That "original" feeling

[Saito2 6673]

Back when the RC10 Classic came out more than a few people noted that, while being very similar to the original, the overall experience was "off" somehow. I've read this rather nebulous feeling being present in other re-release build experiences, even something as great as the Avante. Not having this experience myself at the time, I just filed those comments away in the memory banks for future consideration. After all, I've build many Lunch Boxes over the years, starting with my first in the late 80's and never experienced this. Then I built the re-re Terra Scorcher and felt, well, rather cold by the whole build experience. Perhaps this is what others were talking about, I thought.

My connection the the Terra Scorcher stems from an original Thundershot I built many many years ago now. The Terra Scorcher build was very much the same...but different somehow. It was different enough that I skipped the VQS despite the Vanquish being a childhood favorite of mine. At first the price put me off but also, I didn't want a repeat of the Terra Scorcher feeling either. Instead I've begun restoring my childhood Vanquish and, what do you know? the magic was there!

As I tore down my old Vanquish, I got the distinctive feelings that Tamiya kit building once instilled in me. The model was original and it feels different somehow. Perhaps, in my subconscious, I'm aware that this kit from my youth is from a younger version of the Tamiya Plastic Model Company. That was a company that didn't rely on re-releases to boost sales by pandering to my age demographic (not that I'm complaining really, I'm grateful they do it). This was a company always looking forward in their own unique, creative way. They were crafting buggies with boxart, care in kit presentation, and each with a certain degree of personality. Sure, chassis designs were re-used but they somehow each had a spark that thousands of TT02s with different bodies could never hope to have. The VQS was a close facsimile to the original but the somehow, something got lost in translation. Perhaps this is what people intuitively grasped with the RC10 Classic. It was a kit from Thunder Tiger with many foreign parts, not one from the more home-grown outfit that Associated Electrics was BITD.

So what the difference between the Lunch Box, Terra Scorcher/Thundershot and Vanquish? How did it strike me with the latter two and not the former? In my case, at least, I think it was about time in between builds. I've messed around with Lunch Boxes (originals and re-res) non-stop since the 80's and probably didn't pick up on these vibes because of it. There was enough time between the Thundershot and Terra Scorcher for me to register the difference. The caution I had over the VQS and the joy restoring my original cemented the concept in my mind. Re-releases I never built in original form, like the XR311, seem immune to this phenomenon. Again, I'm grateful for the opportunities the re-release program has afforded us, but in the end (in some cases), maybe there isn't anything quite like the original.

(dedicated to my old forum mate @Hibernaculum, who perhaps understands these feelings better than most)

[DeadMeat666 1675]

Excellent post as usual @Saito2, always gets those cerebral gears going  .

If I may pose a counterpoint to your theory: Could it be that the kits themselves haven't really changed, but in fact WE have changed, and we don't see these kits the same way as when we first built them? I (vaguely) recall building an original 1989 Hornet BITD when I was in my teens. When I recently built a Lunchbox, which is very much like a Hornet, I found the build process fun, but not as fun as when I had built the Hornet to be honest. Perhaps my adult brain didn't process the build in the same way as my teenage brain did all those years ago.

Just food for thought.

[Saito2 6673]

2 hours ago, DeadMeat666 said:

Could it be that the kits themselves haven't really changed, but in fact WE have changed, and we don't see these kits the same way as when we first built them?

Certainly possible. Minimally, a contributing factor for sure. Good point .

[Mad Ax 9291]

I wasn't going to reply to this, but I added a single paragraph and before I knew it I'd written another essay.  So thanks @Saito2 for another though-provoking thread

This isn't something I really experienced when I got back into the hobby in the mid-00s, because I only ever had 4 hobby-grade RC cars as a child, and only 2 of those were NIB - the others were heavily used and abused.  And one of the NIBs was a Kyosho Sand Master II Nitro, which was ARTR, so it wasn't really much of a build.  The only hobby-grade kit I actually built from the ground up was a Mud Blaster.  I remember taking my time, and I had that certain happy feeling of being involved in making something that I really wanted, and the feeling of watching it slowly come together.  But that's not something I've ever revisited during my adult RC journey.  Instead I bought the cars I wished I'd had when I was younger, and explored Tamiya's current line-up, and the bits I'd missed in between, as well as satisfied my desires to build unique things from collections of parts.

