoot Extreme, bought used on here with a Cross Tiger body on it.  I bought a second gearbox and a metal chassis that would house two NiMHs.  I put in a used 14.4v speedo and 550 motors.  I added giant stick HoBao Monster tyres, which needed axle wideners to fit.  But somehow, the more work I did to that truck, the worse it got.  Every run I would find a weakness somewhere else.  I think in the end I just got sick of it and sold the chassis on.  Shame, as it was a gorgeous chassis.  I still have a couple of gearboxes and enough random parts to build another, and it's been on my list to do for years and years.  This time it'll probably be silvercans on 3S.  That's about as much as a Dagger chassis wants.  Then I just have to hope there are some bashes where I can give it the run it deserves.

TBH I could go on and on, but I think I've been here long enough already...

[Badcrumble 4201]

I’m still (relatively) new to this hobby so this is more ‘projects I once enjoyed and now don’t’ as I still enjoy the cars I have managed to get running - TL01 with Bowler body, stock Wild Willy 2, two stock Dual Hunters. Then an XV-01T is built but not yet run.

M04 BMW 2002 - I struggled to get stealth mounts to fit and hold the body on this car. It would vibrate like crazy and the the rear arches would rub. Lifting the body makes it look wrong. Then I crashed it and had to strip it to make sure the servo is OK and replaces the cracked hexes. I’m still cross with it so it is bits despite me buying a gyro. Now the front windscreen has picked up a scratch so I’m even more hacked off.

Frog - I bought a couple of used chassis and started buying parts. Got most of it together but I haven’t got the hardware clean properly yet and I need to print off an original manual to see what is missing. When I can muster the energy - too many more fun projects in the way.

M03 / M04 Minortaur - chassis all done. Stuck on the body. Three quarters prepped but a small mistake needs fixing and then I have to mount and paint it. I average on painting day a year so I reckon it might get finished in 2021...or not.

In the meantime the in progress/need restoration/NIB pile includes another Dual Hunter (building with my son), a scratch-build tractor, GCM Skeleton Jeep, M04 Giulia, Agrios, TL01.5 pick-up, M03 Mini, (trashed) M03 Monte Mini and I’m sure there’s plenty more in bits....

[Saito2 6678]

I'll add the Twin Detonator to the list. I liked it when I got it but grew bored with it over time. Much like @Mad Ax, I found more and more weaknesses as I upped the power. The plastic bosses on the gearbox that mount them to the chassis broke off regularly. The drivecups wore out. The knuckles stripped at the kingpin step screws. Since it lacked any caster (due to the nature of its twin gearbox, symmetrical design), its steering/handling felt un-natural and awkward. I keep trying over and over because I felt, in concept, it should be fun. Others loved them, just not me.

I've also fell out of love with the Blitzer chassis. Its too balanced and steady to be wild fun like a Wild Willy 2. Its not razor sharp, like a true race truck. It lacks the go-anywhere ground clearance of a monster truck. I've also grown out of the "tires hanging out past the wheel wells/slammed truck body look of stadium trucks like the RC10T that the Blitzer was initially meant to emulate back in the early 90's. Cool to me then, not so much today. Like most plastic Tamiyas, when one starts upping the power levels to get more fun out of it, it wears out or breaks prematurely. I've accepted most Tamiyas aren't really built for that and should be enjoyed within their parameters. If I don't like it in those limits, its just not for me.  

I have to get this stuff on Ebay. I'm too sentimental about this stuff and its burying me. My late father ordered the Blitzer (its actually a Stadium Thunder specifically, but they're all Blitzer chassis too me) for me way back in the day so I hold onto it. Still, this overabundance has to go.

[moffman 5747]

My first tamiya was the Ford ranger back when it was released in the very early 80s and I loved and used it to death countless bodies black motor endurance in it  it eventually died after countless times on the local beaches were I used to live

My second was the hot shot never got on with it God knows how many upper and lower arms I kept on snapping it ended up sitting next to my used to death ranger but I only had it less than a year the ranger was about 4 years old by then!

3rd car was the boomerang don't ask me why but that had more club wins than any of my cars I've had to date and no broken upper/lower arms🤔 then I had to grow up and job, family, mortgage empty pockets role on to the present day and I decided to buy the re-re boomerang and paint it like my original as a homage but it just wasn't the same so I sold it 

Monster beetles, blackfoot, sand scorcher, avante, kyosho optima and turbo optima, cat xls, topcat all in my rc garage today and love every one of them just a shame the boomerang can't be amongst them!

