What was tamiya's peak year in the 80s.

[Super ally 196]

1983 to 1988 was the golden years for tamiya in my opinion,but what year in the 80s was their best.I think 1985 with the hotshot 4wd and the wild one and fox.What do you all think.

[GreatDane 43]

The year (1982-83?) Tamiya released their first three-speeds, the Toyota Hilux and Blazing Blazer. My all-time Tamiya favorites to this day and showing what Tamiya was capable of in the world of rc in that period of time. 

[MadInventor 2921]

Do you judge the peak year by what is released, or by what is available. I'd argue it's more important to look at what range was available in a particular year rather than just what the new releases are.....

BTW 1985 is going to be tough to be with the Hotshot, Wild One, and Fox all in one year. 1987 was good because the Clod Buster got released and that was a game changer model, but then they also released the Striker that year, so that evens it out somewhat .....

 

[moffman 2345]

I'm with you I think 85 was the peak! the hotshot was the buggy that tamiya started its attempt at serious racing because it was designed to race and not a model car that you could race (ie SRB chassis of buggies) weather or not it was any good is probably another conversation for another day! But we had the introduction of the techni range of motor and racing battery packs then off that we had the bigwig, boomerang then the super shot and 8.4v battery all from the hotshot from 85 and for local club racing tamiya was king everyone had if not hotshots something which was designed by tamiya to enhance the performance of the hotshot for example I had the independent shock set for the hotshot that I put on my boomerang! In modern rc standard of today it's hard to imagine that the buggies like the hotshot were the pinnacle of technology 35 years ago but they really were and still are a fantastic buggy 35 years later!

[Tudorp 223]

The peak for me personally was when I was roaming the shopping district in Kaiserslautern Germany while I was serving over there in the USAF. Walking around the different shops with the wife, and wandered by a hobby shop. I stopped dead in my tracks because what I see in the window on display was the "Wild Willy M38". It was love at first sight, and I could not take a step away from that shop without Wild Willy. I left the shop about 2 hours later with not only a Wild Willy kit, but also a Super Champ kit. I still own that Wild Willy to this day, and it has raised all four of my kids, and now my Grand kids. So, for me, it was 1982. 

 

[Super ally 196]

2 hours ago, MadInventor said:

Do you judge the peak year by what is released, or by what is available. I'd argue it's more important to look at what range was available in a particular year rather than just what the new releases are.....

BTW 1985 is going to be tough to be with the Hotshot, Wild One, and Fox all in one year. 1987 was good because the Clod Buster got released and that was a game changer model, but then they also released the Striker that year, so that evens it out somewhat .....

 

1986 with the bigwig and blackfoot as well.

[junkmunki 635]

The peak year for me personally has to be 1983. It was the christams i got my first rc car, the Tamiya Frog. Its what got me hooked and i havent stopped collecting since.

But as far as peak for stuff that was available, i think 1986 with the relese of the Porsche 959. What a masterpiece, and that led onto the Toyota Celica Gr.B a year later.

J

[mud4fun 1300]

For me personally it would be 1980-1982, like @junkmunki I got my first proper RC car for xmas in either 81 or 82, can't remember now, it was a Sand Scorcher. I'd had cheap toy RC stuff before then but the Tamiya was in a different league. I remember pouring over the glorious Tamiya guidebook each year with my school friends and at that time it was things like the Cheetah, XR311, holiday buggy etc.

Oddly though my favourite buggies are all from the mid to late 80's (bigwigs, boomerangs and thundershots plus of course the avante based cars).

So I'm torn between peak for me personally or peak of what Tamiya offered at the time and which I'd go on to collect, race and bash for many years. 

I've owned probably 50+ Tamiya RC cars over my life and other than that very first Sand Scorcher which I still have (and will hopefully be back in action next week) I sold most of them. It is therefore telling that every buggy I chose to keep are from 86-90 period.

[Champ85 490]

I think '85 and '86 were the peak times.  I got my Super Champ in '84, then my friends got the Grasshopper and Hornet in '85 and we raced them around.  It was the time of most popularity with the kids.  Keep in mind that this was the first time that "hobby grade" R/C cars were available at a reasonable price with spare parts and hop-ups on the ready (MRC really made sure hobby shops had spare parts for the kits).  Prior to this time period, hobby grade R/C cars were more rare (smaller selection) and more expensive.   Tamiya made hobby grade R/C cars popular for the masses with their 80's constant releases year on year.  I think '85 started the peak and '86 continued it.  But I think the peak did not last very long as I think by '87 Tamiya was less popular and was also the time when the "make almost all parts out of plastic instead of metal" seemingly took a foothold in their designs.  I began to lose interest once the "plastic fantastic" time period hit, plus the increasing popularity of on-road racing (which I wasn't interested in) started to take off with the likes of the HPI RS4.  Every issue of the RC car magazines was on-road this and on-road that and I just lost interest in anything new Tamiya released.

