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3speeder

The tamiya I never had and didn't know I loved!

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Just picked up my very first wild willy.  I remember these when I was younger but never had a chance to drive one or even see one in person.  I stumbled onto one local that was clean for a great deal and was ready to drive with vintage futaba radio gear.  I brought it home pulled the gear boxes apart just to make sure nothing was being destroyed and ran it.  So much fun, so many cool details and with the stick futaba radio its perfect.  My plan is to just clean it up a bit, repaint willy and use it as my sunday driver.  I'm also going to cut open my vintage tamiya hump pack (this is the actual one from when I was 8 years old) and put new cells in it so I can use it with the wild willy.

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Need pictures of it, or it never happened.. lol..  Wild Willy was my 1st RC car I purchased while serving over in Germany in the early 80s. I saw one in a hobby store and knew I had to have it. I still have that Wild Willy today, and although I restored it several times over the decades, still runs and as much fun as it was back then. Word of caution about batteries. I recently melted my original motor running modern  5000 mAh NmH batteries.  It is only a theory, but I think it was due to maybe age, but also because the modern batteries have so much more power available than the old NiCad packs, so you can run it  much longer on a single charge. The longer run time, and power available, the old motor ran great for  constant 20 minutes, then just melted out the bearings. So, don't run it continually without cool down periods ever 5 or so minutes of run time. Just food for thought. Fortunatly, I had a spare motor. Enjoy your Wild Willy, and post pictures. I always love seeing other ones.   I also had a Super Champ back then (my 2nd purchase), but no longer. The one I wished I had bought back then, but never did was the 3 speed Toyota Hilux. 

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The Wild Willy was the first Tamiya I ever saw. Had no idea they existed until then.
By the time I had the money for my own Tamiya, it came down between the Hornet and the Frog. I got a Hornet.

Later on a friend turned up with a beat up Willy, we drove our cars together, then I got to check the WW out at close range, he wanted to see if I could fix it up a bit or whatever.  I dunno, mechanically I wasn't that impressed. It needed a lot of work too.
 

Don't know if I'll ever get one now, they seem really pricy to me.

Still, much fun to be had with them.

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Did you grow up in Australia?

I thought by mid 80s RCs like the Hornet and Frog were advertised on TV during afterschool cartoon hour or Saturday morning cartoons. Along with Metro Jet Hopper, Tandy RadioShack RCs & every other fad toy back then. 

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27 minutes ago, WillyChang said:

Did you grow up in Australia?

I thought by mid 80s RCs like the Hornet and Frog were advertised on TV during afterschool cartoon hour or Saturday morning cartoons. Along with Metro Jet Hopper, Tandy RadioShack RCs & every other fad toy back then. 

Yeah yeah, I first saw the Wild Willy about 1982 I reckon. Thereabouts. The the others as the years went on.

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Tried to remove him but he is glued in pretty good.  I decided just to paint a few little things and leave it how it is.

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10 hours ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

I like these wheels so mucg more than the monstor wheels on the WW2. 

Some ppl have put Stadium Blitzer wheels on or mod to hexes all round and use Vajra wheels like the GF01.

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After just completing a resto on a Rough Rider, I’d have to say it. The Sand Scorcher was always the preferred SRB, but after completing my RR, right now I prefer it over my SS’s (both original and re-re).

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The BIG WIG. I happened to get one a decade ago in a local trade. I was first interested in the motor, then I fell in love with the buggy. I have seen all of the other buggies in the "Shot family" and I never liked any of them... except for the incredible BIG WIG. The Tamiya's 10th anniversary RC car is way too cool!

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This thread is turning into a Willy Love fest. I never had a Wild Willy when I was a young teenager back the late 1900’s.  First time I saw one in person was in ‘83 at a hobby shop in Alaska.  Around ‘86 I had a Lunchbox and felt it probably drove the same so I never really pursued getting one. 