I suppose a re-release of the Mud Blaster might give me that same feeling, in fact might be the only way I could get that same feeling - I considered the re-re Blackfoot for that reason, but much as I love the Ford body, I don't think it would suffice.  Actually I love it too much.  It would end up on a scale rig or custom solid axle monster, and I'd have a Blackfoot chassis and nothing to do with it (I'm already struggling to find a body to fit my King Blackfoot, I don't need another bare chassis kicking around...)

But even if Tamiya did re-release the Mud Blaster in true near-original form, I'm not sure I'd ever get that feeling back.  I'm too old and jaded, and I don't necessarily mean that in a negative way.  Our world experience changes us.  I've built so many NIBS over the last 15 years that it's become a law of diminishing returns - it's almost a production line.  I turn to the manual section with turnbuckles or oil shocks and my heart sinks.  Sometimes I even build things out of order because I don't have a servo to hand, or I can't be bothered to go get the Vernier from the workshop, or it's not an appropriate time to be handling shock oil.  That's not to say I don't enjoy building kits and won't be buying any more - it's still one of my favourite ways to pass a lazy day - but it doesn't overload me with joy like it once did.

There are other adult factors too.  If I'm building a kit from my NIB stock, that's less NIBs to build later.  If I'm building something newly delivered, that's money I spent that could have gone on household improvements or a family holiday (remember those?  Maybe I'll get that "original" feeling when I'm allowed to get on a plane again!).  I'm spending time that I could be using to finish that last unreleased album, or write that painful scene in my novel, or fix the skirting board in the hallway.  It was much easier to put those thoughts aside when I was 13.

Going slightly off-topic here, as I do, but this was something I explored a few years ago when I was writing a scene between a young character and an older one providing relationship advice: everything is so raw when you're young, and as we get older we get numb to that rawness, but it works on the good stuff and the bad - the feeling of being in love for the 10th time is never as strong as it is the 1st, but it doesn't hurt so much when it ends, either.  I think this applies to almost everything in life.  Experience beats our naivety and we're not so surprised, delighted or hurt by what life throws at us.  Perhaps that's why we're driven to seek novelty, something different to trigger those old feelings again.  There's a TED talk about that somewhere.

I often write pseudo-philosophical stuff in my novels and spend my life wondering if it's justified, and this week I saw the best example of that - it was my daughter's 4th birthday.  Because her actual birthday fell during the working week, we spread her presents out over a few days and had a Zoom party with her friends on Saturday, and after that she opened the last of her presents.  I guess right now is a weird time for presents because family are ordering them on Amazon and having them delivered to us gift-wrapped, in the Before Times we'd have driven around to various family members to have birthday cuddles and one or two presents would just be a small part of that.  Being stuck at home, it was a surprise to see just how many presents arrived (maybe people feel the need to buy more presents right now too because they can't be there in person).  Well, I noticed towards the end of the day that she was starting to race through her presents, tearing off the wrapping just to glance at the box, cast it aside and grab another.

We'd saved the biggest present for last - a wooden cot bed for her baby dolls.  It was gifted to us free by another local mother in a state of disrepair, my wife reconditioned it with new handmade wooden panels, fresh paint in our daughter's favourite colours, a hand-painted motif on the headboard and re-upholstered mattress and pillow.  We waited in her bedroom with a camera rolling and called her in to capture the moment of sheer, unbridled joy on her face - but what we got was comments on everything wrong with it.  Where's the blanket?  Why doesn't it rock?  My babies can't go in a cot without dummies and milk bottles, why haven't they got any?  I need more presents, I need a blanket, and some dummies, and some bottles.  More presents, more, more, MORE!  It took a while to encourage her to say thank you to Mummy for the two days work she put in to fixing it up with less than a week's notice.

I realised then that she'd gone beyond caring about the presents (without even realising it herself) - all she cared about was the dopamine release that came from being surprised by new stuff.  Yeah, that was in that TED talk, too.

