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Saito2

Tamiya vs Associated

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I have a confession to make. I hated the RC10 back in the 80's. I was a Tamiya diehard back then. The RC10 seemed to grab all the attention over here in the US. RC magazines didn't let an issue go by without some article on the RC10. In my naive young mind, I felt if more racers gave the Tamiya Fox a chance or later, the Astute, that it could somehow be as good as the RC10. Like I said, I was naive. I've learned a little bit in the years that followed and came to respect and even love how great and revolutionary the RC10 was. I've been listening with great interest to podcast and interviews with all the guys involved in the RC10's development and construction. Having a day job in manufacturing and machining, it was great to see how all that stuff was made up to produce the kits which they sold, non-stop, desperately trying to meet demand. That single product really advanced the size of Associated. Hearing from the people who designed it as well as produced it has been priceless. But, I'm in the RC10's "home", the US, so that affects my viewpoint somewhat.

Then there is Tamiya. Tamiya is far far bigger than Associated and that alone is enough to make them seem more "aloof"  and less accessible. To many of us, their practices and motives seem a mystery. Even folks in the US RC industry admit, Tamiya does their own thing in their own time. Now, in reading Mr Tamiya's book, when the company was small and starting out, one really gets the feel of that pioneering spirit in their love of plastic models, much like that of Associated's for RC . I also get the feeling that RC was not on their agenda had it not been for the efforts of Fumito Taki. There's more to that story, if you read between the lines. I believe both men were very passionate and that translated into the products. Over time, as they grew bigger, Tamiya seems more mysterious and perhaps this is true of all companies. I don't know. But I often wonder if people in Japan have a closer relationship to Tamiya like we in the US do with Associated or if their methods and practices really are that mysterious.

P.S. I guess I'm really curious about cultural differences and the roles they play. For instance, If I were to guess, I'd imagine Schumacher is much the same for folks in Great Britain as Associated is for us in the US. Any insight appreciated. 

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 I'm not really after comparing the product lines between the two companies, but rather the relationship between the fans and the respective companies. For me, being in the US, Associated (and Losi for that matter) are very approachable while Tamiya's methods seem hidden to us in the US. Is that Tamiya's way or are they more accessible to people in Japan?

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For me it is pretty much a Chevrolet vs. Toyota thing.

I'm very much into American culture, but on the same breath I grew up loving the Japanese industry and their incredible designs. Guitars, records, hifi equipment, RC vehicles, and BMX bikes. American industry make fantastic products, but for some reason I have a soft spot for the vintage Japanese stuff. It isn't necessarily better quality, but it sure isn't less. I love Tamiya, and I particularly love the way they captured and interpreted the development of the offroad motor-culture that was developed by the people (and not companies) in the United States throughout the late 60's and 70's decade. There was no car crushers made by Associated, therefore the brand had no way to really caught my attention. Now of course that doesn't mean I don't believe their racing cars are fantastic. As a matter of fact I understand they're great, just not my thing. Or at least not for now :ph34r:

 

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4 hours ago, mongoose1983 said:

I love Tamiya, and I particularly love the way they captured and interpreted the development of the offroad motor-culture that was developed by the people (and not companies) in the United States throughout the late 60's and 70's decade.

I couldn't agree more. Its peculiar (though the results are awesome) that the American culture filtered through Tamiya's eyes winds up being even more American, in a way. It probably partially down to them making a study of it and then imitating it through a concerted effort that this comes about. Associated isn't trying to be American. They just are. Part of that comparison is apples to oranges because Associated was all-business back then, being a racing company. Something like the RC10 didn't need a whimsical name or theme, it just had to win.

As far as history and development goes, all of Associated's stuff is pretty much open book. Part of that might be because they had a smaller product line geared toward racing. You get some fascinating stories about the very beginning of Tamiya RC involving Fumito Taki who comes across as a man determined and passionate about RC. Honestly, the way the biography reads, he's appears to be the reason we have Tamiya RC (that and possibly the expense of the original 934 1/12 static kit) . Past these early stories, the narrative kinda drops off. We know a a trip to the US and witnessing off road vehicles for the first time led to the SRBs from Tamiya. We don't know much of the background behind any of their other vehicles however. Wouldn't it be interesting to hear about the product planning meetings that lead to the Hot Shot, Fox or Clod Buster, etc.? Strangely, some of the tid-bits about development we do get involve racing,  like Jamie Booth's experience with the development of the Astute, Egress and Top Force.