[Shodog 1835]

For me it’s two vehicles.  First is my full option Pershing tank. Spent a ton of time building and detailing. Once I ran it for a bit I was utterly bored. Maybe if I had another tank to battle with it I might think differently

second is my High Lift. I loved this truck with the MFU. Once I bought a SCX10.2 and a TRX 4 I realized just how poor it’s performance was. 

[SuperChamp82 743]

At the risk of becoming (again) controversial, does this thread risk becoming a bit depressing ?

Regrets - I’ve had a few ? Yes. Probably all of us 🙄

And provided we focus on fun along the way it all balances out right ?

Dwelling on irritating detail ? 

Not sure 🤔

[RCvet 63]

Kyosho Big Brute, fondest memories as a kid tearing it up everywhere.  Took it on vacations, the track, the yard and loved it.  I have acquired a nice one to restore and starting to go thru it, but it's just not the same.  I think we just get older and that is life.  With benefit of hindsight a Traxxas Stampede is better in every way but that can't take away the joy I had as a kid with it but as they say, you can't go back.  

 

[Saito2 6678]

9 hours ago, SuperChamp82 said:

At the risk of becoming (again) controversial, does this thread risk becoming a bit depressing ?

The original intent was to investigate changing taste as we age. Just another probe into human behavior, lol. But, you're right. As the thread rolls on, it starts to border on depressing. Oops. You never know what'll come out from discussion topics . Still, some good stories here.

[Jonathon Gillham 4605]

Kyosho Ultima RB6.6, but thats because I can't drive!

I'm lucky, I have a modest fleet and they all have their place and will stay. The worst to drive are the Novafox and Boomerang but they hold their own on our backyard track. If I expected more from them they would have been sold by now.

[tamiya_1971 614]

I was pumped when I bought an X-Maxx. Now I look at the price of lipos that it requires and it's too big of an investment for something that can just "puff up" at any given moment, no matter how well I believe I treat my batteries. 8s is too freaking fast for any RC (6s is so much better with an RC this size). I get no enjoyment from overpowered RCs. This will be going on the sale block soon.

I had a re-release Kyosho Scorpion last year, sold that. I liked the look, but I haven't ever been a huge fan of Kyosho cars.

RC10T- was excited to get this, great deal on it, but realized I didn't have the same excitement I did with it when I used to race them. So that was sold too.

Duratrax DX450 Motorcycle. I don't know why I thought this would be great, I had difficulty controlling it. It had it's cool things it did, but you couldn't play with it in tight places.

AYK Pro Radiant. Had this back around 1991 or 92. I could never get it set up correctly. I barely ran it and sold it after a few months. Wish I still had it though.

There aren't too many Tamiyas that I can say I never enjoyed. I've sold numerous Tamiyas over the years, but only due to needing the cash (college), or just thinking that I was finished with the hobby.

 

[DrewZ 188]

Kyosho Raider. Mine could be a decent runner with oil filled shocks and some decent tires, but I would rather spend that money on another used Tamiya model.

[njmlondon 570]

Great post... made me think. A lot of time, effort and cash has been spent to discover that I did not really want to own the following:

Sand Scorcher - had one when I was a kid. when I discovered TC back on 2002 I actually did not want one. I wanted a 959. But when the re-re came out I had to get one. The 80's handling never bothered me but I found the ungainly steering set up relying on double sided sticky tape to be both ineffective and more importantly, an engineering bodge-job which does not sit well with me. SOLD

959 - the dream car I wanted just before I discovered beer and girls and 1:1 cars. It bought me back to the hobby and was a joy to build. It looked awesome flat out on a perfect beach, until the front suspension broke for no reason whatsoever. Too delicate for my taste. SOLD

King Tiger - spent a forutne on it and several years and made it awesomely prototypical... i.e it was incredibly slow and broke down a lot. SOLD

 

[DK308 219]

Lunchie.

 

I won't ever part with it, but I can't say I enjoy driving it. It has a special place in my heart, but it does spend most of its life on the shelf.

 

Other than that, I think I'm pretty good at not getting rc's I won't use.

[Palfertronic 74]

Astute...i bought mine back in 1990, it was my 2nd RC car...very intensive to build, straight line speed was great, but didnt really corner at all...and keeping it running was a nightmare....got scrapped in 1994...of course it would be worth a fortune now!