While on a business trip to New York around 2000 I bought a huge stash of vintage parts from America’s Hobby Center. In it were a bunch of Wild Willy parts. Even then It wasn’t on my radar of cars to get, I had the fore sight to keep one of every new part I had. Probably 6 years later I pic up a runner. 

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Put a few parts to it and ran it quite a bit. I loved the quirkiness of the Jeep. A couple of years later I come across a new built locally on Craigslist.  I replaced anything that wasn’t pristine and finished off the build. Sadly the tires while new were dry rotted. I paid nearly $300 for a set of new tires and the cherry on the top Fabrizio painted driver. 

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It’s one of my most favorites that will be last to go when I get too old to enjoy my R/C’s. 

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Wow that looks great Shodog.  My son wants me to buy him a wild willy 2 and my wife asked me why I'm not getting her a wild wendy for the wild willy she wants me to buy for her

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On 1/15/2020 at 5:49 AM, 3speeder said:

Wow that looks great Shodog.  My son wants me to buy him a wild willy 2 and my wife asked me why I'm not getting her a wild wendy for the wild willy she wants me to buy for her

You can easily spend 1.5 times the price of a kit just on Wendy alone. Just goes to show how expensive women are.  Here is my Wendy 3 waiting for me to build her a ride. 

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They are expensive but totally worth it.  I'm not sure the WW2 will have the same "character" of driving and looks the a WW1 has but it would be a fun build with my son.  I think I will need to find a WW1 for my wife and get her a wendy.

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I fell in love with Wild Willy back in 1983. But I do have to admit, Wendy is pretty hot.. ;)

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The Wild Willy 2 drives so much better than the WW1. I like them so much that I have 3. A new built for my Wild Wendy 1 

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2 others that I alternate beating on. 

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Don't even hesitate to buy one. 

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I wouldn't mind having a WW2, but I can't get over the grill change. It has to have the M38 look. Now that I have a WW1 grill cast, I might look into getting a WW2.  But I would also put a Wendy in it. Where do you get her?

 

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1 hour ago, CJ Topspin said:

Hey Shodog, that in HM Bay or Santa Cruz?

A beach near the Santa Cruz yacht harbor

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On 1/9/2020 at 10:15 PM, Pablo68 said:

The Wild Willy was the first Tamiya I ever saw. Had no idea they existed until then.
By the time I had the money for my own Tamiya, it came down between the Hornet and the Frog. I got a Hornet.

Later on a friend turned up with a beat up Willy, we drove our cars together, then I got to check the WW out at close range, he wanted to see if I could fix it up a bit or whatever.  I dunno, mechanically I wasn't that impressed. It needed a lot of work too.
 

Don't know if I'll ever get one now, they seem really pricy to me.

Still, much fun to be had with them.

Quoting myself, the ultimate in narcisism.

Anyway, just to show how wrong past me got it, I have recently joined the Willy club. Got a WW1 and put some electrics in it. Gave it a run.

Yeah, pretty much impossible to run with the original body on it. Eveb driving carefully I tipped it over and put a slight scuff o the rollbar, hence, got a WW2 body on the way for running.

Even I'm not enough of a savage to ruin an actual original WW1 body.
But yeah, take that past me!!

(now that I think about it, past me still has a better bank account balance than I do....****)

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If you're running an M38 on grippy surface like Tarmac I like to crank the suspension down until the arms sit horizontal. 

M38s & original 750 3spds go too fast for their own good, they'll trip over themselves and traction roll if cornering at full speed.

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I've just bought my first wild willy m38 (original) it was something not even on my radar but I seen it on Ebay and it was kinda wacky with the paint scheme but I've been busy at work so I haven't put it together yet because it was took apart a bit so it wouldn't get damaged in transit but I've had two wild willy 2's and loved them the grey one was totally made out of complete spare parts while I was doing mods on the green one both have now long gone yet again can't even remember why I sold them because I didn't half put the hours in them? The willy m38 is a definite keeper it's just stunning!

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