I think (without intending it) I've come full circle here - we aren't surprised when we buy a new Tamiya kit.  Back in the early 90s, when I got my Mud Blaster, it involved a journey to the local hobby shop to get a New Car.  I didn't know before I walked in what I'd get - I didn't know how much they'd cost or how much I'd be allowed to spend.  I didn't know what they'd have in stock, the Tamiya range at the time must have been fairly big but they only had a dozen cars available.  I never had Tamiya guide books or RC magazines in those days so I wouldn't have known what the full range was.  So when the shop owner pulled the big box off the top shelf and said "How about this one?  It's one of our cheaper models but it's got a great body and it goes well*" it was a surprise to see that big painted image of a monster truck looking bold and bright and red with big yellow wheels and huge tyres and great big shocks and springs.  It was a surprise to get it home and pull off the lid and see the hard body and the blister pack with the motor and springs and the bags of parts, and it was a surprise to see it come together.  It was a surprise to get a dark grey Acoms radio set with five LEDs for the battery gauge - my old set had a chromed face with an old-fashioned needle indicator for the battery, the new one looked so sleek and futuristic.  I'd never imagined how cool that would be**.

Nowadays we know exactly what we're getting before we even place the order.  Youtube is full of unboxing vids, Tamiyaclub is full of step-by-step build threads.  The internet is full of early-purchaser reviews, and even if we're not into unboxing vids and build threads we still feel obliged to read the reviews, because we've all been stung by something that wasn't as good as it pretended to be and suffered buyer's remorse because of it.  So the real magic is gone already.  But, on the other hand, I'm starting to see that much of the joy of being a parent comes from seeing that same joy in our children - we do the research, read the reviews and place the orders, and watch as our kids open their presents and experience that same joy we had when we were their age.  (I'm going to stop here before I make another journey around this circle).

*all dialog is imagined, I can't remember that far back

**interestingly, I now think the older sets with the needles are so much cooler.  Life doesn't have enough analogue gauges any more.

[taffer 948]

I must say then I feel quite lucky that I do get that feeling on every tamiya nib bought and built.....it wasn't always this way (and this next bit I have said on a few occasions) but my path to how I did was the following.

The manual normally gets released in advance, this starts the ball rolling looking through and seeing any updates or changes from other models etc.

The build, build it much more slowly, I've taken weeks on some builds....there's no rush especially if I have built one before.

Running......this is the most important step, run it constantly, how does it cope are any hopups needed from stock (apart from obligatory steel pinion and ball bearings).

Now the running step I only achieved properly when I reduced my collection down to half a dozen chassis types....

If I don't like what I feel/see while driving there's a good chance I'll sell it on until another new chassis comes along or update. (For example I replaced the gf-01 with g6-01)

So now after running a largely stock cc-02 for a year, I'm looking forward to the unimog version with a few hopups to try and the better looking body on it and I'll enjoy the build even more second time around!

[Mad Ax 9291]

15 hours ago, taffer said:

The build, build it much more slowly, I've taken weeks on some builds....there's no rush especially if I have built one before.

That's great advice but for me at least it's a bell curve with a sweet spot somewhere in the middle.  Just like a good book, the latest Netflix must-watch series or a new video game, if I steam through it in a couple of days I might end feeling disappointed or that it was a waste of money, but if I put it down for too long in between I can find it hard to generate the initial connection or I can lose it after a break.  It's obvious how that happens with a book or a TV series but I think it happens with builds too.

I started my TGX build in the middle of winter but was forced to park it for several months because I didn't realise how many of the chassis parts would need painting*.  At the end of 2020 I started building my SMT-10, hoping I would get in 1 or 2 hours every Saturday**, but that just hasn't happened.  It's no longer practical to leave a half-built kit laid out on the desk, so I have to open the box and get out all the parts bags before I can resume, then leave time to pack it all away after, which makes it harder to pick up a build.  When I opened the box on Sunday for the first time in about 4 weeks, I was so far off the build that it took a while to get that excitement back.

I build my Globe Liner, complete with MFU and paint, and the pole trailer with bluetooth light unit, in about 2 weeks.  This was in the good old days (2018) when my wife was in the office several days a week and I was contracted to a client who were paying my wages but had nothing for me to do, so I could sit in my studio, watching silly trucking films on Prime, building my rig while waiting for emails to come in.  Although it was a lot of build to do in a very short time, I didn't actually rush it.  I'm sure it's technically possible to assemble a big rig in a few hours end-to-end if you have the space to lay out all the sprues, pots to decant all the screw bags into, and the body parts are already painted, and that's almost where I was, but I still took 2 weeks.  It was a hugely enjoyable build and an era I'll not likely see again.