[mud4fun 1300]

54 minutes ago, Champ85 said:

plus the increasing popularity of on-road racing (which I wasn't interested in) started to take off with the likes of the HPI RS4.  Every issue of the RC car magazines was on-road this and on-road that and I just lost interest in anything new Tamiya released.

Yeah same here, not just Tamiya though, the whole scene changed. We used to have a buggy dirt track in our school grounds (early 80's) and at a local park so we always had somewhere to race our friends. By the late 80's alot of schools started selling off their land to developers and the remaining space was too valuable to use for one specific 'after school' club.

The local parks starting banning RC car use mainly because of damned noisy nitro cars that caused a lot of nuisance and ended up losing us access to land even for our quiet electric buggies.

Then the clubs all started switching to indoor touring car classes and fast forward now and there is not a buggy track within 50 mile radius of us that I'm aware of.

Such a shame as buggies are more fun, especially for kids. Certainly myself and my kids are not that interested in just going fast on a flat piece of carpet. We like all the mad, exciting stuff like jumping off ramps, running through muddy puddles and kicking up gravel as we power slide around the garden paths. We've enjoyed the postal racing competition immensely, even though we've run most of that on tarmac BUT at the end of the race we've just driven off onto the grass or gravel areas and done buggy stuff. Best of both worlds IMHO 

Here's hoping there will be a revival of dirt track racing for 1/10th buggies. There seems to be a few new tracks being built for 1/8 nitro but no good for us, we couldn't run nitro cars here as it would drive our neighbours mad and we'd end up with environmental health coming around with a noise abatement order!

[Wooders28 3090]

I'd say '88 was the peak, and the Avante.

Mainly , as Tamiya had been pretty much, hitting the nail on the head every year , with at least one car , maybe two, great ,now iconic cars.

I'm not sure if they rolled the dice, and let everything ride on the success of the Avante , which at too much cost for Santa to stomach on a whim, and far superior and established race winning cars in the same price bracket, it was one of the last. (well, apart from on-road , but they're not on my radar...) 

[Wheel_Nut 128]

As I recall "Peak Tamiya" coincided with the release of the Hotshot.   After kids began breaking their Hotshot models, it was probably the start of the decline.  Some went on to more advanced models that were better quality, and the younger kids probably didn't take it up at the same rate as the first generation during the craze of 85.

[Finnsllc 586]

yup, 1986

[Pablo68 575]

86 for me, but only because it was when I was working and could finally afford to buy a Tamiya buggy of my own. I went the Hornet  (should have got a Frog but hey) and really got in to the hobby. Later on (circa 87?) I bought a Monster Beetle, it just looked so awesome. Yeah, it was a pain in the ******* though, those hex drives aarrrgh, and the steering uprights were fragile too. So much time spent bouncing back and forth between home and the hobby shop.
I really liked the look of the Fox and the Wild One but didn't have the money to just spend on nothing but RC stuff.
I lost interest in Tamiya's offerings when the Clod Buster and Striker came out. I just didn't like the designs and was then frustrated with the hobby. I'd sold on the MB because of its issues and had a really good original Ultima stolen, leaving me with my original Hornet and a bunch of parts.
Yeah so 86/87 would be the sweet spot for me.
 

[Dakratfink 245]

On 10/11/2020 at 12:35 PM, Tudorp said:

The peak for me personally was when I was roaming the shopping district in Kaiserslautern Germany while I was serving over there in the USAF. Walking around the different shops with the wife, and wandered by a hobby shop. I stopped dead in my tracks because what I see in the window on display was the "Wild Willy M38". It was love at first sight, and I could not take a step away from that shop without Wild Willy. I left the shop about 2 hours later with not only a Wild Willy kit, but also a Super Champ kit. I still own that Wild Willy to this day, and it has raised all four of my kids, and now my Grand kids. So, for me, it was 1982. 

 

I remember seeing a Wild Willy Kit on the Top Shelf in the glass cabinet behind the video games at a KB toys store in the early 80s (probably 83-84 ish )   years before I went to a hobby shop and got into hobby grade RC around ‘87-‘88. I don’t even know if the Toy Store carried any radio or barriers at the time or if they were just selling it as  really high end model kit. 

[Mrowka 203]

I was an teenager in the mid-1980s, but I didn't have a Tamiya or any other kind of buggy then. 

I suppose, looking back, that it wasn't so much Tamiya's peak years as much as it was for r/c cars in general. 

Revolutionary changes were coming every few months; companies (not just Tamiya) were trying new things and nobody really knew what would work or when, so experimentation and improvisation wwre the key. New companies came and went, and all had radically ways of making a buggy. Probably something similar was happening with drivers at that time as well. 

By contrast, from what I can tell, today's r/c buggy scene is more corporate, more professional, more homogeneous. Everyone involved knows everyone else and what they are up to, and most of the companies' products are fairly similar to their competitors. Radical changes are rare, and evolution, not revolution drives those changes. 

We can argue later whether these things are good or bad.