[aynar 29]

My first kit was the original bigwig  -- loved it, gave it to a friend when I moved away. Dunno why, but I now have no desire to get the rere. Used to lust after the avante as well, but not anymore...

Conversely, I wasn't too fussed about the terra scorcher and dirt thrasher back in the day, but I now rank the bodyshell style as one of my favourites (I prefer the df01 chassis so DT edges out TS a bit). Same with the egress, bear hawk/mad fighter and super sabre

[graemevw 823]

I guess for me it is ORV cars. Had a monster beetle but it never really drove like i wanted it to.

I bought a brat rere and a blackfoot rere and build a sort of hybrid with tlt wheels and a load of other mods. It looks great and goes pretty well, but the tlt tyres have no grip and the steering is poor even with a high torque servo.

I think ill probably convert it to a racing frog.

The truck would no doubt be great on loose dirt, but ive nowhere like that to run.

The orv cars just never seem to live up to the promise of their looks, but maybe im just expecting too much from them.

[berman 5315]

Carson Forklift. I dunno if I have ever really enjoyed this thing. It's slow to operate, doesn't have the turning of a real forklift, it needs a lot of modification to be useable.

Wild One, nothing wrong with it, I just don't use it anymore. Used to be a regular at the beach, so did I, now neither of us go. 

CC01, used to use this regularly, now it is on display in my LHS (along with my leopard 2a6, and Scania).

 

[Rb4276 803]

3 hours ago, graemevw said:

I guess for me it is ORV cars. Had a monster beetle but it never really drove like i wanted it to.

I bought a brat rere and a blackfoot rere and build a sort of hybrid with tlt wheels and a load of other mods. It looks great and goes pretty well, but the tlt tyres have no grip and the steering is poor even with a high torque servo.

I think ill probably convert it to a racing frog.

The truck would no doubt be great on loose dirt, but ive nowhere like that to run.

The orv cars just never seem to live up to the promise of their looks, but maybe im just expecting too much from them.

I agree with the orv cars, i had a monster beetle as a kid with thorp diff and all. Loved it as a “monster truck”, it was quick with various motors i had in it. 
Then i got a re re a few years ago. I was excited to go back 30 yrs but what i realized no matter how much i threw into it  the truck plain ole sucked. Steering, top heavy and suspension. Basically you name it and it just was not good.  I sold it last winter for 1/2 of what i put into it and i am perfectly fine without it. 

[Busdriver 6209]

Only back to the hobby for the last year. So luckily I haven't fallen out of love with anything, having said that thought by now I wold have tried to replace my first car a scorcher. I loved it at the time but now I don't think I'll bother.

[Pablo68 1049]

Hmmm, I can't think of anything I have currently that fits the bill (OP).

Back in the day though I did get a Monster Beetle cause I just thought it looked awesome. I really didn't know much about the ORV chassis's back then but I found out soon enough that slapping that body and those large wheels onto the ORV chassis was not entirely a good idea.
I spent far more time working on that chassis than running it. Those god damned infernal hex drive shafts. I wore so many out. Perhaps others never had an issue with them, but I did.
 

After having the darn thing for several months I sold it to a work mate for not a lot.

Now jump forward however many years it was from 1988/9 to when the re-re came out. I have one and it's been a beaut really. A lot of that is down to me having learned a lot in that intervening time period about RC cars. My current MB has TRF shocks (they fix everything), Center steering, AMPRO rear wishbone set up and a HW brushless set up.
It's a lot of fun to drive now, pretty durable and ridiculously top heavy still.

Not out of love with but I do have several chassis that I have to finish working on and I keep procrastinating.
Falcon-paint and stickers
Marui Hunter-ditto
Sand Scorcher resto-too scared to attempt masking and painting the body
Kyosho Scorpion resto-just about everything
There's probably more but what the hey.

[ThunderDragonCy 7873]

It was the lunchbox and my Top Force Evo type build for my. Lunchbox was something i wanted since i was a kid, but it was such a floppy, tippy over disappointment. Couldn't mod it to make it work either, so sold it. My Comical Hornet is waaaaaay better to drive, and just as silly. 

My Terra Conqueror Evo project was awesome to build, but so dull to drive, and was sold. My mistake was not understandibg gearing, and it was running stock gearing on 13.5 with nimh. With lipo, a better esc and hotter motor or the speed tuned gearing i am sure it would be fun, but at the time it was really disappointing.