There have been a few cars that I've rushed to build because I've got an event coming up that I want it ready for.  That's the level of rush I hope to avoid but I can feel it sneaking up on me again - I want my SMT10 and my Super Clod built and running before the warm weather arrives but I need my Super Hotshot ready to race before the Revival at the end of July.  Unless I do my builds on Sundays, it might be hard to achieve that  

But for me this is a raw, non-vintage excitement just of enjoying building a kit , and nothing to with that 'original' feeling  

*In between times, my wife decided to power-sand the landing walls and didn't close the door to the studio, so the chassis and a load of parts that I'd left on the desk ended up under several millimetres of dust - knowing I had to deal with that put me off restarting for quite a long time.

**There's no practical reason why I can't build new kits on a Sunday, which is my official day off, but generally I prefer to spend my Sundays working on custom builds in the workshop because it gets me away from the family for a bit, these days it's the only escape I get from them :p 

[LeftyAl 164]

I vividly remember taking over the lounge room floor when I came home with my first Super Hornet. I spend about 4 hrs building the car and very much enjoyed the process. I cant seem to recall building any of my other 15+ kits with the same clarity or enthusiasm.

However I do recall the feeling of the getting to the steps for damper build and masking/painting of those other builds. If I am doing the painting I almost always tend to go one colour and minimal decals. If I can find a decent painted body at the LHS it's a no brainer. Same with dampers. To me dampers and paint are a chore. I much prefer the driving and repairing/trouble shooting/upgrading side of it. None of my cars are shelf queens they all have evidence of being well used and each of those marks is a memory of having fun.

As Mad Ax points out, the world has changed as have expectations and the instant gratification most kids now experience. When I bought my Taisan TA02, I spend months looking at my copy of the Tamiya Guide Book before my decision. I had no real idea what I was getting till I got it home. Nowadays I check the manual out, see what parts/upgrades are available and what forums/youtube content in available. 

 

[Killajb 1546]

I suppose some perspective is taken from the nostalgic feeling we had back-in-the-day as opposed to now.  I started building RCs at maybe 9 or 10 years old.. and frankly haven't really ever stopped.

My hands were smaller, so parts felt different back then.  As well, my experience level with tools and knowledge of how things fit together was different as well.  In my early years of building kits, I couldn't wait to get everything together and see how it ran.  Now?  I would wait an extra week or two just to make sure I have the right color body primer!  (okay.. I won't wait for body work, but you get the idea)

Now I look beyond just building a kit as instructions describe.  I look where plastic parts pivot around metal or rub against one another (such as ORV rear suspension arm pivots) and apply anti-wear grease.  

Building kits is much more rewarding now, despite some of the supplier's shortcomings.  The things I don't care for, I change to my liking.  I recently purchased an Agrios kit.  I wasn't initially drawn to it because I have a Bullhead already, but since Tamiya wants to "click" around with pricing and availability of other things I would have preferred to buy instead.  The plastic oil-filled shocks have thin walls and are bit different from Tamiya's original yellow CVA shocks of yore.  Perhaps modern production "tricks" have enabled Tamiya to save a bit on material costs here and there at the expense of a more robust feel.  The result:  black plastic "CVA" dampers do their job when in use.. but after leaving the kit idle on the shelf for more than an hour and the shocks take a stiff set which requires bit of a shove to compress them.  I don't think this changes performance much, but it is noticeable.  So.. I changed to aluminum oil-filled dampers on half of them and the suspension is always smooth now.  

 

In summation.. I think kits released today may have slight differences than those that were released decades ago, but we should be more adept at solving those issues we want to change as well.  To me at least, this adds to the fun of it all.

[Tamiya_addict 2]

I personally believe it's just part of the circle of life and it varies by user. I was in the hospital yesterday waiting to have some scans done (MTB stack) but am a fairly fit person in my mid forties. I looked around at all the elderly people waiting to be attended to. They're slow, can't do stuff as they're just old or in poor health, and to be honest it's not a great place to be in life, but most of us end up there. It takes so much effort to get out of a chair or bed... and hobbies are a bit the same for me now. Throw in a bit of cognitive dissonance (guilt: hobby time vs family time vs is this the best use of my time?) and the interest wanes. The childhood dopamine rush is absent, and given R/C has pretty much been the same tech for the last 30 years (albeit with some innovation), I no longer build kits or immerse myself in the hobby. I run my own business (hobby industry) and get more of a kick out of serving customers and the associated product engineering. But I cherish the memories of those 1980s R/Cs. The memories remain.

