Tamiya 1988 "Encyclopedia Catalog"

[markbt73]

A friend of mine recently had to move all his old things out of his childhood home, because his parents are selling it. When he returned, he handed me a bag of goodies he thought I might like: a couple of old model kits, some guitar tablature books, and the 1988 MRC-Tamiya "Encyclopedia Catalog." Not the RC Guidebook; this has everything. All the RC kits, all the 1/24, 1/20, and 1/12 scale car kits, Mini 4WDs (which hadn't yet really become a "thing"), 1/12 and 1/6 scale motorcycles (a LOT of them), a staggering array of military models, tanks, airplanes, 1/350 and 1/700 scale ship kits, the educational series kits... everything they offered for sale in the US in 1988. It's a fascinating thing to go through. 88 pages, mostly full-color, and beautifully put together.

I haven't really had a chance to study it yet, but a few things stand out that are interesting to this crowd: first, the kit numbers are five-digit. Probably the first year they were. Second, they really seem to be pushing the Tamtech kits; they're right at the front of the RC section. And third, for the curious, the newest kit number in it is 58071, the Sonic Fighter, and the "hot new" off-road kit is the Thundershot, shown with the then-new CPR unit installed.

I'll try to get some photos in the next few days. I'm just happy to get a chance to flip through it, and remember just how amazing Tamiya has been over the years.

[markbt73]

Whoops, I take that back: in the descriptions, there is a listing for the Avante (58072), but no photos. Clearly it wasn't ready for prime-time by the time the catalog was published. Or they just wanted to tease people with a one-paragraph description touting the "fastest, outof the box, off-road buggy obtainable."

[KEV THE REV]

I've got quite a few old catalogues / parts spares lists and various advert / fliers , they make great reading / reference . I have one which sounds a lot like the one you are talking about here

[Juggular]

They are cool, aren't they?  I made an effort to collect all 80's stuff, and still I'm missing one.  

I loaned one to a classmate.  He loved it so much, he never gave it back to me.  lol... another Tamiya fan was born.     

 

[Saito2]

I absolutely love these books along with the guidebooks. I've read mine back to back so many times. I loved to see the "mini" versions (the only ones I could afford as a kid) in studio shots, just like their bigger brothers. The 1/35 military models were staggering in number and actually inspired me to do a term paper on their full size counterparts in high school (which I actually got an "A' on, amazing what happens when you're really "into" a subject ). I loved the pages with the military dioramas too. There were different cars like the Honda City that I never knew about here in the US. There were great motorcycles too. I actually bought a Yamaha Virago in my 20's because I saw it in miniature in the Tamiya Encyclopedia Catalog and thought it looked pretty cool (of course, I also owned VW Beetles and Jeeps because of the Monster Beetle and Wild Willy, so no surprise there). One of the best parts was the section after the studio shots that gave small boxart pictures and descriptions of all the models. Like @markbt73 mentioned, some kits weren't quite ready. I have one catalog were there's a sketch of the Midnight Pumpkin instead of a boxart pic above its description.

It was also the Encyclopedias and not the guidebooks that would highlight the hot new RC vehicles that year with a more elaborate full page shot devoted to them. The Clod Buster, Bullhead and King Cab all got this treatment with many others. You could always tell which models Tamiya were pround of or highly touting that year. The year after the Thundershot, we got this beautiful Avante shot:

20191026_172817 by Scott Weiland, on Flickr

and the year after that...

20191026_172913 by Scott Weiland, on Flickr

These two beautiful shots cemented in my mind that the Avante and later the Egress were truly very special, beautiful vehicles. They somehow oozed the feel of quality and matureness. These were no toys.

As a total sidenote, I got this in my first Tamiya RC kit, a Lunch Box, and never in a kit again:

20191026_165312 by Scott Weiland, on Flickr

Its an MRC (Tamiya's US importer back in the day) order sheet for absolutely every spare part they had available with their assigned MRC part numbers. Not as impressive as the MRC parts books, which I could never get my hands on, but still useful to me. It listed all the the cars started at the Rough Rider. I had no idea what a Blazing Blazer or Holiday Buggy looked like. I didn't even know the Sand Scorcher was a baja bug. I had to imagine what all these wonderful sounding buggies looked like. What I was able to do was develop a a cross reference matrix (what can I say, when Tamiya RC is your "special interest", you tend to go overboard as a geeky kid) for the part numbers to determine what the cars must have been like mechanically. I had no idea what an Audi Quattro Rally looked like, but I knew it must be related to the Wild Willy. The Holiday Buggy must have been brothers with the Sand Rover akin to the Grasshopper/Hornet etc.

Thanks for bringing up those memories.

[WillyChang]

"Encyclopaedia"...? Oh is that just an US/MRC invention  never noticed that, learn something new everyday. 

Are the rest of contents same as the usual Japanese version of the same year/cover?

[mongoose1983]

11 hours ago, markbt73 said:

Whoops, I take that back: in the descriptions, there is a listing for the Avante (58072), but no photos. Clearly it wasn't ready for prime-time by the time the catalog was published. Or they just wanted to tease people with a one-paragraph description touting the "fastest, outof the box, off-road buggy obtainable."

Sounds fantastic. Any chance you might share a picture of it? Also... what are the sheetmusic books there?