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30 minutes ago, Saito2 said:

Its peculiar (though the results are awesome) that the American culture filtered through Tamiya's eyes winds up being even more American, in a way

It's interesting what you say. And you know shouldn't come as a surprise to me. Nobody better to identify and explain the customs of a certain culture and society than a foreign anthropologist. It is called exotopy.

Whoever traveled across the United States looking for off-road races and shows is practically some type of anthropologist. If you look at the most conspicuous Tamiya off-road models from 1979 to 1987 you'll notice how these guys took ideas from anywhere, not just California. It's been amazing for me to come across this one in some old Off-road magazine:

Blue Ox 1983 Tamiya Bruiser paintscheme

And it's just an example.

I think now I'm finally finding out what's the thing that draws me so much to Tamiya RC cars. Thanks for bringing up another interesting discussion @Saito2!

Y'all stay safe and have a good Thursday! :)

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Tamiya cars are meant to win hearts. Associated cars are meant to win races.

Terry

 

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I have no idea how it was in the USA, even being an American. In the early 80's when the RC thing rose, I was serving in the USAF over in Germany. RC was HUGE over there (especially boats).  That is when I got the call to get into the hobby. Graupner was the king over there, but Tamiya was also huge over there. That is where I bought and built my 1st cars, 2 being Tamiya (Wild Willy & Super Champ) and also a Graupner (Kyoso) Circuit 20 (Rowdy Baja) 1:8 scale gas. Never owned an Associated. By the time I came back to the USA, I moved onto other things (got back huge into my old childhood hobby, model railroading). My RC hobby went to the shelved, then back many times over the decades. Rekindled this last time when my grand son started getting into RC. My oldest son whom was only a toddler in the 80s and grew up with my cars, is now more into Traxxas which seems to have gotten very popular. As far myself, I stayed with Tamiya, but now also have a Pro-Line 1:24 scale crawler which I do enjoy also. Still have my original Wild Willy from back then (my 1st love), a re-re Sand Scorcher and now a GF01 chassie with an original Wild Willy body which is a lot of fun. 

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Interesting. I didn't have an RC car when I was a kid in the States in the eighties, but in our perception, Tamiya was "it". Those were the cars we saw and talked about, those were what people we knew had. 

Associated, we knew only from magazines, advertising and reports of race results. I remember being surprised that I never saw a Frog or Sand Scorcher on the podium. Especially since we "knew" that Tamiya was state of the art. 

Kyosho, we knew from Tower Hobbies catalogs. I was a bit mistrusting of Kyosho, probably because they seemed to come out of nowhere and Tower (and only Tower) was pushing them so hard, so relentlessly, so hyped, to the exclusion of anything else. Even the Kyosho race results seemed contrived, maybe the result of sponsorship or something. Probably just a Tamiya knockoff. Nobody we knew bought them. 

Then again, as a kid, I preferred anything Japanese to anything American. American, in my mind, was correlated with aggressive stupidity, loud, show-offish to the point of unrealistic. It was the eighties, so think monster trucks, hair metal and Rambo, all of which I hated. Japanese seemed intelligent, unassuming, rational, hard-working and purposeful.

And at the time, in spite of all our bluster and chest-thumping, Japan, Inc. was eating our lunch.

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When you have that system whereby a company exports from its native market via distributors you get that thing where it's very very hard to connect to the producing company itself as a consumer who buys in the export market. A bit of that comes down to you not really being their customer - the distributor is their customer, not you. You are the customer of the shop you bought from, who bought from the distributor, who... you are too far away, both geographically and psychologically. It works both ways, too. If the company wants to talk to the export market, they find it difficult to get their message across.

And with Tamiya being Japanese there is a language and cultural barrier to direct contact. Not in a bad or unexpected way, just it's one more thing that makes contact harder. 