[Saito2 6673]

7 hours ago, Killajb said:

My hands were smaller, so parts felt different back then.  As well, my experience level with tools and knowledge of how things fit together was different as well.  In my early years of building kits, I couldn't wait to get everything together and see how it ran.  Now?  I would wait an extra week or two just to make sure I have the right color body primer!  (okay.. I won't wait for body work, but you get the idea)

Good points. It used to be a workout, screwing all that ABS together and carefully checking the screw lengths to the manual drawings. My hands are big and strong now and I can identify Tamiya hardware blindfolded. Conversely, the rush to get it completed and running is gone.

 

[Andy D. 4]

I think you've finally grown up maybe!

[Rich427 29]

3 hours ago, Andy D. said:

I think you've finally grown up maybe!

I believe this statement to be true in my case. I too did not have the same feeling with the re-releases. I blamed the lack of blister packaging , different stickers  and in some cases body tweaks.

So to capture the original feeling for every re-release that I own I would hunt down as many original pieces as possible before building.

1. Original stickers. ( not repos)

2. some cases original bodies. ( blackfoot, scorcher, MB etc) 

3. Original MSC ( both black and brown)

4. Drivetrain pieces to be original.

And many other little bits and pieces. But all in all I could not get the same feeling as my original cars and I believe its because I am not the person as I was in the 80s.

I tried to get that feeling but it just was not the same. I even went as far as hunting down original boxes as that is the only thing left to swap out for that original feeling in my mind.

But just is not the same and i have spent a lot of money chasing this.

So my next approach was to slowly hunt down original nib kits and sell off my re-re's.

The original nib kits did help with that feeling, But now the feeling of spending so much money is there in its place as guilt. 

[Andy D. 4]

I got my first car in 81, the F2 Renault. It took a day to assemble, then I had to wait for ages to get the Acoms stuff and a 6v battery. At my age now I can afford anything RC (but obviously I choose not to). I think that may be what you are saying.

I've had loads of cars. Many I wish I still had. The strangest purchase I made was buying a Roughrider and a Sand Scorcher from Chesney Hawkes' dad for £15.00.

Like many things, it was always better in the past.

 

 

[Saito2 6673]

6 hours ago, Andy D. said:

I think you've finally grown up maybe!

Grown up? Nah. I still play with toy cars. Gotten older maybe, but never really grew up .

[El Gecko 1343]

Well all my cars are my original cars from my childhood (except one) so I still get that original feeling working on them. Especially because they're all basically still basket cases, even if some of them have fancy motors and ESCs now

The one I bought last year is wearing one of my original bodies, and it's the same chassis as two of the others, so it's like the missing link or long-lost brother.

Driving them is a different story though. I never got to do much RC driving in my youth, and never to the level of control of an ESC, so it has been fun noticing the differences. The 2.4G radio gear really makes a big difference too. No more worries if a passing radio wave is going to cause me to careen into a fencepost or something, and it's nice being able to use the same Tx for all the cars.

I think it actually helps that I haven't gone too crazy with restoring them either. At this point I'm still just trying to get everything functioning, which is the same place I was when I packed everything into storage 20 years ago, so even though all that time has passed, I'm just picking up where I left off.

[Andy D. 4]

I used to race indoors using a car i made and designed at work. I still have it and I recently found bits to make it better. I had a Leccy which was not common in those days. I still get the tingly feeling when I pick it up and look at it, along with my recently restored Leopard 1 (now that is another story).

[Dadio 126]

What a great thread ! But how to respond .....? 

When I was a kid I started with a Sand Rover , had that huge buzz and pride during and after the build that we are all familiar with that's the core of the topic , I drove the wheels of that car and it was followed by many other Tamiya cars culminating in a Hotshot that I raced in a small local way and even helped run an RC club at school but I'll come back to the Hotshot later .