Obvs. there's a bit of that with TA, Losi and Schumacher if you are buying away from their native market. I don't think the way Tamiya 'behaves' in a way that might appear curious or that they are a bit of black box to us in Europe or the US is particularly surprising. Seiko watches are equally bewildering :)

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Great thread @Saito2 👍

I’m admittedly a little biased here ...

RC10s drove me out of the hobby back in the day - they were clinical, completely unyielding to any indulgence or compromise and epically good ... to the point of directing (or at least influencing) every design since.

For me, that was utterly boring, soulless to the point of banality and I just couldn’t see how my love of TamIya, Kyosho and Marui was going to survive it all ... so I quit. 

These days I can better appreciate RC10s and do agree with @Saito2 re their purity of engineering being fascinating - and let’s be honest their results speak for themselves. 

Do I love them the way TamIya has endured - no, old views die hard 😂 and @Frog Jumper is spot on re this being a battle of head vs heart. 

It also tracks regardless of home market - as I’m a Brit and (whilst I applaud Schumacher) they’re firmly in the same camp as Associated in terms of design / purpose.

The Massami Cat XLS was incredible in its day but (again) a racing purebred ... which was frankly a nightmare to build and v difficult to run well unless you really knew what you were doing.

Tamiya will always win out for me - not just for quality, history and nostalgia but also brave / inspirational designs (which tbh didn’t always work) but when they did ... WOW 🤩 

Combining all that almost makes them feel niche - when their size / capability is anything but - and everybody loves an underdog winning through !

It also makes devotees argue even harder 😇

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Another interesting aspect of Tamiya is their dual marketing approach. Classics like the SRBs, Lunch Box, Clod Buster and so on are clearly American influenced but this mimicry only extends so far. They also made the Coro Coro Dragon series as well as others that tie in with their home market appeal as well. Associated pretty much just builds race cars (until relatively recently) designed in an "American" style, so to speak.

16 hours ago, SuperChamp82 said:

RC10s drove me out of the hobby back in the day - they were clinical, completely unyielding to any indulgence or compromise and epically good ... to the point of directing (or at least influencing) every design since.

For me, that was utterly boring, soulless to the point of banality

While I didn't leave the hobby, I was always at odds with the RC10 for the reasons you listed. I've come to realize that I missed what was great about the RC10 experience because it was a different experience from what I loved about Tamiya. With a Tamiya kit, you have a wonderful, trouble-free build experience (perfect for keeping beginners in the hobby). Its not hard to get a trouble-free, running RC car out of one. Later, the short comings would crop up and you could upgrade it or personalize it. It kept you coming back.

Associated's RC10 was not for the beginner but rather the tinkerer from the get-go. The design was absolutely pure genius, the materials were good, but the execution was not. If you simply put the car together, it was not the best it could be. 10 people could put 10 Falcons together and come up with 10 RC buggies that performed roughly the same. With the RC10 your results varied with the amount of work you put into the build. Some of it was simple clearancing of suspension pivots for a slop-free, but precise fit. Some of it was also fixing manufacturing defects like flashing on gears or gears that were kinda egg-shaped. With a Tamiya you may have sloppy suspension but everything works as it should. With the RC10, the more you tinkered to improve performance/reliably, the better the end result. Some like that challenge. The tricks put into the build, not to mention the aftermarket parts meant even though the RC10 was the same car, over and over, (unlike the rainbow of distinct offerings from Tamiya) each one was different. As an adult, I really enjoy this aspect, as a beginner, probably not so much. As kids, we all want to get the kit together and get it running (possibly with some degree of pride that we built it). Its later that folks develop a taste for tinkering. Many of us spend more time at the work bench than out running nowadays. 

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Completely agree @Saito2

And would suggest Shumacher in the UK are exactly the same ?

Cecil took 1:1 Cosworth touring car ingenuity and scaled it into the first competitive ball diff for goodness sake ! Which everyone then copied - sorry, ‘refined’ 🙄

Where I differ slightly is re your original idea questioning what socialises us to one approach or the other ?

Associated and Shumacher definitely  often innumerable refinements, details and pita build requirements that consume hours of skill and patience to get where they did.

But when Tamiya hit the nail on the head out of the box - with all the benefits you mention - who’s to choose which is better !

Your point is still spot on though - because (after RC10s) that nail often missed its mark.

But I bet Tamiya devotees make better gamblers in Vegas ... because when we win, we take down the House 😂

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On 6/25/2020 at 6:13 AM, Frog Jumper said:

Tamiya cars are meant to win hearts. Associated cars are meant to win races.

Terry

 

This is true.  I think Kyosho does a good job of winning races and heart.  

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I'm from the uk, and schumacher is in my collection as expected, but so is associated, tamiya, x ray, losi, hobao and mardave.

My first buildable rc car was tamiya, I still have it, but for me it wasn't race ready, so I ended up with a b3. Pretty much all the local race drivers had either a b3 or xx when I started racing, the odd one had a schumacher cat. Tamiya for me was a car to play about with as it was too nice to bash about off road, parts weren't as easy to get from my local model shop, so I just went with the favoured buggy. When i raced touring cars, i went straight to schumacher, but reliability issues got me to change to x ray.

I did buy a losi xxx4, which didn't like the bumpy off road track, but it did go good in a straight line, and had a distinct click on braking, but it was probably me driving it too hard.

My TA01 is still in pretty good condition for a 25 year old car, so tamiya must have used good materials.

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On 6/25/2020 at 3:11 PM, SuperChamp82 said:

RC10 [...] they were clinical, completely unyielding to any indulgence or compromise and epically good

Wow, your words match exactly what I always felt about the RC10 cars.

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The first RC car I ever built was a Super Champ.  I'd been building scale boat kits from Dumas and others for a few years and had invited many a friend to go 'play' at the pond.  One was very interested, but the months long build process was something he was not interested in.  Gave him a stack or RC Modeler magazines and a few days later we were off to buy a kit.  We spent the entire afternoon and evening assembling the car, he needed a lot of hand holding as he had no knowledge of the radio/servo setup.  I really enjoyed the 'quick' build and resulting car, the instructions were superb and once we figured out that the illustrations were 1:1 with the screws and such... impressed!

Needless to say many models followed, nearly all were Tamiya.  Many 'alternate' brands were disappointing in fit, finish, instructions or even materials... but a Tamiya build never was... even when the car ran like rubbish.  I enjoy the build nearly as much as the cars.  For all the decades since, I've recommended a Tamiya as a starting point for anyone interested in getting into the hobby.  Usually a Grasshopper, as they're wonderfully simple and tough, with the added bonus of tossing in a 540 when more speed is 'required'.  Who recommends a race car as someone's first car?

My fully loaded Super Champ was my race car.  Reasonably competitive until the RC10's started showing up on the track.  I even ended up using RC10 shocks to try and stay in the podium group.  It was pointless and after a year or so... I caved.  Associated had built an amazing car, a truly adjustable weapon, capable of being adapted to any track or driver (finicky, sometimes fragile and difficult to get setup 'perfectly').  I was occasionally back in the podium group.  I learned, watched the Halsey VHS endlessly at the local hobby shop (they'd play it for me every time I came in) and tweaked the setup endlessly.  Eventually lost interest when 'kids' were showing up at the track with multi thousand dollar cars and I was driving to the races in a $200 Pontiac and racing a $500 car... that couldn't keep up (well, at least I had my priorities straight) .  The only bright spot became the "Grasshopper Racing League", where everything was legal and the only rules were 7.2v (sub C's), battery door had to be used and the stock 380 & gear ratio could not be tweaked/tampered or altered in any way... the 'cheaters' league!... hollow axles, cut away tubs and narrowed gears were all permissible... great fun for those who enjoyed experimenting and closely matched racing.

I don't build race cars anymore... I build FUN cars.  Tamiya cars are fun, from opening the box and discovering all the blister packed (miss that), bagged and boxed bits, through the building, right down to the running of them.  No interest in racing anymore... just the pleasure of building and running the cars.  The older I get, the more I miss the 'Hopper League....

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