The only non Tamiya car I owned as a kid was a Mardave Meteor , but I religiously read Model Car Monthly and Radio Race Car magazines and followed the releases from other manufacturers that were not sold at my local model shops , cars like the Yokomo Dog fighter YZ-834b , SG Coyote , PB Mini Mustang and Hirobo Zerda , I dreamt of those cars but never saw one in the flesh . Anyway I grew and moved onto other things as most of us did and lost interest in RC Cars for many years .

Fast forward to a few years ago and after a chat with one of my child hood friends where we both started to talk about the old days and it endid in us both getting modern buggy's , brushless , lipo 2.4g etc , wow how they have moved on ! 30 min run times and the speed and handling were way beyond anything from the 80's , then my friend said he still had all his old buggies and that was it I guess , I'd lost all mine to the sands of time so I thought I'd have a look at weather I could find some of them and of course I could find them on eBay as original cars or some of the Re Re models that Tamiya was doing but that was not all I found ! The other thing I found was the cars I had never had by the exotic manufacturers I'd seem only in magazines in my youth !

At this time I was not flush with money but had a growing family but I set my mind on one of my dream cars of my youth ! The Yokomo Dog fighter YZ834-B , even a few years ago the price for a complete one was high so I started collecting parts , I got a little burst of joy with every part arriving and every assembly completed until I finally had the car complete and could drive it ,it was like being a kid again ! I'm going through my list of cars I never had still , some are more complete than others when I get them and each time I strip and clean a new old car the first time , looking for damaged or worn parts I get that buzz again , hunting down replacement parts often for months till you find them , finally getting it all completed ,running it for the first time and finding its unique handling style !

But I returned to the car I lost , my racing Hotshot ! In its final form it had Supershot CVA shocks all round , a TMS fibreglass chassis , I'd transplanted the front suspension to the rear after seeing the PB Mini Mustang and set it up so chassis roll induced rear steering , it had a huge old ESC with a Turbo relay ! And a Demon 27 HT motor for standard class and a Kyosho Me Mans 240s for mod class's , I loved that car ! My latest project has been to recreate it , again its taken months , designing a replica of the TMS chassis , replicating the rear suspension steering system , finding old photos to work from .This week I finished it , there's a thread for it on here if you look , it was a surreal feeling driving it , like putting on a pair of really comfy shoes , I just slipped back in time and it just felt right . Mostly all my vintage cars get driven lightly from time to time but the are vintage and if you break a part it can be months finding a replacement but not my Hotshot , its a Re Re and the parts are easy to find so she's a hard runner ! 

In order to get that endorphin rush we need to do the new (to us) and to stretch ourselves , if its as easy as buying a kit that's easily affordable and building something that's easily in our skill set then then there will be little gained , we need to work for it , these days I spend more time on paint than I used to on a build because I want to stretch myself . 

Thats my 2p worth , happy play time every body .

 

[SuperChamp82 743]

Late to another superb @Saito2 thread - sorry sir 

Are ‘original’ cars a different experience ?

Yes - we’re not the same, even if the cars are 

@Killajb pretty much nailed the ‘us’ differences - and I’d only add you can’t afford much aged 10 ? When you can 30+, it’s a trip down memory lane and often less visceral emotionally ?

Cars are different 

Many original 70s / 80s cars were a lovable pita - and the RC10 in @Saito2s original question is perfect, because it was so good out of the box it destroyed hobbyist tinkering ?

That meant no ‘original’ feeling - or at least way less than before - and was why I left the hobby back in the day 

How can you ‘own’ a build anyone cack handed can screw together + immediately beat everything on the track ?

Where’s the fun in that ?!

For me, originality lives beyond the box. 

Which is why I’m red, blue, through + through 😂

Even if their current form tests me 👍

[RCvet 63]

I have noticed in my collecting over the years I actually gravitate to a little patina and usage on the cars.  Not trash but not new is just fine and maybe even preferred.  The usage tells a story or reminds me of the fun when we used to run them into the ground around a dirt track and never gave a second thought to worth, rarity or whatever.  I can appreciate a minter or shelfer, I have a couple.   These days a few scratches, modifications, body painted like I would have 35 years ago has more value nostalgia wise to me. 

I'll be gone one day and the desire to preserve is diminishing to be replaced by a desire to enjoy.  I figured no matter how many or perfect examples I collected there would be someone else who would have more and newer.  I started to feel like "collecting" started to feel more like am I willing to throw one more dollar than the next guy at whatever it was.  

So yes, original and used please.